good evening.

>> I'm so glad you're watching this here on PBS Fort Wayne tonight.

I'm Sandy Thomson, the host of our show LIFE Ahead.

But the two stars are sitting here that I'm going to introduce you to in just a moment.

We're going to be talking about any issues that you might have if you have a loved one or a relative maybe loved one the same thing I guess they would be.

But if you know someone in a nursing home that's having some issues, there's help for you because there's a special program called Ombudsman where you can seek some advice and some help to help alleviate some of those issues.

Now we also have in addition to an ombudsman specialist, we have an elder law attorney with us tonight.

You've met him before on LIFE Ahead.

His name is David Anthony .

Let me introduce you first of all to date.

Well, you can tell which ones which here, David.

So good to have you back,.

Always a good show when David is on if you've watched any of them, you know that he's very adept at answering any legal questions that might interest you in Zanti Lewis.

>> I love your name Zenzi.

Thank you.

>> I appreciate that.

Where were that come from?

It's Zan's and Zwi.

Yes.

Meal that come from I love it.

>> It's the old old family name.

I love it.

That's right.

See you'll never forget her name now Vanzella OK. >> All right now Vanzella is an ombudsman who represents the entire organization for you here this evening and David of course will be handling any legal questions that we might have now speaking of questions, remember that this is always your show.

You are our viewers and we want to try to answer or give you advice on issues that you might be interested in the phone numbers at the bottom of the screen periodically during the show.

>> Give us a call.

We will take any questions that you might have for either one of our guests if you're not comfortable talking live on the air, that's OK. We have a phone screener who will be answering the phone for us here and she'll take your question and send it out here to the studio for me on the teleprompter so that I can read it to them.

But I'm going to ask some questions until we get some phone calls.

David, ombuds they the term might be might not be familiar to a lot of people.

>> What is an ombudsman or what does that term mean?

>> Yeah, I think you know, I'm not even one hundred percent sure what the word means and you might know better than I but I think what I when I think of that word it is advocate and that's a good yeah yeah.

>> Role of the ombudsman which again is a better question for Zenzi is to help advocate for people who who have need of just general assistance in a nursing home.

>> Sure.

I guess to make it comparable if if you were in court you would be the person that would advocate for your client and speaking with the judge or the jury or whomever you're needing to deal with and for an ombudsman you're doing that in a different way.

Let's talk about that Zenzi what is the well, it's a state wide program.

A national program actually.

Actually yes.

And what is the ombudsman program?

The ombudsman program is a program that advocates for residents.

Right.

So those who live in nursing homes and license assisted living facilities, we advocate for their rights.

We advocate and educate them about their rights.

>> Why would somebody need an ombudsman fully just to if if they feel as though that you know, they aren't being treated fairly or if they aren't being heard that they can give us a call and we can help them advocate for themselves and isn't it isn't some of the areas that should be helping with or maybe they want to have visitors more frequently?

>> Absolutely.

Things like that visitors more frequently or if they want to listen to music passed a certain you know what during quiet time things like that they give us they would give us the call and we would kind of help advocate OK, how do you advocate I mean say somebody who is a patient maybe in a nursing home has something that they they want to bring attention to the management but maybe they don't know how to do that or they need somebody else to speak for them.

So you would contact the ombudsman program and we'll tell you how to do that a little bit here and then what do you do?

>> Do you talk to the manager of the different facilities or how does that work?

>> How that works is first of all we have to get permission of course from the resident because we can't move without getting permission from Codders and then once we get that permission from them then we ask, you know, what are their issues or what are the concerns once we get those kind of drawn up or written down then that's when we go and we speak with administration or maybe the director of nursing dietary management could be involved whatever the issue may be, we go and we just have a care plan meeting.

>> Does it cost anything for the patient if I come to you for help?

No, not at all.

Our salaries our free and confidential and confidential I think that's pretty important because maybe you don't want other people to know what your issue is exactly.

Sometimes the residents you know, they they they don't want to be retaliated against.

>> So that's another as well speaking about if they don't want to be retaliated against, are there situations where maybe you are advocating for a patient but you talk to the management but you don't tell them on the name of the person that has that issue?

>> Exactly.

That's pretty cool.

Yes, that's OK.

I think that we can do as well and that's really important I think because a lot of seniors that are transitioning to a long term facility not everybody has family to help you and you know most facilities I think most people are trying to do a good job for the people but nobody's perfect and when you don't have family or loved ones checking up on you, it's a lot easier for those problems to go unaddressed.

