Category: Long term care

USA sets goal to end the HIV epidemic in a decade

Volume 393, Number 10172   

16 February 2019       

 

WORLD REPORT   The unexpected announcement in the State of the Union address could set the start of a realistic agenda to end HIV/AIDS in the USA, provided funds are secured. Susan Jaffe reports.

Nearly an hour into his 90 min State of the Union address, President Donald Trump called for a government-run health-care programme “to eliminate the HIV epidemic in the United States within 10 years”.

Although the president has promised to get rid of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) along with its health insurance marketplaces and Medicaid expansion, these and other policies did not appear to dampen his enthusiasm. [Continued here.]…

NYC guarantees health care to all

 Volume 393, Number 10169   

26 January 2019       

 

WORLD REPORT   The mayor of New York City is not counting on Congress for solutions to its health-care problems, Susan Jaffe reports.

By encouraging patients to seek primary and preventive care instead of more expensive emergency care, city officials expect to save money and keep people healthy. 
     “From this moment on, in New York City, everyone is guaranteed the right to health care—everyone”, declared New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio as he unveiled his so-called NYC Care plan this month. People who cannot pay or are ineligible for health insurance—including undocumented immigrants—will be able to get the most comprehensive and affordable health coverage in the country, at little or no cost, the mayor said, speaking in both English and Spanish.  “This is a way of getting people health care here and now, regardless of what happens on the state or the federal level”. [Continued here.]  
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Medicare Advantage Plans Cleared To Go Beyond Medical Coverage — Even Groceries

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | April 3, 2018 | This KHN story also ran on 

Air conditioners for people with asthma, healthy groceries, rides to medical appointments and home-delivered meals may be among the new benefits added to Medicare Advantage [private insurance] coverage when new federal rules take effect next year. 

The Institute for Aging in San Francisco helps seniors get to doctor appointments and social activities. (Photo/Susan Jaffe)

…But patient advocates including David Lipschutz. senior policy attorney at the Center for Medicare Advocacy, are concerned about those who may be left behind. “It’s great for the people in Medicare Advantage plans, but what about the majority of the people who are in traditional Medicare?” he asked. “As we tip the scales more in favor of Medicare Advantage, it’s to the detriment of people in traditional Medicare.”  [Continued at Kaiser Health News,  The Philadelphia Inquirer,  The Washington Post and CNN Money]

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Home Care Agencies Often Wrongly Deny Medicare Help To The Chronically Ill

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | January 18, 2018 | This KHN story also ran on     

Colin Campbell    (Heidi de Marco/KHN)

Colin Campbell needs help dressing, bathing and moving between his bed and his wheelchair. He has a feeding tube because his partially paralyzed tongue makes swallowing “almost impossible,”he said.

Campbell, 58, spends $4,000 a month on home health care services so he can continue to live in his home just outside Los Angeles. Eight years ago, he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or “Lou Gehrig’s disease,” which relentlessly attacks the nerve cells in his brain and spinal cord and has no cure.

The former computer systems manager has Medicare coverage because of his disability, but no fewer than 14 home health care providers have told him he can’t use it to pay for their services. That’s an incorrect but common belief….  [Continued at Kaiser Health News and NPR]…

US Children’s Health Insurance Program in jeopardy

 Volume 390, Number 10114   
 23/30 December 2017

 

WORLD REPORT    Without adequate federal funding, CHIP is on the verge of collapse in several states. Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.

“Whoever would have thought that health care for children—that has support on both sides of the aisle—would be in this situation?” asked Deborah Oswalt, executive director of the Virginia Health Care Foundation.  [full story here]

 

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A Few Pointers To Help Save Money And Avoid The Strain Of Medicare Enrollment

By Susan Jaffe | Kaiser Health News | Oct. 17, 2017 | This article also ran in   and 

Older or disabled Americans with Medicare coverage have probably noticed an uptick in mail solicitations from health insurance companies, which can mean only one thing: It’s time for the annual Medicare open enrollment.

