Tag: Medicare

US election 2020: the future of the Affordable Care Act

Volume 396, Number 10260     31 October 2020 

WORLD REPORT   President Donald Trump pledges to replace the Affordable Care Act while his Democratic opponent Joe Biden offers detailed proposals to improve it. Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC.

Since winning the presidency in 2016 in large part by promising to eliminate Obamacare, otherwise known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Donald Trump has promised more than a dozen times that his replacement plan would be ready soon. The plan would be released in 2 weeks, a White House spokeswoman said 2 months ago.

“We’re going to have a health-care plan that will be second to none”, Trump said in 2017. “It’s going to be great and the people will see that.” And at last week’s final presidential debate, he vowed “to terminate Obamacare, [and] come up with a brand new beautiful health care”.

A decade after the ACA—President Barack Obama’s signature achievement—became law, repealing and replacing Obamacare is again central to Trump’s re-election. And improving and expanding the law is a crucial part of the campaign of his challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden. [Continued here.]     

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Class-Action Lawsuit Seeks To Let Medicare Patients Appeal Gap in Nursing Home Coverage

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | August 12, 2019 | This KHN story also ran on Salon and Next Avenue  

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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No More Secrets: Congress Bans Pharmacist  ‘Gag Orders’  On Drug Prices

Update:  After this article was posted Oct. 10th, the President signed the legislation into law later that day.

By Susan Jaffe  | Kaiser Health News | October 10, 2018  | This KHN story also ran on 

For years, most pharmacists couldn’t give customers even a clue about an easy way to save money on prescription drugs. But the restraints are coming off.

When the cash price for a prescription is less than what you would pay using your insurance plan, pharmacists will no longer have to keep that a secret.

…But there’s a catch: Under the new legislation, pharmacists will not be required to tell patients about the lower cost option. If they don’t, it’s up to the customer to ask.  [Continued at Kaiser Health News and at NBC News]

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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]…

USA grapples with high drugs costs

 lancet cover 2Volume 386, Number  10009 
28 November 2015
WORLD REPORT   More Americans are getting health insurance, including coverage for prescription drugs, but high prices may make them inaccessible. Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.
 Patients in the USA pay more for prescription drugs than almost anywhere else in the world, forcing as many as one in four who can’t afford the high prices to go without their medicine last year, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey. So even though more Americans have health insurance, the new therapies and cures that can prevent more expensive health complications might be out of reach.
After several well-publicised, huge spikes in drug prices—including Turing Pharmaceutical’s increase for pyrimethamine (marketed as Daraprim) from US$13·50 to $750 a pill—the problem is drawing unprecedented attention from nearly every quarter: the Obama Administration, Congress, state officials, health insurance companies, drug makers, as well as the physicians and their patients who have clamoured for help for years. It also surfaced during this month’s Democratic presidential debate.
Heather Block, a patient advocate from Delaware who spoke at a day-long pharmaceutical forum hosted by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) earlier this month, pays $9800 a month for the drugs she takes to treat breast cancer that has spread to her liver and lungs. Although she has Medicare coverage, she is still responsible for a share of her medical expenses. “Innovation is meaningless if nobody can afford it”, she said. “I still face financial insecurity and eventually bankruptcy—if I live that long.”     [Continued here ]
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Can you hear me now?

The President’s science advisors say innovative technology can provide low-cost alternatives to pricey hearing aids.
Susan Jaffe  |  Washington Correspondent for The Lancet  |  11th November 2015
Almost The Lancet USA blog logo30 million Americans over 60 years old have difficulty hearing, but less than a third can afford hearing aids, according to a report to President Barack Obama by his Council of Advisors on Science and Technology two weeks ago. Even though hearing loss is often part of the natural aging process, the council did not recommend that Medicare, pay for hearing aids, which can cost an average of $5,000 to $6,000 for a pair. [Continued here]
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Don’t Just Renew Your Medicare Plan. Shopping Around Can Save Money.

