business news websites

I Don’t Have an Estate Plan…Right?

Whether or not you have a written estate plan, you do have an estate plan. The laws of the state in which you reside will make decisions about your estate if you do not have a written plan.

We can help you stay on top of the latest news that affects your everyday life. Subscribe to stay up to date. (To subscribe to our blog click here).

If you don’t have a written estate plan, it is essential to know what the intestacy laws of your state are so that you know what will happen to your assets if you die.

Most people prefer to make their own choices about their assets than let the state decide for them.

Why should you have a written estate plan?

Even if you do not have significant assets, you might want documents in place to protect your wishes, in the event you are incapacitated.

Medical Powers of Attorney will allow you to select the person you want to make decisions on your behalf if you need medical care, but are not competent.

Financial Powers of Attorney allow you to select the person who can make financial decisions on your behalf, if you are incapacitated.

If you have minor children, we recommend having a written estate plan that dictates who will care for your children if something should happen to you.

Drafting these documents while you are healthy allows you to pick people who you know would act in your best interest. Appointing one person also protects your family members from potential disputes, in the event they disagree on your medical care, finances, or children.

Estate planning also allows an opportunity to memorialize your wishes for end of life care.

A well-drafted estate plan also protects the assets that you do have, such as a home, insurance policies, or a bank account. Many people have more significant assets than they realize.

You can also create a personal property memorandum to pass certain personal items to loved ones.

We help our clients pick the estate plan that works best for them, given their assets, concerns and interests. Having a written estate plan in place can help your loved ones avoid going through probate.

Contact us today to help you get the right documents in place or to update your current estate plan. We will plan so that you don’t have to worry about your future.

We publish vital information every Wednesday and Friday. To get this important information delivered directly to your mailbox, click here to Subscribe.

Does Divorce Change My Estate Plan?

Yes! Even if you don’t have a written estate plan, you have an estate plan per the laws of your state. If you get divorced, the nature of your estate plan will change.

We can help you stay on top of the latest news that affects your everyday life. Subscribe to stay up to date. (To subscribe to our blog click here).

If you have a written estate plan and get divorced, once your divorce is final, you need to update your plan.

It is likely your divorce may change things such as your:

legal name,
Trustees,
beneficiaries,
Power of attorney, and more.

Other than your estate plan, it is important to reassess:

jointly owned properties,
Beneficiaries on retirement accounts and life insurance,
Vehicle titles, and more.

If you have minor children, it is incredibly important to consider your estate plan because you will need to give thought to their guardianship and provide for their care if something were to happen to you.

While many situations that arise in life can impact your estate plan, a divorce will certainly require review and updates to your existing plan.

We recommend meeting with an estate planning attorney as soon as the divorce is finalized.

If you need help with your estate plan or following the death of a loved one, we can help.

Contact us today to help you get the right documents in place or to update your current estate plan. We will plan so that you don’t have to worry about your future.

We publish vital information every Wednesday and Friday. To get this important information delivered directly to your mailbox, click here to Subscribe.

EHR Threats? – Rickard & Associates

A recent warning highlights that electronic health records (EHRs) are a top target of cybercriminals.

We can help you stay on top of the latest news that affects your everyday life. Subscribe to stay up to date. (To subscribe to our blog click here).

The Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center (HC3) issued a warning to healthcare entities regarding EHR vulnerabilities and protections.

Protected health information (PHI) continues to hold its value on the dark web and is a constant target of cybercriminals.

With the recent growth of telehealth and healthcare technology, we have seen a large increase in cybercrime and breaches attempting to benefit from security lapses.

How can you protect your patients’ PHI and your practice?

It is essential to utilize best practices when it comes to healthcare privacy and security.

Make sure that you are up to date with all security patches and regularly change your passwords.

Ensure that your staff regularly changes all passwords for all devices that can access patient data. Also make sure that no passwords are visible within the office.

Encryption is the best way to ensure that healthcare data is protected from threats.

We recommend and assist our clients with staff trainings that highlight realistic protection measures, including phishing awareness and ransomware responses.