>> And so when they can reach out to Zenzi and her people there, that makes it a lot easier.

>> I agree I agree in there and there may be issues that are simple like wanting more visitors or something like that or is could they come to you with help for medical issue like they want more therapy or they don't like the way this program is going?

>> Absolutely.

Absolutely.

That is exactly why we are here.

We are here to help our residents because we are resident driven first.

Yeah.

Residents are primary number one concern and focus and you know, I think some people are kind of shy too and maybe they just don't want to tell somebody I don't like the food I'm given.

I'm I'm vegan and yet they're giving me meat loaf, you know, or something.

So you know, maybe they can talk to Zanti in the ombudsman program easier.

Absolutely.

>> Yes.

How does this work, David, in terms of legally could zanti come to you with an issue that a client's having and you say, you know, this is really more of a legal thing?

>> Well, I mean I think we would love to hear from and the people at the ombudsman office if they think that there's a legal issue.

I think now what I do personally wouldn't be I'm not a litigator.

I do more of the estate planning side and that kind of thing.

But depending on the issue we could absolutely help.

One of the big things that we've talked about before is if we can help people get a power of attorney in place or a guardianship in place because sometimes the person who needs advocacy isn't able to advocate for they need help even before they can get to Zenzi.

And so some of those pieces getting into place are definitely where we would help happily to to make sure they could get the advocacy they needed.

>> And I think it's important you mentioned, David, that not everybody has somebody to advocate for him.

>> Maybe they don't have family or family around here and maybe they don't have a power of attorney or health representative.

So maybe you want to start there and get those legal documents in order, right, David?

>> Absolutely.

If you have a guardian in place that that's a that's a pretty cumbersome thing to do.

It's more time cost.

There's more time involved.

There's usually a more cost involved to get a guardianship in place whereas if you have the power of attorney the cost is a lot lot cheaper.

>> There's usually can move a lot faster because the guardianship you have to go to the court.

So and I assume in your experience it's easier to work with the power of attorney than Guardian as well.

>> Yes, you are correct.

Mm hmm.

Well, what are situations where somebody would choose to have a guardian rather than a power of attorney?

>> David, sometimes it depends on just the usually comes down to the individual and what their needs are.

Indiana is pretty good about pushing for less restrictive means which before you can have a guardianship in place the court is going to ask did you consider a power of attorney?

>> Did you consider these different things?

>> So sometimes someone has a power of attorney and the power of attorney doesn't give the authorities needed to help the person.

So then we have to go back to the court.

But power of attorney is always preferred.

>> Is there ever a situation, Nancy, where the power of attorney for for a person or guardian perhaps would come to you and say look, my grandfather was having this problem in the nursing home?

>> Yes, ma'am.

OK, so a guardian or a power of attorney or somebody in the family could come to you.

It doesn't have to be the person that's actually living there, correct?

>> Correct.

And we do get a lot of power of attorney.

Do you?

Yes.

That will have a complaint or heaven have an issue and again, we still have to get the permission of the resident for sure before we move forward.

Right.

I can I can understand that and keeping in mind that we're not judging any nursing facility at all, it could just be that there are unique situation Absolom or unique needs that somebody might have that you know the general nursing home policies or whatever aren't covering.

>> And I think it's important to remember too on the legal side as the what Zenzi and her team are advocating for are the patient's legal rights even though it's not they're not taking people to court but they are saying legally you have the right to have visitors legally, you have the right to have music, you have the right to these kinds of care.

>> You have a right to these kind you know this whether it's emotional or physical or whatever kind of support medical support they have rights to these things and and the nursing homes are required to provide certain levels of care to people.

They can't say you can't have your phone or you can't do this.

They can't they can't keep people from smoking and drinking and things like that which you might say if you're in the nursing home maybe your health would advise you not to do those things.

>> But people have the same rights in the nursing home that they do outside.

Exactly.

And I was going to chime in and say the exact same thing is when we have our residents that are you know, in nursing home facilities it's just like they're at home right.

And so that's that is their home, right?

Right.

It is their home.

And so we want them to, you know, be treated like it's their home.

>> And so I agree we just we just advocate for those residents to make them feel like they're being heard like they're being heard.

>> That's a good way to put it like they're being heard and with some integrity and dignity and things like that.