Most beneficiaries have from Oct. 15 through Dec. 7 to decide which of dozens of private plans offer the best drug coverage for 2018 or whether it’s better to leave traditional Medicare and get a drug and medical combo policy called Medicare Advantage.

Some tips for the novice and reminders for those who have been here before can make the process a little easier. [Continued at Kaiser Health News, USA Today and The Washington Post]

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Counting On Medicaid To Avoid Life In A Nursing Home? That’s Now Up To Congress.

By Susan Jaffe | KAISER  HEALTH  NEWS | July 31, 2017 |This story also ran in 

Ten years ago, a driver ran a stop sign as Jim McIlroy rode into the intersection on his motorcycle. Serious injuries left McIlroy paralyzed from the chest down. But, after spending some time in a nursing home, he returned to his home near Bethel, Maine.

McIlroy does most of his own cooking since Maine’s Medicaid program paid for a stovetop that he can roll his wheelchair underneath to reach the food-prep area. His

Esther Ellis received a new mattress earlier this year from Partners in Care, a nonprofit that runs four of the dozens of sites in California’s Multipurpose Senior Services Program, a Medicaid-funded home services program. (Heidi de Marco/KHN)

new kitchen sink has the same feature. Wheelchair-friendly wood flooring has replaced McIlroy’s wall-to-wall carpeting.

The alterations plus a personal care aide — all paid for by Medicaid — enable McIlroy to stay in his house that he and his wife, who has since died, “worked really hard to own,” he said. The arrangement also saves Medicaid roughly two-thirds of what it would cost if he lived in a nursing home.

McIlroy depends on the federal-state program’s growing support of home-based care services — along with 2 million elderly or disabled Americans who rely on them to live at home for as long as possible.

However, that crucial help could face severe cuts if congressional Republicans eventually succeed in their push to sharply reduce federal Medicaid funds to states. [Continued at Kaiser Health News and USA Today] 

 

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Feds To Waive Penalties For Some Who Signed Up Late For Medicare

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | June 6, 2017 | This KHN story also ran on     

[UPDATE: Since this article was published, Medicare officials extended the deadline for applying for an exemption to the Part B late enrollment penalty to Sept. 30, 2018. The announcement came in a fact sheet posted on Oct. 12, 2017.]

Each year, thousands of Americans miss their deadline to enroll in Medicare, and federal officials and consumer advocates worry that many of them mistakenly think they don’t need to sign up because they have purchased insurance on the health law’s marketplaces. That decision can leave them facing a lifetime of enrollment penalties.

Now Medicare has temporarily changed its rules to offer a reprieve from penalties for people who kept Affordable Care Act policies after becoming eligible for Medicare.

“Many of these individuals did not receive the information necessary [when they became eligible for Medicare or when they initially enrolled] in coverage through the marketplace to make an informed decision regarding” Medicare enrollment, said a Medicare spokesman, explaining the policy change.

Those who qualify include people 65 and older who have a marketplace plan or had one they lost or canceled, as well as people who have qualified for Medicare due to a disability but chose to use marketplace plans. They have until Sept. 30 to request a waiver of the usual penalty Medicare assesses when people delay signing up for Medicare’s Part B, which covers visits to the doctor and other outpatient care…

“This has been a problem from the beginning of the Affordable Care Act, because the government didn’t understand that people would not know when they needed to sign up for Medicare,” said Bonnie Burns, a consultant for California Health Advocates, a consumer group. “Once they had insurance, that relieved all the stress of not having coverage and then when they became eligible for Medicare, nobody told them to make that change.”[Continued at Kaiser Health News and NPR]…

Volunteers Help Ombudsmen Give Nursing Home Residents ‘A Voice’ In Their Care

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | May 2, 2017 |  This KHN story also ran in 

Since retiring four years ago, Barbara Corprew has visited Paris, traveled to a North Carolina film festival and taken Pilates classes, focusing on — as she puts it — just “doing things for me.” Now the former Justice Department lawyer, who worked on white-collar crime cases, is devoting time to something completely different: She visits nursing homes every week.