By Susan Jaffe | October 15, 2015 | Kaiser Health News in collaboration with Money magazine

Ten years after a prescription drug benefit was added to Medicare, 39 million older or disabled AmerMoney 4icans have coverage to help pay for their medicine, including most of the 17 million with private insurance policies known as Medicare Advantage, an alternative to traditional Medicare.
The annual enrollmentmedicare-shop-KHN 101515 period for these private drug and Advantage plans for 2016 starts Thursday and runs through Dec. 7.
It pays to shop around. The monthly cost is increasing an average 26 percent for UnitedHealthcare’s AARP MedicareRx Saver Plus while the First Health Value Plus plan
is dropping an average 13 percent, according to an analysis of the 10 most popular drug plans by Avalere Health, a research firm.
Some actual costs may be even more dramatic. In Albany, N.Y., the price of a Cigna-HealthSpring drug plan is going up 36 percent, according to the StateWide Senior Action Council, a New York consumer group. [More in Kaiser Health News or Money magazine]
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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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When Turning 65, Consumers With Marketplace Plans Need To Be Vigilant In Choosing Health Coverage

By Susan Jaffe  | June 25, 2015 |  Kaiser Health News

BeforKHN logoe the Affordable Care Act, older adults who couldn’t afford to buy their own health insurance would count the days until their 65th birthday, when Medicare would kick in. Now, 10,000 Americans hit that milestone every day, but for some who have coverage through the ACA’s insurance marketplaces, Medicare may not be the obvious next step.

“Consumers eligible for Medicare can keep or renew their marketplace plan,” said Medicare spokesman Alper Ozinal, as long as they don’t also join Medicare. [Continued in Kaiser Health News]…

Officials Weigh Options To Hold Down Medicare Costs For Hospice

By Susan Jaffe  | April 23, 2015 |  Kaiser Health News and also published in

Medicare officials are considering changes in the hospice benefit to stop the federal government from paying twice for care given to dying patients. But patient advocates and hospice providers fear a new policy could make the often difficult decision to move into hospice care even tougher.hospicecare
Patients are eligible for hospice care when doctors determine they have no more than six months to live. They agree to forgo curative treatment for their terminal illness and instead receive palliative or comfort care. However, they are also still allowed Medicare coverage for health problems not related to their terminal illness, including chronic health conditions or for accidental injuries.
Medicare pays a set amount to the hospice provider for all treatment and services related to the terminal illness, including doctor’s visits, nursing home stays, hospitalization, medical equipment and drugs. If a patient needs treatment that hospice doesn’t provide because it is not related to the terminal illness — or the patient seeks care outside of hospice — Medicare pays the non-hospice providers. The problem is that sometimes Medicare pays for care outside the hospice benefit that it already paid hospice to cover.
To reduce the chances of these duplicative payments, Medicare officials have announced that they are examining whether to assume “virtually all” the care hospice patients receive should be covered under the hospice benefit….
Seniors’ advocates are worried that putting all coverage under the hospice benefit will create obstacles for patients. Instead, Medicare should go after hospice providers who are shifting costs to other providers that Medicare expects hospice to cover, said Terry Berthelot, a senior attorney at the Center for Medicare Advocacy, who urged the government to protect hospice patients’ access to non-hospice care….”If your blood sugar gets out of control, that could hasten your death,” she said. “But people shouldn’t be rushed off to die because they’ve elected the hospice benefit.”  [More from KHN] [More in USA Today]
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Medicare May Help Seniors If Advantage Plans Drop Doctors

By Susan Jaffe | December 23, 2014 Connecticut Health Investigative Team and The Hartford Courant

Next year, seniors with private Medicare Advantage insurance policies whose doctors leave their plan may be able to leave, too, under a new Medicare rule.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which oversee Medicare Advantage programs, will create a special three-month enrollment period in any state where insurers make network changes “considered significant based on the affect or potential to affect, current plan enrollees,” according to an update to Medicare’s Managed Care Manual.

