What do Hurricane Florence and frail old age have in common? Millions of people know they are coming yet won’t do anything to protect themselves against a high-risk threat. Several recent news items put this in focus. And all of them point in the same direction: Americans are unable to plan for a catastrophe, even one we know is coming. [...]
Last week, Microsoft announced it will require its vendors to provide up to 12 weeks of paid leave for new parents. Nice thought, but the tech giant missed an important opportunity. By limiting the required benefit only to new parents, it is ignoring the needs of workers caring for spouses, siblings, or aging parents. In some respects that’s not surprising. [...]
Mom falls and breaks her hip. Her injury is repaired at the local acute care hospital but she needs intensive rehab and post-surgical care. She could be sent home or to a skilled nursing facility (SNF) but instead she is discharged to a long-term care hospital (LTCH)—a facility that specializes in intensive post-acute services. But a new study, published by [...]
Is the growing need for long-term supports and services (LTSS) by older adults driving big increases in Medicaid spending? Not according to a new study by Don Redfoot and my Urban Institute colleague Melissa Favreault. Indeed, they found that while Medicaid enrollment and expenditures for older adults grew in recent decades, it had far less effect on the program than [...]
You hear it all the time, from doctors, patients, and critics of Medicare: “It is impossible to find a doctor who will take Medicare. If you find one, you will have to wait forever for an appointment.” There is just one problem: The story that patients cannot access care from Medicare physicians is an urban myth. It is not true. [...]
In recent weeks, I’ve had no fewer than a half-dozen conversations with friends about a difficult—and often embarrassing--issue. No, it isn’t sexual dysfunction, incontinence, or money problems. It is hearing loss. One of every three Americans aged 64-75 has lost some hearing. Half of those 75 and older have trouble hearing. The longer we live, the more we are going [...]
The Trump Administration and a bipartisan majority in Congress have moved to allow Medicare Advantage managed care plans to offer a wide range of personal services such as home delivered meals, transportation, and bathroom grab bars—to members who need them. This would be a sea change in the way Medicare has supported older adults with chronic conditions for the past [...]
The Trump Administration has proposed major changes in the way Medicare pays doctors, as well in the ways hospitals disclose prices. Among the immediate adjustments: The government would pay more for some procedures such as kidney dialysis and less for others such as hip and knee replacements. It would also make major revisions to an ambitious new payment model that [...]
The Trump Administration has taken a modest step towards expanding the use of remote monitors to track blood pressure and other vital signs for Medicare recipients living at home. While there is little evidence so far that remote monitoring improves health outcomes, advocates for seniors as well as device manufacturers believe the tools can make it more likely that frail [...]
Increasingly, older Americans are likely to die at home, and not in a hospital. And more seniors are using hospice care as they near end of life. However, stubbornly large numbers of Medicare beneficiaries still land in intensive care units or find themselves shuttled from home to hospital and back again in their last months of life. A fascinating and [...]