Barbara Corprew, says her service as a volunteer ombudsman was sparked in part by her experience acting as an advocate for her parents when they became ill. (Courtesy of Barbara Corprew)

Corprew is a volunteer in the District of Columbia’s Long-Term Care Ombudsman’s Office, a government-funded advocacy agency for nursing home and assisted-living residents.

The ombudsmen’s offices, which operate under federal law in all 50 states and the District, investigated 200,000 complaints in 2015, according to the Administration on Aging, a part of the Department of Health and Human Services. Of those, almost 117,000 were reported to have been resolved in a way that satisfied the person who made the complaint, and about 30,000 were partially resolved. At the top of the list were problems concerning care, residents’ rights, physical environment, admissions and discharges, and abuse and neglect.

The volunteers have permission to enter any nursing home, assisted-living or other long-term-care facility anytime, unannounced, talk to any resident and go wherever they want. They respond to issues raised by residents and their families and can bring up problems they discover. All complaints are handled confidentially, even kept from family members, unless residents allow the ombudsman to reveal their identities.

… Medical or legal experience is not required. Volunteers come from all kinds of backgrounds and careers, but they seem to have one thing in common: an abundance of compassion.

Gwendolyn Devore, another District volunteer, remembers a forlorn woman sitting in a hallway at the nursing home where her aunt lived. When she asked a staff member about the woman, the only reply was an angry look that unmistakably said, “It’s none of your business,” Devore recalled as she explained her interest in becoming a volunteer. “Now no one will be able to say it’s none of my business.” [Continued at Kaiser Health News and in The Washington Post]…

Judge Accepts Medicare’s Plan To Remedy Misunderstanding On Therapy Coverage

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | February 3, 2017 | This KHN story also ran on     

A federal judge has accepted Medicare’s plans to try once more to correct a commonly held misconception that beneficiaries’ are eligible for coverage for physical and occupational therapy and other skilled care only if their health is improving.

“Confusion over the Improvement Standard persists,” wrote U.S. District Court Chief Judge Christina Reiss in Vermont in a decision released by the court Thursday. Advocates for seniors say coverage is often mistakenly denied simply because the beneficiary reaches “a plateau” and is no longer making progress.[Continued at Kaiser Health News and NPR]…

Medicare’s Coverage Of Therapy Services Again Is In Center Of Court Dispute

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | January 30, 2017 | This KHN story also ran on     

Four years after Medicare officials agreed in a landmark court settlement that seniors cannot be denied coverage for physical the
rapy and other skilled care simply because their condition is not improving, patients are still being turned away.

So federal officials and Medicare advocates have renewed their court battle, acknowledging that they cannot agree on a way to fix the problem. Earlier this month, each submitted ideas to the judge, who will decide — possibly within the next few months — what measures should be taken.

Several organizations report that the government’s initial education campaign following the settlement has failed. Many seniors have only been able to get coverage once their condition worsened. But once it improved, treatment would stop — until they got worse and were eligible again for coverage.

Every year thousands of Medicare patients receive physical therapy and other treatment to recover from a fall or medical procedure, as well as to help cope with disabilities or chronic conditions including multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s diseases, stroke, and spinal cord or brain injuries. [Continued at Kaiser Health News and NPR] …

New Nursing Home Rules Offer Residents More Control Of Their Care

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | January 4, 2017 |  This KHN story also ran in 

About 1.4 million people living in nursing homes across the country can now be more involved in their care under the most wide-ranging revision of federal rules for such facilities in 25 years.

The changes reflect a shift toward more “person-centered care,” including requirements for speedy development of care plans, more flexibility and variety in meals and snacks, greater review of a resident’s drug regimen, better security, improved grievance procedures, and scrutiny of involuntary discharges.

