Medicare

An Important Look at Palliative Care

Mike Vitez at the Philadelphia Inquirer has done a great story on palliative care at a community hospital. Mike weaves the deeply touching story of Mary Tole, a 74-year-old woman who spent two months in the suburban Philadelphia hospital with an undiagnosed illness. She spent much of that time in an intensive care bed in a coma. Mike describes how the hospital's palliative care team [...]

By Howard Gleckman|2010-03-01T10:55:24-05:00March 1st, 2010|End of life, Health reform, Medicare|4 Comments

Medicare Rehab: You Don’t Need to be “Improving” to Get Help

You hear it all the time: "Medicare will only pay for rehab or personal care as long as you are getting better. If you are no longer improving after, say, a stroke, these benefits will stop." But according to the Center for Medicare Advocacy, a non-profit patient's rights group, this "improvement standard" may have become ingrained in the care system, but it [...]

By Howard Gleckman|2010-01-01T15:51:06-05:00January 1st, 2010|Medicare|0 Comments

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