The special enrollment period – if granted by CMS – would allow Medicare Advantage members to switch out of their plans and join traditional Medicare or another Medicare Advantage plan whose provider network includes their doctors.

…U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal criticized the new rule because it’s not clear what “significant” network changes would trigger a special enrollment period. Instead, he spearheaded a letter sent last Friday to Medicare chief Marilyn Tavenner, asking her to prohibit mid-year provider network changes. The letter was also signed by U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Rand Paul of Kentucky, along with U.S. Reps. Rosa DeLauro, Joe Courtney, Jim Himes, Elizabeth Esty and 13 other members of Congress.
“This blatant bait and switch should not be allowed,” they wrote. [CONTINUED in Connecticut Health Investigative Team and in The Courant ] …

Seniors’ Wait For A Medicare Appeal Is Cut In Half

By Susan Jaffe   KAISER HEALTH NEWS  | December 23, 2014

This KHN story also ran in wapo

The federal office responsible for appeals for Medicare coverage has cut in half the waiting time for beneficiaries who are requesting a hearing before a judge.

The progress follows an announcement last January that officials were going to work through a crushing backlog by moving beneficiaries to the front of the line and suspending hearings on cases from hospitals, doctors and other providers for at least two years.

…Still, about 900,000 appeals are awaiting decisions, with most filed by hospitals, nursing homes, medical device suppliers and other health care providers, said Jason Green, OMHA’s program and policy director. The wait times for health providers’ cases have doubled since last year, and are nearly four times longer than the processing time for beneficiary appeals. [Continued in KHN] [Continued in Washington Post]…

Disabled Vt. Senior Wins Medicare Coverage After 2nd Lawsuit

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] …

Disabled Vt. Senior Who Led Class Action Suit Sues Medicare — Again

By Susan Jaffe | Kaiser Health News in collaboration with National Public Radio | October 27, 2014

A 78-year-old Vermont mother of four who helped change Medicare coverage for millions of other seniors is still fighting to persuade the government to pay for her own care.

Glenda Jimmo, who is legally blind and has a partially amputated leg due to complications from diabetes, was the lead plaintiff in a 2011 class-action lawsuit seeking to broaden Medicare’s criteria for covering physical therapy and other care delivered by skilled professionals. In 2012, the government agreed to settle the case, saying that people cannot be denied coverage solely because they have reached a plateau and are not getting better.

The landmark settlement was a victory for Medicare beneficiaries with chronic conditions and disabilities who had been frequently denied coverage under what is known as “the improvement standard” —a judgment about whether they are likely to improve if they get additional treatment. It also gave seniors a second chance to appeal for coverage if their claims had been denied because they were not improving.

Jimmo was one of the first seniors to appeal her original claim for home health care under the settlement that bears her name. But in April, the Medicare Appeals Council, the highest appeals level, upheld the denial. The judges said they agreed with the original ruling that her condition was not improving — criteria the settlement was supposed to eliminate.

After running out of options appealing to Medicare, her lawyers filed a second federal lawsuit in June to compel the government to keep its promise not to use the improvement standard as a criterion for coverage.The council’s decision makes no sense to Judith Stein, executive director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy, which filed the original class action lawsuit with Vermont Legal Aid and helped negotiate the Jimmo settlement. “People shouldn’t have to decline in order to get the care they need,” Stein said. [MORE from Kaiser Health News and NPR] …

Hospitals Required To Tell Patients Of Observation Care Status

By Susan Jaffe   |   September 30, 2014
Connecticut Health Investigative Team and The Hartford Courant

Starting Wednesday, a new state law requires Connecticut hospitals to tell all patients when they are being kept in the hospital for observation instead of being admitted and to warn them about the financial consequences.

