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freqflyer: Yes, I'm aware of HIPPA law. However, can an attorney have his/her client sign a release of information form allowing the attorney to contact hospitals or doctors? My dad's attorney didn't know him that well, only having dealt with him and my mom only once about 8 years previous to my dad changing his part of the trust, and that once was for a short time when my parents updated their original trust that had been drawn up by a different attorney. In that 8 year interim, my dad and this estate attorney had had no contact. So, I question whether the attorney was in a good position to know my dad well enough to realize and notice that there had been changes in his mental status, something that was readily obvious to family and some non-family members who spent alot of time with my dad. The other thing is my dad's adeptness at both hiding his long-standing mental illness (Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder) from non-family members who have only limited contact with him and also at manipulating people into believing him to be non-delusional and very mentally competent. Given this adeptness, the fact that the attorney had such limited contact with my dad and didn't know him well enough to determine if there had been changes in his mental capacity, and my dad's advanced age, I question that it was appropriate for the attorney to make a judgement of overall mental capacity on the basis of a test that assesses only a very small part of a person's overall mental capacity (which would include delusional behavior, which is part of dementia). I don't think the attorney went far enough in her mental capacity test and didn't know my dad well enough to realize that he was misrepresenting his mental capacity (i.e., covering up the true state of it that family members and non-family members who have quite a bit of contact with him so readily see and realize). It seems to me that the same standards as those that are used to determine mental competence when a family member is seeking to become guardian or POA of an elderly parent should be applied in a situation of an elderly person suddenly changing their long term estate plan (i.e., at least 2 drs. to certify the person's mental competence, with one of those drs being a Psychiatrist--- these people have the training and better insights into determining mental competence than an attorney does). There is also a suspicion of undue influence by a non-family member with a vested interest in my dad's estate. However, this would be very hard to prove.
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If your Dad was that severely mentally ill, his attorney wouldn't have allowed your Dad to make any changes to his Will/Trust/Estate. Apparently his attorney didn't notice any changes.

Attorneys cannot contact hospitals or doctors to see if any of their law clients had been under doctor's care of any type.... that is against Federal HIPAA law [Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996].
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