By Susan Jaffe | Kaiser Health News in collaboration with National Public Radio | October 30, 2014
A disabled senior with serious health problems who successfully challenged Medicare for denying her home health care coverage has racked up another win against the government.
In her latest federal lawsuit filed in June, Glenda Jimmo, 78, argued Medicare should have paid for the nursing care and other skilled services she received at her home during 2007. On Wednesday, Medicare officials agreed, invalidating an April ruling that she was not entitled to coverage because her condition had stabilized and she was not improving. “I won,” said Jimmo, who is receiving rehab therapy at a Vermont nursing home and hopes to return home soon. 
“I’m very pleased. It makes me feel America is still in good shape.”
The settlement doesn’t mention that Jimmo was the lead plaintiff in a 2011 class-action lawsuit seeking to eliminate the so-called “improvement standard” as a criteria for Medicare coverage. In the 2012 settlement that bears her name, the government agreed that improvement was not required and allowed many Medicare beneficiaries with chronic conditions and disabilities to appeal claims that had been denied because they were unlikely to get better. [MORE from Kaiser Health News and NPR]