We want to give them the best quality of life that they can have while they're still here and the state organization they have more push than some families might have to.

>> That's a good point.

That's a good point that David's mentioning.

You know, you may have more power with that help getting something changed or something done because it's a big program.

It's also the entire state and you said every state has some sort of an ombudsman program so they might listen to them more than you know Betty.

>> That's in room three C and you know that saying I don't like this or I want that or something.

>> OK, but you're being honest with them too I'm sure Zenzi and say you know, look, that's just you know, maybe that doesn't make you really happy or feel at home but these are the the rules of the facility.

>> Does that happen or are there are there different regulations for different facilities?

>> Well, all of our facilities fall under the federal regulations.

OK, so all the regulations are the same.

OK, but when it comes to advocating for the residents right.

We we listen yeah.

And we try our best to make that resident happy.

So even if it is something that is kind of far out there or you know could be something that is impossible to do if you will, we still will do what we can to make sure that that resident is heard and we come to a happy medium.

>> So like when we had the mask mandate everyone had to wear masks.

I'm sure you got a ton of calls about that.

Yes.

I don't want to wear a mask.

And so I think a good example I think with what you do and with what I do with working with the nursing homes even when we're advocating for our clients, we can make something collaborative.

>> Working with the nursing home is always better than trying to treat them like an adversary.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

I understand that and I'm sure that you try to maintain a good relationship with all the facilities in the area.

>> How long has this program been around this program has been around since at the Older Americans Act since nineteen sixty five.

OK and so our regional program has been around since two thousand and seven OK so it's it's got some legs in it right now do you have a number of people involved as far as our office the local ombudsman office there is one full time employee which is me then I have two part time and I have about anywhere between 10 to 14 volunteers.

>> Oh volunteers OK she does take volunteers to think about this if they're looking for something to do that that would really be helpful to people.

>> How does one go about volunteering?

>> Do you have to have some training?

Do you come and talk to you?

Absolutely more than welcome to go to our website and there's a link where you can click on talks about everything that involves becoming a volunteer.

There is thirty six hours of training that one would need before we could certify them to be an ombudsman.

>> Is that like an in class thing or can you do it online?

How is that training go?

>> I really like to do my my certifications in person.

>> All right then you know they really know what you're talking about.

Oh let's let me ask you how would someone get a hold of someone get a hold of you?

>> Do you have a website?

We do and it is that doing the good doing the good high tech ombudsman Doug are doing the good doing the good hyphen ombudsman dot org OK, all right you got that.

>> All right.

All right.

Let's go back to you, David legally you mentioned earlier if somebody doesn't have their power of attorney or their health care representative in place, you can still do that if you're in a nursing home.

>> Yeah, absolutely.

Like we were saying earlier, just because you're in a facility doesn't mean you have less rights now if you are mentally incapable of doing those things then we would look at a guardianship.

But as long as you're mentally capable then then the power of attorney like I said is always a preferred method.

>> So it's somebody is in a facility and you know you know that they don't have these documents in place.

So what they would contact an elder law attorney and sure you would work with them in in the facility.

>> Yeah.

And so if Tanzy was saying hey, you know, you need to do a talk to somebody or whatever, I know myself and many other elder law attorneys are willing to go to the facility.

>> Oh great.

We do as much online and in person and you know, find a way to accommodate people and I bet that there would be situations where you might be the first one to know that they don't have any legal representation and then if they are interested he is so correct you should email or get on the phone and say hey, I have a resident that probably could use your services so it's working together which is is such a good thing and a good reason why we're talking about both the legal and the ombudsman program.

David, what are some other things that people that are in a nursing home or even home health care what are some other things that they might seek legal representative for ?

>> Well, one of thing that comes up a lot with the work that I do is people who are in a hospital and they're looking at being discharged.

They've been on Medicare for rehab for a little while and after the first 20 days it gets a little harder to keep that the Medicare rehab in place.

And so one of the best tools I have for people to advocate for themselves is if you go to the CMS website that's the Center for Medicare.

I think it's the Medicare website.

>> OK, and you if you just Google Medicare OK and Gitmo Gitmo what does that stand for ?

>> Gitmo is just the person's last name but there was a federal decision that that that the standard of care isn't just you have to be improving for Medicare and rehabilitation to be appropriate.

It's the standard of care is as long as they are maintaining because the rehab or not losing ground because of the rehab and that standard of care even recently.