Anyone who goes to the hospital can be placed on observation status, so that doctors can determine what’s wrong, and decide whether the patient is sick enough to be admitted or well enough to go home. Observation patients may receive diagnostic tests, medications, some treatment, and other outpatient services. Depending on their insurance, they can be charged a share of the cost. In addition to hospital bills, Medicare observation patients whose doctors order follow-up nursing home care will have to pay the nursing home themselves. Medicare covers nursing homes only after seniors are admitted to the hospital and stay through three consecutive midnights. A month in a Connecticut nursing home can cost as much as $15,000.

Medicare does not require hospitals to tell patients when they are getting observation care and what it means. And the number of Medicare observation patients is growing rapidly — 88 percent in the past six years, to 1.8 million nationally in 2012, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, an independent government agency.

…Meanwhile, more states are trying to address the situation. Connecticut becomes at least the third state in the nation, after New York and Maryland to require notification for observation status. Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania are considering similar laws. CONTINUED in Connecticut Health Investigative Team CONTINUED in The Courant …

Medicare Testing Payment Options That Could End Observation Care Penalties

By Susan Jaffe   KAISER HEALTH NEWS  | July 22, 2014 | This KHN story also ran in wapo

Medicare officials have allowed patients at dozens of hospitals participating in pilot projects across the country to be exempted from the controversial requirement that limits nursing home coverage to seniors admitted to a hospital for at least three days.

The idea behind these experiments is to find out whether new payment arrangements with the hospitals and other health care providers that drop the three-day rule can reduce costs or keep them the same while improving the quality of care. They are conducted under a provision of the Affordable Care Act that created the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovations to develop ways of improving Medicare.

If the experiment saves Medicare money and improves care, “we should be able to make an argument to Medicare that there is a way to do it for all our patients,” said Dr. Eric Weil, clinical affairs associate chief for the general internal medicine division at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The hospital is one of five in the Partners Health System that began offering the waiver in April, after testing a limited version.

“It gets patients to the care they need much quicker and prevents them from clinically declining at home,” said Weil. If patients can spend less time in the hospital, he said that frees up valuable resources for sicker patients. And it saves money for Medicare because nursing home care or home health care is cheaper than a hospital stay. [Continued in KHN] [Continued in Washington Post]…

FAQ: Hospital Observation Care Can Be Costly For Medicare Patients

By Susan Jaffe   |  UPDATED June 18, 2014 |  KAISER HEALTH NEWS     

Some seniors think Medicare made a mistake. Others are just stunned when they find out that being in a hospital for days doesn’t always mean they were actually admitted.

Instead, they received observation care, considered by Medicare to be an outpatient service. Yet, a recent government investigation found that observation patients often have the same health problems as those who are admitted. But the observation designation means they can have higher out-of-pocket expenses and fewer Medicare benefits. Here are some common questions and answers about observation care and the coverage gap that can result. [MORE] …

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By Susan Jaffe  | October 15, 2013 |  Kaiser Health News produced in collaboration with 

The seven-week enrollment period for next year’s Medicare prescription drug and managed-care plans begins Tuesday, but seniors shouldn’t simply renew their policies and assume the current coverage will stay the same. There’s a likely payoff for those who pay close attention to the details.[More in KHN] [More in USA Today]

Seniors Cautioned To Pay Close Attention To Details As Enrollment Begins In Medicare Plans

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By Susan Jaffe | December 17, 2012  |  Kaiser Health News in collaboration with

Dan Driscoll used to be a smoker. During a regular doctor’s visit, his primary-care physician suggested that Driscoll be tested to see if he was at risk for an abdominal aortic aneurysm, a life-threatening condition that can be linked to smoking. The doctor said Medicare would cover the procedure. So Driscoll, 68, who lives in Silver Spring, had the test done and was surprised when he got a bill from Medicare for $214.

