The overuse of antipsychotic drugs “is one of the most common and longstanding, but preventable practices causing serious harm to nursing home residents today,” Toby Edelman of the Center for Medicare Advocacy told the Senate Aging Committee last week. She said these drugs are often used off-label (that is: for purposes other than the ones for which the FDA approved [...]
Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn) warned today that long-term care financing is "a major train wreck" and "heading for a national crisis." Corker, the senior Republican on the Senate Aging Committee, said he was very worried about the viability of private long-term care insurance and added , "there is no doubt there is a public sector role" in the future of financing [...]
Why not make insurance for long-term care services and supports part of health care coverage? It is a radical idea that turns the current model—which often treats long-term care insurance as an element of retirement planning—entirely on its head. The concept isn’t new. John Rother, who ran public policy for AARP for many years, talked about integrating long-term services and [...]
Increasingly, surgeons are beginning to change the way they perform operations on elderly patients. They are coming to realize that almost everything is different about surgery on older people: The patient’s goals, the likelihood of complications, and the entire process of treatment from pre-op through surgery itself to recovery. As a result, doctors are learning that they not only need [...]
The fate of many important health reforms aimed directly at seniors is in the hands of the Supreme Court. While the public has focused most of its attention on whether the High Court will strike down the individual mandate in the 2010 health reform law, the justices today are hearing arguments about another critical issue: What should happen to the rest of the Affordable Care [...]
The fiscal plan proposed this week by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) would profoundly change the way seniors and younger adults with disabilities receive health care and personal assistance. For many programs, it would reduce funding from today’s levels even though the population of those over 65 will double by mid-century. In many ways, it would end the [...]
Since last year's demise of the CLASS Act, those of us worried about how the U.S. will finance the long-term care needs of the frail elderly and younger adults with disabilities have been looking for an opportunity to reopen the issue. Today, in a small first step in that direction, about two dozen state and federal officials, advocates, insurance company executives, and researchers met [...]
Assisted living and other residential care facilities are looking more and more like nursing homes. About one in four provide skilled nursing services, between half and two-thirds offer case management, and-- at least among larger facilities---two-thirds offer their residents physical or occupational therapy. More than one-third of residents will make an emergency visit to the hospital and more than one [...]
I spent this morning at an interesting Capitol Hill conference on an important—but often ignored —topic: What role should home health aides play in the delivery of care to people with chronic disease? Health care providers and policy experts are spending lots of time thinking about ways to better integrate medical and personal care. They are finally recognizing that people [...]
Long-term care services are not on the front burner of the Presidential campaign. They are not on the back burner. They are, it seems, not even on the stove. Most presidential candidates don't care enough about long-term care services to bother to describe their views on issue. Of the five candidates surveyed by 15 national advocacy groups only two--President Obama and former [...]