“With proper implementation and enforcement, this could really transform a resident’s experience of a nursing home,” said Robyn Grant, director of public policy and advocacy for the Consumer Voice, a national group that advocates for residents’ rights. The federal Medicare and Medicaid programs pay for most of the nation’s nursing home care — roughly $75 billion in 2014 — and in return, facilities must comply with government rules. [Continued in  Kaiser Health News and The Washington Post]

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Seeking Dental Care For Older Americans

Since Medicare doesn’t cover most dental care, seniors often go without treatment.

By SUSAN JAFFE  | Health Affairs | December 2016 | Volume 35, Number 12

The last time Evelyn Sell went to the dentist was nearly three years ago, when he told her his staff would no longer be able to lift her out of her wheelchair and into the dentist’s chair. “That really threw me for a loop,” said Sell, 87, a retired preschool teacher who lives in Kingsley Manor, a retirement community in Los Angeles. “I didn’t know what I was going to do about dental care.”

Care at home: During a recent visit to Kingsley Manor, a Los Angeles, California, senior living community, dental hygienist Maria Ladd uses an intraoral camera to take photos of resident Ruth Wilson’s teeth. (Photo: Susanna Castillo)

…Then earlier this year, she found the solution. A flyer in her mail informed her that the management of her assisted living facility had partnered with the Virtual Dental Home project run by Pacific Center for Special Care at the University of the Pacific in San Francisco. Sell could have a dental hygienist come to her home. She was one of the first residents to sign up.

The project is one of several innovative demonstrations that providers and researchers are developing to serve vulnerable uninsured or underinsured patients. Despite their promise, however, these efforts meet only a fraction of the need. A comprehensive solution would likely require federal legislation, but bills to broadly expand Medicare’s dental coverage have languished in Congress. So some advocates for older adults are working on a third front, seeking changes to Medicare coverage policy based on the idea that dental care can be an integral part of the medically necessary care Medicare covers. [Continued here] …

Medicare Bars New ‘Seamless Conversion’ Efforts For Some Seniors

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | October 28, 2016 |  This KHN story also ran in 

The federal government is temporarily blocking more health insurance companies from automatically moving customers who become eligible for Medicare into Medicare Advantage plans while officials review the controversial practice.

They also will issue rules soon for plans that already have permission to make these switches, known as “seamless conversion,” according to a memo from Michael Crochunis, acting director of the Medicare Enrollment and Appeals Group at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Under current rules, an insurer can transfer customers who have purchased policies through an Affordable Care Act insurance exchange or other commercial plans when they become eligible for Medicare, typically at age 65. An insurer must give an individual 60 days’ advance written notice of the switch; if a person doesn’t opt out, that enrollment takes effect automatically.

… The decision to prohibit additional insurers from pursuing Medicare Advantage conversions comes after Kaiser Health News and The Washington Post identified problems with the practice in July. Some seniors did not know they had different coverage until receiving out-of-network providers’ bills for thousands of dollars. Others got the news when they received a Medicare Advantage membership card they hadn’t requested — with the name of a new primary care doctor they didn’t know. [Continued in Kaiser Health News and The Washington Post]…

Some Seniors Surprised To Be Automatically Enrolled In Medicare Advantage Plans

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | July 27, 2016 |  This KHN story also ran in 

Only days after Judy Hanttula came home from the hospital after surgery last November, her doctor’s office called with bad news: Records showed that instead of traditional Medicare, she had a private Medicare Advantage plan, and her doctor and hospital were not in its network.

Neither the plan nor Medicare now would cover her medical costs. She owed $16,622.

“I was panicking,” said Hanttula, who lived in Carlsbad, N.M., at the time. After more than five hours making phone calls, she learned that because she’d had individual coverage through Blue Cross Blue Shield when she became eligible for Medicare, the company automatically signed her up for its own Medicare Advantage plan after notifying her in a letter. Hanttula said she ignored all mail from insurers because she had chosen traditional Medicare.

“I felt like I had insured myself properly with Medicare,” she said. “So I quit paying attention to the mail.”