“I didn’t accept that,” he said, because based on everything he had read from Medicare, he was sure this was a covered service. So Driscoll did something that seniors rarely do: He filed an appeal.  Of the 1.1 billion claims submitted to Medicare in 2010 for hospitalizations, nursing home care, doctor’s visits, tests and physical therapy, 117 million were denied. Of those, only 2 percent were appealed.

“People lose, and then they lose heart, or they are too sick, too tired or too old, and they give up,” said Margaret Murphy, associate director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy, which has offices in Washington and Connecticut. “Or their kids are handling the appeal and they are too overwhelmed caring for Mom or Dad.”  [Continued at Kaiser Health News and The Washington Post.]

How To File A Medicare Appeal  Here are some basic steps for challenging Medicare coverage denials…. [Continued at Kaiser Health News.]

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By Susan Jaffe             November 15th, 2012  KAISER HEALTH NEWS

Health care providers who appealed to Medicare judges won more often than patients did,  according to a report by the inspector general at the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services.    

Hospitals, physicians, medical equipment suppliers and other providers also filed 85 percent of the cases decided by the administrative law judges in fiscal year 2010.   Some providers get plenty of practice, with 96 “frequent filers” responsible for one-third of the 40,682 appeals submitted to the judges, the IG found.   [MORE]

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By Susan Jaffe

POLITICO PRO   12/23/11 4:46 PM EST

When Congress gets back from the holidays, lawmakers are going to have to figure out how to find enough money to delay cuts in Medicare payments to doctors for a full year — but the patients have already started to pay for their share in their 2012 premiums.

Lost in the Capitol Hill debate is the fact that the federal government contributes only 75 percent of the cost of doctor visits and other outpatient services covered by Part B of the Medicare program. Under federal law, seniors chip in for the remaining 25 percent in the form of monthly premiums. The amount is based on estimated expenses for the coming year. And in calculating that share, Medicare officials anticipated that Congress would cancel the pay cut.

That means the patients will effectively pay part of the cost of a Sustainable Growth Rate “fix” before it’s been fixed…. more

Seniors already paying for full-year ‘doc fix’

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By Susan Jaffe

KAISER HEALTH NEWS  in partnership wth   National Public Radio

                                                                                     

DEC 07, 2011 

Federal officials are extending the Dec. 7 deadline for three days for some people who have had trouble enrolling in a Medicare prescription drug or private health plan because of the crush of last-minute sign-ups. …Seniors can only get extra time if they get on a call-back list. If they reach a live person, today’s deadline applies and they should be prepared to make a decision…. more

Medicare Offers Extra Enrollment Time For Seniors Who Call Today

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Officials Looking To Cut Federal Spending Eye Medigap Policies

By Susan Jaffe  KAISER HEALTH NEWS in collaboration with      Nov. 21, 2011

Margaret Fisher is among the millions of seniors with private, supplemental health insurance that takes care of most of the medical bills Medicare doesn’t cover. If she has a health crisis, she reasons, it won’t become a financial crisis, too.

But officials looking for ways to cut the federal deficit are suggesting that these Medigap policies help explain why the government’s Medicare bill is rising so fast. If these private policies were less generous, they figure, seniors might reduce their trips to the doctor or find cheaper care, which in turn would save the government money.Fisher, 86, a cancer survivor   from Gaithersburg who has had two hip replacements, says that strategy could backfire… [Continued on Kaiser Health News and in The Washington Post]

Doctors skittish about health technology despite promise of big federal bucks

By Susan Jaffe  | Center for Public Integrity  |  July 7, 2011

The goal is to bring the last outposts of the nation’s health care system into the computer age, linking medical providers so that they can coordinate and improve patient care and — in the process—reduce unnecessary health care spending. But convincing everyone to use electronic health records has not been easy. …Neither  reward nor punishment has 

persuaded some small practice doctors — a troubling omen for the Obama administration, which believes that conversion of paper records to electronic form is a crucial step toward health care reform. [Continued]

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