Stories of family and friends suddenly needing health care and financial decisions to be made for them, because they temporarily or permanently become incapable of acting for themselves, should make us all take certain steps to protect ourselves and our families. Those certain steps are Power of Attorney to handle financial affairs, a healthcare directive, and a trust or will or both depending on the circumstances. With the right tools in place, your family members or other trusted person can handle your health and financial matters to protect your assets, manage your health care if you cannot and give your whole family peace of mind that any expected or unexpected problem can be handled.

At the risk of delivering this message too many times, it is important for people to think every so often about updating their critical documents, such as wills, trusts, power of attorneys, health care directives (often called living wills) and HIPAA forms. It just takes a few moments to think if the person or persons you have named to act for you are still capable of doing that job. .

It’s a week into the New Year, and all I’ve done (and maybe you too) is finish up the leftover chocolates and cookies, read a biography on George Washington and laze around. So to start the new year properly, all of us should be thinking of what has changed in our lives (if nothing else, we are not getting younger). Have we started to fulfill our New Year’s resolution? And do the older or younger generations of our family, or we ourselves need to finally take simple actions that can make a big difference if sickness, or death should come without warning..

A month ago, I had bypass surgery despite years of daily working out and being in very good shape. As I learned, no matter how fit you are, heart artery blockages have nothing to do with physical fitness, except being physically fit can mask the problem. For me, there were months of feeling very tired, despite no other symptoms. After doctors could not explain it, my cardiologist ordered a nuclear stress test which showed significant blockages, and an attempted angioplasty showed 5 blockages. The surgery team at Hartford Hospital did a professional and successful four way bypass, followed by a week of hospital recovery. The protocol is to have patients do in home nursing and therapy. Hartford Hospital has an excellent reputation for that, as does Bristol Hospital, so because I live in Bristol, I chose them for the in home nursing follow up and in home therapy.

A month ago, I had bypass surgery despite years of daily working out and being in very good shape. As I learned, no matter how fit you are, heart artery blockages have nothing to do with physical fitness, except being physically fit can mask the problem. For me, there were months of feeling very tired, despite no other symptoms. After doctors could not explain it, my cardiologist ordered a nuclear stress test which showed significant blockages, and an attempted angioplasty showed 5 blockages. The surgery team at Hartford Hospital did a professional and successful four way bypass, followed by a week of hospital recovery. The protocol is to have patients do in home nursing and therapy. Hartford Hospital has an excellent reputation for that, as does Bristol Hospital, so because I live in Bristol, I chose them for the in home nursing follow up and in home therapy.

Why this occurs is beyond me, but this time of year it seems the scammers are extra busy on the phones and emails trying to separate people from their hard earned money. Maybe part of it is due to the scammers trying to piggyback into very legitimate advertisements for Medicare Advantage Plans. The scammers have nothing to do with Medicare or any other government program, but the goal is to get enough financial information from you so they can access your accounts. How do they do this? One method is to try to scare you by saying they are calling from Social Security and that there is a problem with your social security number or your benefits. Do not be fooled. Social Security doesn’t call people and threaten them with a cutoff in benefits, or say there could be an increase if you give them additional personal information.