With Medicare’s specific approval, a health insurance company can enroll a member of its marketplace or other commercial plan into its Medicare Advantage coverage when that individual becomes eligible for Medicare. Called “seamless conversion,” the process requires the insurer to send a letter explaining the new coverage, which takes effect unless the member opts out within 60 days. [Continued in The Washington Post and Kaiser Health News]…

Medicare returning to an old-fashioned idea: house calls

By Susan Jaffe, Kaiser Health News | May 21, 2016 | and also published in USA Today logo 2012
Looking for ways to save money and improve care, Medicare officials are returning to an old-fashioned idea: house calls.
But the experiment, called Independence at Home, is more than a nostalgic throwback to the way medicine was practiced decades ago when the doctor arrived at the patient’s door carrying a big black bag. Done right and paid right, house calls could prove to be a better way of treating very sick, elderly patients while they can still live at home. …By all accounts, saving any money on these patients is a surprise. Independence at Home targets patients with complicated chronic health problems and disabilities who are among the most expensive Medicare beneficiaries. [Continued in USA Today,  Kaiser Health News,  The Washington Post, or Next Avenue]

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Buying Supplemental Insurance Can Be Hard For Younger Medicare Beneficiaries

By Susan Jaffe | February 3,  2016 | Kaiser Health News in collaboration with Money magazine

Danny Thompson’s kidneys have failed and he needs a transplant but in some ways, he’s lucky: Both of his sons want to give him one of theirs, and his Medicare coverage will take care of most his expenses.

Danny Thompson    (Heidi de Marco/KHN) 

Yet the 53-year-old Californian is facing another daunting obstacle: He doesn’t

have the money for his share of the medical bills and follow-up drugs, and he can’t buy supplemental insurance to help cover his costs.

“It’s frustrating to be in the shape I’m in,” said Thompson, who depends on dialysis instead of his kidneys to cleanse his blood. “My plan is to get a transplant so I can go back to work.”

Almost one in four Medicare beneficiaries has such a policy, known as Medigap, which is sold by private insurance companies. It can help pay for costs Medicare doesn’t cover, including the 20 percent coinsurance required for medical expenses, including certain drugs, plus deductibles and co-payments. Those expenses have no out-of-pocket limit for beneficiaries.

Money cover

This KHN story also ran on Money.

Federal law requires companies to sell Medigap plans to any Medicare beneficiary aged 65 or older within six months of signing up for Part B, which covers doctor visits and other outpatient services. If they sign up during this guaranteed open enrollment, they cannot be charged higher premiums due to their medical conditions.

But Congress left it to states to determine whether Medigap plans are sold to the more than 9 million people younger than 65 years old who qualify for Medicare because of a disability. [Continued in Kaiser Health News or Money magazine.]…

Hospitals Step Up To Help Seniors Avoid Falls

By Susan Jaffe | Kaiser Health News | January 12, 2016     This KHN story also ran in washingtonpost SMALL logo

Falls are the leading cause of injuries for adults 65 and older, and 2.5 million of them end up in hospital emergency departments for treatment every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The consequences can range from bruises, fractured hips and head injuries to irreversible calamities that can lead to death.

Despite these scary statistics, a dangerous fall does not have to be an inevitable part of aging.   Risk-reduction programs are offered around the country, including several at hospitals in the Washington area.  [Full article from Kaiser Health News  and The Washington Post]    [Watch video of  balance training class] …

Decline of Medicare subsidized drug plans leaves seniors with less choice

By Susan Jaffe, Kaiser Health News | November 21, 2015 | and also published in USA Today logo 2012
Even though health problems forced Denise Scott to retire several years ago, she feels “very blessed” because her medicine is still relatively inexpensive and a subsidy for low-income Medicare beneficiaries covers the full cost of her monthly drug plan premiums. But the subsidy is not going to stretch as far next year.

