My Sunday column about representative payees expanded on a number of blog posts about this huge but obscure federal program. After I wrote earlier this month about the termination of one local payee, Greenleaf Payment Services, I learned that there was at least one significant sign of trouble with this organization dating back to 2012.
That year, Greenleaf was serving as the payee for Katherine Christopher, a woman with late-stage dementia who lived in a south Minneapolis nursing home. Greenleaf allowed Christopher to accumulate enough assets that it disqualified her for medical assistance, and thereby jeopardized her ability to stay in the home, according to a complaint filed in December 2012 by the Minnesota Ombudsman for Long-Term Care.
Despite numerous efforts by her son, Daniel Magnuson, to get Greenleaf to fix the problem, Greenleaf did not do so until the ombudsman's office and Hennepin County Adult Protection intervened, the complaint said.
"We must have told them to get this done 15 or 20 times," Magnuson told me.
Then, in September 2012, Christopher was once again above the asset limit, and a Greenleaf employee told the Ombudsman's office that it was up to Magnuson to fix it, the complaint said.
After she was unable to get an accounting of Christopher's funds, Regional Ombudsman Natasha Merz filed the complaint with Attorney General Lori Swanson's office. "I am extremely concerned about Greenleaf's accounting practices and refusal to provide needed information to my client, putting her health and ability to pay for care at risk. I am also concerned about the welfare of other clients served by Greenleaf."
"We were able to obtain an accounting from Greenleaf, as was requested, and we passed that along to the famlly, and the ombudsman," said Ben Wogsland, a spokesman for Swanson. As far as further action against Greenleaf, that wasn't in the attorney general's jurisdiction, he said. "We were aware that the Social Security Administration was looking into this, and the county was involved."
Christopher died in March of this year. Her son is still upset that Greenleaf did not face more consequences for its mishandling of his mother's finances.
"It put us through great hardship," Magnuson said. "It was beyond stressful."
I left several messages for Greenleaf and its executive director, Edward Leaf, but I haven't gotten any response.
