Health care providers who are not being paid for the services they are rendering to their incapacitated patients are among the most frequent users of the guardianship statute.1 In these cases, the Alleged Incapacitated Person (AIP) who is the subject of the guardianship proceeding has no way of paying the petitioning provider for the care that he or she is receiving.
Institutionalized residents who are the subject of guardianships filed by the nursing homes in which they reside often have no treatment decision to be made, no assets to be managed, and no dependents to protect. Frequently, the sole need for guardianship is that the resident who is the subject of the proceeding has an unpaid nursing home bill that is putting him or her at risk of discharge from the facility.