Denise-Scott-04

That’s because the premium for Scott’s current plan will cost more than her federal subsidy. The 64-year-old from Cleveland is among  the 2 million older or disabled Americans who will have to find new coverage that accepts the subsidy as full premium payment or else pay for the shortfall. As beneficiaries explore options during the current Medicare enrollment period, there are only 227 such plans from which they can choose next year, 20% fewer than this year, and the lowest number since the drug benefit was added to Medicare in 2006, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. [Continued in USA Today, Kaiser Health News and PBS NewsHour]
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To Sell Medical Students On Joys Of Geriatrics, Send In 90-Year-Olds

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | September 23, 2015 | This KHN story also ran in     nprlogo_138x46

When doctors told Robert Madison that his wife had dementia, they didn’t explain very much. His successful career as an architect hardly prepared him for what came next.

Belle Likover, a 95-year-old retired social worker, told Case Western Reserve medical students that growing old gracefully is all about being able to adapt to one’s changing life situation, including health challenges. Lynn Ischay/Kaiser Health News

     “A week before she passed away her behavior was different, and I was angry because I thought she was deliberately not doing things,” Madison, now 92, told a group of nearly 200 students at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine in Cleveland. “You are knowledgeable in treating patients, but I’m the patient, too, and if someone had said she can’t control anything, I would have been better able to understand what was taking place.”
     Belle Likover recounted for the students how she insisted when her husband was dying of lymphoma that doctors in the hospital not make decisions without involving his oncologist. “When someone is in the hospital, they need an advocate with them at all times,” said Likover, who turns 96 next month. “But to expect that from families when they are in crisis is expecting too much. The medical profession has to address that.”
     Madison and Likover were among six people all over the age of 90 invited to talk to second-year medical students this month. The annual panel discussion, called “Life Over 90,” is aimed at nudging students toward choosing geriatric medicine, the primary care field that focuses on the elderly. It is among the lowest-paid specialties, and geriatricians must contend with complex cases that are time consuming and are often not reimbursed well by Medicare or private insurance. And their patients can have diseases that can only be managed but never cured   [Continued  at Kaiser Health News  and at NPR]
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Home-Care Workers

Susan Jaffe | Washington Correspondent for The Lancet | 28 August 2015

Home-care workers are excluded from the federal law requiring most employees to receive a minimum wage—currently $7·25 an hour—and 150% of that pay when they work overtime. After 40 years, the US Department of Labor (DOL) issued rules eliminating that exemption. The new rule was supposed to take effect last January but it was blocked by a lawsuit filed by associations representing companies that hire these workers. [Continued here.]  [with video of Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky shadowing home-care worker Gilda Pipersburgh]…

50 Years of Medicare

lancet cover 2Volume 386, Issue 9992,  1 August 2015

WORLD REPORT    In July, 1965, Medicare, America’s landmark national health insurance programme, became law. Today, it covers 55 million people.  Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent,  reports.

LBJ Lancet 073015

An American woman thanks President Lyndon Johnson for Medicare, April, 1965.

Richard Troeh joined a very busy solo family medicine practice in 1966 but even with two doctors, their offi ce in Independence, Missouri, seemed just as hectic. The year before, President Lyndon Baines Johnson came to town to sign the Medicare legislation into law at the Truman library. Former President Harry Truman—an advocate of national health insurance since the 1940s—and his wife attended the event and were among the fi rst Americans to receive Medicare cards.
50 years later, the Social Security Amendments of 1965 provide health care for 55 million people older than 65 years or disabled receiving Medicare and nearly 73 million low-income adults, children, pregnant women, and people with disabilities receiving Medicaid, an optional programme also created under the same law.
And in the process, the government programmes have transformed health care in the USA. Medicare is the nation’s largest single purchaser of health care, consuming 14% of last year’s federal budget, or US$505 billion. And it also has a fiercely loyal following that opposes efforts to cut benefits. Speaking earlier this month at the White House Conference on Aging, President Barack Obama drew laughs when he said, “And now we’ve got [protest] signs saying, “Get your government hands off of my Medicare”. [Continued in full text or PDF ] [listen to podcast here]
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Congress Overwhelmingly Approves Bill Bolstering Medicare Patients’ Hospital Rights

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | July 29, 2015 | This KHN story also ran in nprlogo_138x46

The U.S. Senate unanimously approved legislation Monday night requiring hospitals across the nation to tell Medicare patients when they receive observation care but have not been admitted to the hospital. It’s a distinction that’s easy toKHN logo miss until patients are hit with big medical bills after a short stay.

