Volume 397, Issue 10270
16 January 2021
A highly respected researcher, Walensky has published nearly 300 papers, many focused on the cost-effectiveness of HIV interventions and aimed at improving patients’ care. “I call the research that I do policy motivating”, Walensky says. One example is a 2006 landmark study showed that advances in HIV treatment in the USA added nearly 3 million years to patients’ lives.[Full story here.]…
By Susan Jaffe | Contributing Writer | MedPageToday | November 25, 2020
More than 91,000 residents and staff of long-term care facilities have died after contracting COVID-19 — about 40% of the total deaths in the U.S., according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis. …Frustrated by repeated violations of infection control requirements during the pandemic, CMS raised the penalty amounts and announced a crackdown on egregious offenders in August. But the hard-line approach doesn’t seem to have produced the intended results. (Click here for a list of nursing homes that were fined.) [Continued here.]
Volume 396, Number 10260 31 October 2020
Volume 396, Number 10259
24 October 2020
WORLD REPORT How will the NIH, CDC, and FDA change if President Donald Trump wins a second term or if his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, defeats him? Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC.
Whoever wins the presidency needs to “restore the CDC and improve it by letting [scientists] know that they will have an opportunity to do the best science and make the best recommendations…” says James Curran, dean of the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta. [Continued here.]…
Volume 396, Number 10256
3 October 2020
WORLD REPORT In the race for the White House, where do US President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, stand on public health? Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC.
Analyzing the candidates’ plans to address the opioid epidemic, gun violence, women’s health, global health and COVID-19.
Unlike more conventional presidential candidates, Trump does not intend to issue formal policy proposals or position papers. With less than 5 weeks remaining before the election, his campaign says he will share “details about his plans through policy-focused speeches on the campaign trail”. …Joe Biden’s campaign has released a total of 51 policy proposals outlining how he will accomplish his goals if he wins in November. [Continued here.]…
Volume 396, Number 10255
26 September 2020
WORLD REPORT News accounts say that Trump administration officials wanted to edit and approve COVID-19 studies and publish guidance without the usual scientific review. Susan Jaffe reports.
After news stories about attempts by members of the Trump administration to manipulate COVID-19 reports published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and over-rule its scientists, one top official is taking a sudden leave of absence for health reasons. Another’s government contract has abruptly ended. The 2-month absence of Michael Caputo, chief spokesman for the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), comes after he claimed that a CDC “resistance unit” seeks to undermine Trump. He and an adviser reportedly demanded the right to revise and approve COVID-19 studies published in the CDC’s highly respected Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report journal. [Continued here.]…
Seniors would be notified about eligibility to avoid late fees, coverage gap
Volume 396, Number 10244
11 July 2020
WORLD REPORT The court’s decision means that Louisiana’s three abortion clinics will remain open. Susan Jaffe reports.
The US Supreme Court delivered the Trump administration’s third defeat in as many weeks when it overturned a Louisiana law requiring physicians who provide abortions to have local hospital-admitting privileges.
In an opinion written by Justice Stephen Breyer, the court declared on June 29 that “enforcing the admitting privileges requirement would drastically reduce the number and geographic distribution of abortion providers, making it impossible for many women to obtain a safe, legal abortion in the State and imposing substantial obstacles on those who could”. [Continued here.]…
More than 600 residents have died from COVID-19 at 25 New York City nursing homes that received clean bills of health for controlling the spread of infections, state Department of Health inspection reports obtained by THE CITY show.
Those facilities include homes with some of the highest coronavirus death tolls in the nation — including the Sapphire Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Flushing, which reports 54 residents died of confirmed or presumed COVID….
At the Franklin Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing, also in Flushing, 60 residents — nearly one in five — succumbed to the virus. Its May 4 inspection report found no problems.
Also passing its May 11 infection-control inspection was New York State Veterans Home in St. Albans, Queens. Staff there previously told THE CITY that the state Health Department-run home failed to separate COVID-positive and uninfected residents, something that was a violation at other facilities….
“It’s very shocking that at the apex of this pandemic, our inspectors went in and reported that that there’s nothing out of the ordinary when it’s clear that the infection rate had spread,” said Assemblymember Ron Kim (D-Queens), whose district includes Sapphire and the Franklin Center. [continued here].
…By
Eyes and ears usually trained on New York’s nursing homes and adult care facilities have been nearly locked out as the coronavirus has claimed the lives of more than 3,500 residents statewide.
