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Who Really Owns Nursing Homes, And How The Feds Are About To Learn More

The federal government wants to know more, and wants consumers to know more, about who owns  nursing homes. It is about time. And it may help identify some of the worst actors who pollute the nursing home industry. However, without easier access to this new information, I’m not sure how helpful it will be for prospective residents and their families. [...]

By |2023-11-27T11:22:48-05:00November 27th, 2023|nursing homes|0 Comments

Three Experiments To Help Reduce The Shortages Of Senior Care Workers

The US is desperately short of nurses, personal care aides, and other direct care workers who help frail older adults and younger people with disabilities manage their days. Instead of dealing with the problem, policymakers have, predictably, devolved into their usual partisan blame-mongering. Watch, if you can, this recent hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on the worker [...]

By |2023-11-16T09:54:05-05:00November 16th, 2023|nursing homes, Senior housing|0 Comments

Forget National Caregivers Month. Think About What Family Caregivers Need

Welcome to November, National Family Caregivers Month, one of those Hallmark Card-like designations that politicians grant when they can’t, or won’t, actually act to help people. But instead of getting frustrated over what Congress isn’t doing, it seems like a good opportunity to think about what support those family members need. Many groups have surveyed family caregivers over the years [...]

By |2023-11-07T13:21:28-05:00November 7th, 2023|family caregivers|0 Comments

NIH Steps Back From Project Developing Alzheimer’s Diagnostic Standards

The National Institutes of Health’s Institute of Aging has dropped its name from a controversial joint project with Alzheimer’s Association to revise clinical research standards, which it calls criteria, for determining who has Alzheimer’s disease. The relationship was unusual. NIH rarely sponsors projects to develop such standards, and almost never partners with advocacy groups. Typically, such guidance is written by expert panels organized [...]

By |2023-10-31T17:27:50-04:00October 31st, 2023|dementia|0 Comments

Can Reimagined Hospice Combine Medical Care With Support In Dying?

After a half-century as a Medicare benefit, hospice care still has had only limited success in improving the quality of patients’ lives as they approach their deaths. While more people are enrolling in hospice (about 1.7 million in 2020), they often do so only days before dying. Thus, they fail to benefit from the best of what hospice has to [...]

By |2023-10-23T15:51:01-04:00October 23rd, 2023|End of life|0 Comments

A Provocative Prescription For Fixing US Health Insurance

We’ve Got You Covered: Rebooting American Health Care is a study in contrast. On one hand it is a chatty, easily accessible look at the failings of the US health insurance system by two of the nation’s best young health economists. But behind the one-liners and informal presentation, it proposes a highly provocative, radical alternative to our current mess. Liran [...]

By |2023-09-29T15:19:03-04:00October 10th, 2023|Health Care|0 Comments

Which States Provide The Best—And Worst—Long-Term Care Services?

Minnesota and Washington are the states that provide the best services and supports for frail older adults, younger people with disabilities, and their families, according to a new study by AARP. The worst performers: Alabama and West Virginia. AARP defines superior supports and services as those that are affordable and accessible, give families a choice of high-quality and safe care [...]

By |2023-09-29T14:59:11-04:00October 2nd, 2023|long-term care|0 Comments

Fixing Nursing Homes Nine Small Steps At A Time

It hardly is news that nursing homes are in trouble. Consumers think they are unsafe; nurses, aides, and other staff are reluctant to work for them; hundreds of facilities are shutting and others are closing beds and even entire wings because they can’t staff them. How can these multiple problems be fixed? The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) [...]

By |2023-09-19T10:55:58-04:00September 19th, 2023|nursing homes|0 Comments

What New Nursing Home Staffing Rules Would Mean For Residents And Patients

In a long-awaited and highly controversial decision, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed that nursing homes provide at least three hours of staff time daily for every patient or resident. Would it meaningfully improve care at nursing facilities? Not by much. The rule would require facilities to provide enough staff to deliver 33 minutes (.55 [...]

By |2023-09-05T11:37:08-04:00September 5th, 2023|nursing homes|0 Comments

Why Medicare Is Right To Negotiate Drug Prices

The Biden Administration has announced its list of the first 10 drugs that will be subject to price negotiations, a step allowed for the first time when Congress passed last year’s Inflation Reduction Act. The Pharmaceutical Manufacturers’ Association (PhRMA), the main drugmaker lobby, blasted the law. No surprise there. But its reasoning is evidence of how perverse the US health [...]

By |2023-08-30T11:36:35-04:00August 30th, 2023|Medicare|0 Comments