The vote follows overwhelming approval in the U. S. House of Representatives in March. The legislation is expected to be signed into law by President Barack Obama, said its House sponsor, Texas Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett.observation-care photo 072915

It’s called the NOTICE Act, short for “Notice of Observation Treatment and Implication for Care Eligibility.” The law would require hospitals to provide written notification to patients 24 hours after receiving observation care, explaining that they have not been admitted to the hospital, the reasons why, and the potential financial implications.

Those implications can be dire. Observation care hurts seniors in two ways: It keeps Medicare’s more comprehensive hospitalization coverage from kicking in, and it means they may not get Medicare’s limited nursing home benefit if they need care in a facility after being in a hospital.

To qualify for Medicare’s nursing home coverage, beneficiaries must first spend three consecutive midnights as an admitted patient in a hospital, and observation days don’t count. Without that coverage, seniors could pay thousands of dollars for the nursing home care their doctor ordered, or else try to recover on their own. Observation care is a classification used when patients are not well enough to go home but not sick enough to be admitted. [Continued in Kaiser Health News]…

New Regulations Would Require Modernizing Nursing Home Care

By Susan Jaffe | July 13, 2015  | Kaiser Health News in collaboration with   nprlogo_138x46

After nearly 30 years, the Obama administration wants to modernize the rules nursing homes must follow to qualify for Medicare and Medicaid payments.

The hundreds of pages of proposed changes cover everything from meal times to use of antipsychotic drugs to staffing. Some are required by the Affordable Care Act and other recent federal laws, as well as the president’s executive order directing agencies to simplify regulations and minimize the costs of compliance.

“Today’s measures set high standards for quality and safety in nursing homes and long-term care facilities,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell. “When a family makes the decision for a loved one to be placed in a nursing home or long-term care facility, they need to know that their loved one’s health and safety are priorities.”

Officials announced the update as the White House Conference on Aging convenes Monday. The once-a-decade conclave sets the agenda for meeting the diverse needs of older Americans, including long-term care options. This month also marks the 50th anniversary of the Medicare and Medicaid programs, which cover almost 125 million older, disabled or low-income Americans. Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries make up the majority of residents in the country’s more than 15,000 long-term care facilities. [MORE from Kaiser Health News and NPR]…

Want a good laugh? Head to the hospital.

By Susan Jaffe   KAISER HEALTH NEWS  | July 7, 2015 | This KHN story also ran in wapo

Every month, a group of older adults goes to Washington’s Sibley Memorial Hospital, but they don’t see a doctor or get tests. They’re not sick. They come just for laughs.

Joanne Philleo, 79, enjoys a joke at the monthly “Laugh Cafe” event at Sibley Memorial Hospital. (Amanda Voisard for The Washington Post)

They gather in a room next to the hospital cafeteria for the “Laugh Cafe,” one of the activities offered to local seniors, including the 7,300 members of Sibley’s Senior Association. The price of admission is one joke, recited out loud. Experts say laughing can be good for your health, and everyone in the room strongly agrees.

…The association for those age 50 or older also offers other activities, including French and Italian conversation classes, day trips to museums, a current events group, and — the latest addition — tango lessons. In addition, members receive discounts on hospital parking and at the gift shop, pharmacy and restaurant. In all, more than 10,000 seniors participate.

Sibley is one of several hospitals in the Washington area — along with others across the country — offering social activities and other benefits to help seniors stay healthy and out of the hospital, while encouraging them to visit. Participants do not need to have been patients.

But some experts are concerned that the activities are less about health than about marketing to Medicare beneficiaries, especially those who can go to the hospital of their choice when they need care because they are not enrolled in private insurance plans with limited provider networks.[Continued in Washington Post]…