Almost entirely out of the picture are nursing home inspectors,employed by the state Department of Health and
coordinated by the federal government, who are responsible for ensuring that the facilities comply with federal health and safety requirements.
“Nursing facilities are essentially free of public scrutiny right now, at a time when scrutiny is more important than ever,” said Susan Dooha, executive director of the Center for Independence of the Disabled in New York [continued here].
…The FDA’s emergency use authorisation (EUA) issued last week gives physicians the option to prescribe the drugs, which President Donald Trump has recommended. However, both drugs are unproven and untested for COVID-19, and have rare but potentially deadly side-effects. The decision bypassed the usual drug approval process including doubleblind, placebo-controlled clinical trials, stoking a worldwide debate about whether the drugs are appropriate for treating the disease.
“I think it was resorted to more out of a sense of desperation”, said Joseph Masci, an infectious disease specialist and director of global health at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, a borough of New York City, which is at the centre of the epidemic in the USA. “It is just an indication of how sudden and massive this outbreak has been.” [Continued here.]
…As coronavirus cases increase, posing heightened risks to the elderly, nursing homes will face growing scrutiny from state health inspectors.
In Connecticut and nationally, complying with federal infection-control requirements is a challenge for some nursing homes. Between 2017 and 2019, 145 of Connecticut’s 217 nursing homes – or about 67 percent – were cited for infection-control violations, according to a Conn. Health I-Team analysis of data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). [Continued here, with list of nursing home infection violations.]
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Current enrollment rules can leave late enrollees liable for doc visits Medicare usually covers
Saturday is the deadline for most people with Medicare coverage to sign up for private drug and medical plans for next year. But members of Congress, health care advocates and insurance agents worry that enrollment decisions based on bad information from the government’s revamped, error-prone Plan Finder website will bring unwelcome surprises.
Beneficiaries could be stuck in plans that cost too much and don’t meet their medical needs — with no way out until 2021.
On Wednesday, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services told Kaiser Health News that beneficiaries would be able to change plans next year because of Plan Finder misinformation, although officials provided few details. [Continued at Kaiser Health News or NPR.] …
By Susan Jaffe | Kaiser Health News | October 8, 2019 | This article also ran in the
Millions of older adults can start signing up next week for private policies offering Medicare drug and medical coverage for 2020. But many risk wasting money and even jeopardizing their health ca
re due to changes in Medicare’s plan finder, its most popular website.
For more than a decade, beneficiaries used the plan finder to compare dozens of Medicare policies offered by competing insurance companies and get a list of their options. Yet after a website redesign six weeks ago, the search results are missing crucial details: How much will you pay out-of-pocket? And which plan offers the best value? [Continued at Kaiser Health News, San Francisco
By Susan Jaffe | Kaiser Health News | August 12, 2019 | This KHN story also ran on and
Medicare paid for Betty Gordon’s knee replacement surgery in March, but the 72-year-old former high school teacher needed a nursing home stay and care at home to recover.
Yet Medicare wouldn’t pay for that. So Gordon is stuck with a $7,000 bill she can’t afford — and, as if that were not bad enough, she can’t appeal.
The reasons Medicare won’t pay have frustrated the Rhode Island woman and many others trapped in the maze of regulations surrounding something called “observation care.”
Patients, like Gordon, receive observation care in the hospital when their doctors think they are too sick to go home but not sick enough to be admitted. They stay overnight or longer, usually in regular hospital rooms, getting some of the same services and treatment (often for the same problems) as an admitted patient….
(Photo courtesy of Betty Gordon)
But observation care is considered an outpatient service under Medicare rules, like a doctor’s appointment or a lab test. Observation patients may have to pay a larger share of the hospital bill than if they were officially admitted to the hospital.Medicare’s nursing home benefit is available only to those admitted to the hospital for three consecutive days. Gordon spent three days in the hospital after her surgery, but because she was getting observation care, that time didn’t count.
There’s another twist: Patients might want to file an appeal, as they can with many other Medicare decisions. But that is not allowed if the dispute involves observation care.
Monday, a trial begins in federal court in Hartford, Conn., where patients who were denied Medicare’s nursing home benefit are hoping to force the government to eliminate that exception. A victory would clear the way for appeals from hundreds of thousands of people. [Continued at Kaiser Health News, Next Avenue or Salon]
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