It is essential that your backups are offsite and secure, in the event your practice is breached. Test your response time to get your practice operating once a cyber attack has occurred.

If you need help protecting your patient data, we can help. Contact Rickard & Associates today.

We know you’re busy. Subscribe to our blog to get updates and news sent directly to your inbox!

We publish vital information on health law topics and news every Wednesday and Friday. To get this important information delivered directly to your mailbox, subscribe today!

Do you need help updating your Business Associate Agreement or negotiating contracts with third-party vendors? We can help. To contact us about your Business Associate Agreement, your vendor contracts or your other legal needs, call us today.

PRESS DIGEST-New York Times business news

March 28 (Reuters) – The following are the top stories on the New York Times business pages. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

– US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sued Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, and two of its senior executives on Monday, alleging that in wooing business from American investors, they had chosen to “knowingly disregard” laws governing certain US financial markets .

– Lyft Inc said on Monday founders Logan Green and John Zimmer would step down as CEO and president, with board member David Risher taking on the top role as the ride-hailing firm struggling to keep up with bigger rival Uber.

– US regional lender First Citizens BancShares scooped up the assets of failed peer Silicon Valley Bank, in a vote of confidence for the battered banking sector that prompted a rally in bank shares.

– Shawn Fain won the race for United Auto Workers president, narrowly defeating incumbent head Ray Curry in a shakeup for the Detroit-based labor union.

– Fox News Media of Fox Corp has fired producer Abby Grossberg who last week accused the network of discrimination and of coercing her into providing misleading testimony in a blockbuster defamation case.

(Compiled by Bengaluru newsroom)

What is a Power of Attorney?

Many of our clients have heard of the powers of attorney, but do not know what they actually entail.

We can help you stay on top of the latest news that affects your everyday life. Subscribe to stay up to date. (To subscribe to our blog click here).

It is important to know that there are different types of powers of attorney, however, they are all legal documents that allow you to pick an agent or attorney-in-fact on your behalf.

Powers of attorney allow another person to make financial, legal, and medical decisions for you, depending on the type.

There are different types of powers of attorney. Some include:

Durable Power of Attorney – A durable power of attorney is one that is effective, even upon incapacitation. It allows the appointed person the power to make decisions on your behalf, whether financial or legal.
Limited Power of Attorney – A limited power of attorney restricts the powers to certain designated powers, such as selling property.
Medical Power of Attorney – This allows you to name a person to make medical decisions for you. This is helpful if you are incapacitated and need medical care.

There are other ways to structure powers of attorney too.

Many people choose their spouse or a close relative to act as their power of attorney.

If you no longer want that person to act on your behalf, you can revoke your power of attorney and pick a new person to list in new documents.

The reason we recommend having the powers of attorney in place is so that you are in control of who makes decisions on your behalf, should you be unable to make those decisions.

If you need help with your power of attorney, we can help.

Contact us today to help you get the right documents in place or to update your current estate plan. We will plan so that you don’t have to worry about your future.

We publish vital information every Wednesday and Friday. To get this important information delivered directly to your mailbox, click here to Subscribe.

US Industrial Production Unexpectedly Unchanged In February

A report released by the Federal Reserve on Friday showed US industrial production was unexpectedly unchanged in the month of February.

The Fed said industrial production was unchanged in February following a revised 0.3 percent increase in January.

Economists had expected industrial production to rise by 0.2 percent compared to the unchanged reading originally reported for the previous month.

Industrial production came unchanged as a 0.1 percent uptick in manufacturing output and a 0.5 percent advance in utilities output were offset by a 0.6 percent drop in mining output.

Oren Klachkin, Lead US Economist at Oxford Economics, predicted industrial production will lose momentum later this year as the economy suffers a mild recession.

“Industrial output will struggle amid the challenges of weakening domestic demand, frail overseas demand, rising interest rates, and a strong US dollar,” Klachkin said.

“Turmoil in the banking sector corroborates our view that the economy is starting to feel the effects of monetary policy tightening,” he added. “We think more Fed rate hikes in the pipeline, so the risks to the outlook are tilted to the downside.”