>> But I had somebody get an extra 30 days of care when they were going to discontinue the Medicare service before that.

So really it's not a silver bullet but it definitely helps people advocate and I think and we were talking about this briefly before the show that advocacy in the hospital there's a little bit of a gap before you get to Zenzi and her team.

>> I've heard that and so anything that you can do to advocate for yourself a little bit more to get that extra care, the hospitals generally you have somebody to help.

But I think I think without the ombudsman program overlapping the hospital's self advocacy is very important.

>> Well, is that the case then Zenzi?

I mean if somebody were in a hospital and they had an issue, is this where an ombudsman would help or or not?

That's not part of the program really it's not really a part of the program.

But if they were to reach out we probably would definitely refer them OK, find some help find yes we would do our best to find some help OK. All right.

That makes sense.

Then again we have a few more minutes left on this show if you want to give us a call here at (969) 27 twenty we'd love to hear from you.

I'd like to know in terms of the volunteering you said it takes thirty six hours of training but once you're volunteering are you committed for a long time or you can do it whenever you want.

>> You can basically to whenever you want but we this this region we service nine counties nine counties in northern Indiana OK and so we need all the volunteers that we can get and and our volunteers we like to kind of spread them out throughout those nine counties.

>> So what we're saying is if you live in Allen County goals and if you live in Legrange County calls or or any of the nine northern Indiana counties that we do need your help and volunteering for them would I think make you feel good as well.

>> Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Let's talk about in terms of long term as far as volunteers are you do have a dance going on volunteers help with or what's coming up.

>> Well, what's coming up in October we have a rocking for residents, right?

>> I love rocking for residents .

Right.

So what does this mean?

It is an event that we are having over it to Tom's brewery .

Oh, to Tom's on Wall Street.

OK, that's great.

They do a lot of community thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it is a fundraiser and that we are setting ourselves up for our main event which is our pajama drive that we have every year and that starts in February Valentine's Day.

>> I've heard of a pajama program because a lot of people that are in facilities they might spend a lot of time in Paris, you know or they don't have any.

>> Yes, they can people can get to those.

>> Absolutely.

I think that's a great program.

You know, I deal with a lot of folks and when we're looking at, you know, someone transitioning to a facility, I always encourage people look at those things, look at the job, look at the clothes, make sure they're ready for this because those what I call simple luxuries make a world of difference to their comfort and their peace of mind at the facility.

>> Yes.

And then when we do deliver those pajamas to different residents, they light up.

Oh yeah.

they like oh wonderful.

>> Yes.

They maybe no one's ever gifted them new pajamas anymore and then you have those who don't have family.

>> That's right because we've talked a couple of times about if you don't have family you might have a need for that any last advice, David, that you can give people that might have somebody in a nursing home or potentially in that situation that you can keep them from having some trouble?

>> Yeah, same advice I always give is a power of attorney is the most important document you can have on a day to day basis for estate planning.

It's easy.

It's it's usually very affordable and if you have it in place before you need it, that's that's the right time because when you need it it's too late to put it in place.

>> So power of attorney for health care and finances is everybody's friend.

>> Well, David and just to make sure that people understand the difference, the power of attorney is the person who can take care of all of your finances and in those sorts of issues.

>> But once a person passes they're no longer in that interview.

>> They are state representative right to be the administrator or executor or personal representative.

>> There's a lot of different terms for it but it could be the same person could be the same person just depends on the document.

>> Exactly.

Or it could be a bank or a trust company that takes over that.

I'm sure if that was the if that was how the documents were established or the court appointed somebody all right, that makes sense.

>> OK, Zenzi, your turn to give people advice on what they might be looking forward to or need you need help with that need help with anything dealing with your loved one.

A resident in a long term care facility or assisted living facility.

Please give us a call.

We can help.

That's what we're here for .

We we would love to help you solve your problem, your issue and if we can't we will surely point you in the right direction to get you the help that's needed and they're free and they're free and that's that's the wonderful thing.

Well, you can tell by Nancy's personality she's going to be pretty easy to talk.

>> You wouldn't want to thank both of you for being with us here tonight on LIFE Ahead.

David Anthony Ball, attorney and fiancee Lewis the ombudsman program.

We appreciate your advice.

>> Thank you and we appreciate you watching and of course we'll see you next Wednesday night right here at seven thirty.

Have a great night.

>> Stay safe and healthy