The report also said capacity utilization in the industrial sector came in at 78.0 percent in February, unchanged from the revised figure for January.

Economists had expected capacity utilization to inch up to 78.4 percent from the 78.3 percent originally reported for the previous month.

Capacity utilization in the utilities sector crept up to 68.9 percent, while capacity utilization in the manufacturing and mining sectors dipped to 77.6 percent and 87.3 percent, respectively.

For comments and feedback contact: [email protected]

Business News

Can Your EHR Template Land You in Prison?

If your electronic health record (EHR) template is set up incorrectly and leads you to be billed improperly, it could lead to prison time.

We can help you stay on top of the latest news that affects your everyday life. Subscribe to stay up to date. (To subscribe to our blog click here).

In recent years, we have heard from many of our clients that their compliance plans received less attention than normal due to the pandemic, staffing issues, and other pressing concerns.

However, compliance enforcement is ongoing and it is essential to prioritize your compliance plan.

A Delaware physician was just convicted of a $5 million fraud scheme.

The physician billed Medicare for injections that he did not perform as billed. He billed for injections that he did not own the required equipment necessary to give the injections to patients.

He has not been sentenced, but faces up to 10 years of prison time for each of the 11 counts of fraud.

If you are using an EHR template, you need to make sure that your practice has it set up correctly. If it is not, it might indicate that you are using equipment that you don’t have or performing services that you cannot actually perform.

While that doesn’t appear to be the case with the Delaware physician, we have seen issues with the template leading to inappropriate automated selections and inappropriate billing that needs to be corrected.

Simple oversight or mistakes can lead to billing errors. It is essential that you have a thorough and effective compliance plan in place to find any issues and vulnerabilities, especially as it relates to your EHR.

We help our clients perform necessary functions to avoid fines and potentially prison time.

We often recommend that healthcare entities:

Audit their billing and EHR templates,
Update their policies and procedures,
Train their employees,
and ensure that all of their compliance programs are running smoothly.

If you have questions or need help with your compliance program, auditing, or EHR templates, contact Rickard & Associates today.

We know you’re busy. Subscribe to our blog to get updates and news sent directly to your inbox!

We publish vital information on health law topics and news every Wednesday and Friday. To get this important information delivered directly to your mailbox, subscribe today!

What Happens When You Don’t Fund Your Trust?

After you work with your estate planning attorney to draft a carefully tailored estate plan, it is usually your responsibility to “fund” the trust.

We can help you stay on top of the latest news that affects your everyday life. Subscribe to stay up to date. (To subscribe to our blog click here).

What does funding the trust mean?

Funding the trust is simply transferring assets into your trust.

If you have a trust, you will want to put your assets into the trust, by retitling bank accounts, re-designating beneficiaries of life insurance, etc. We walk our clients through the process, but we usually recommend that the clients make the transfers themselves.

If clients fail to make the transfers or fail to title them correctly, the assets will not be a part of the trust.

This means that the assets outside of the trust will still need to go through the probate court. Any assets in your name alone will require probate administration.

Probate administration is costly and can be time consuming. Avoiding probate is one of the main reasons people love using trusts. To fail to fund your trust is unfortunate, in that you will have taken the time to draft your trust, paid for your trust, and then your assets will still have to accrue the costs of probate.

Further, if the assets are not in your trust, they will not follow your wishes that you set out in the trust.

If you are overwhelmed by funding your trust, work with your attorney.

We help our clients understand the funding process and know exactly what they need to do to complete the funding. However, if our clients do not wish to fund their own trusts, we offer funding services.

It is essential to know that your trust is a living document that requires care during your life to get the full benefits of your trust. You need to ensure it is updated to reflect your wishes and assets, and that it is fully funded.

Once you have gone through the process of funding it initially, additional assets are easy to transfer in as you will know what to do and will only need to perform transfers as your assets increase.

Let us know if you have questions about your estate plan or funding your trust.

Contact us today to help you get the right documents in place or to update your current estate plan. We will plan so that you don’t have to worry about your future.

We publish vital information every Wednesday and Friday. To get this important information delivered directly to your mailbox, click here to Subscribe.