Howard Gleckman Archives - Page 5 of 58

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

For The First Time, Traditional Medicare Will Pay To Support Family Caregivers

The federal agency that operates Medicare, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), is finally recognizing what families have known for, well, thousands of years: Family members are the bedrock of the system of care for frail older adults and younger people with disabilities. And the agency is taking some important steps to help them. Some proposals will provide [...]

By Howard Gleckman|2023-08-23T11:35:50-04:00August 23rd, 2023|family caregivers, Medicare, Uncategorized|0 Comments

Why Do So Few Doctors Want To Specialize In Caring For Older Adults?

You might think that the aging of the Baby Boom generation, with the Gen Xers following close behind, would make geriatric medicine a popular specialty. Almost as attractive, perhaps, as orthopedic surgery. But you’d be very, very wrong. In 2000, there were only about 10,000 board-certified geriatricians to care for 35 million Americans age 65 or older. That was bad [...]

By Howard Gleckman|2023-08-15T10:56:51-04:00August 15th, 2023|Health Care|0 Comments

Should People With No Symptoms Get A Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease?

The National Institute on Aging and the Alzheimer’s Association have proposed revised clinical guidelines that would designate seven major stages of the brain disease. The first two would be for people who have no symptoms but may be at higher risk for Alzheimer’s. These technical guidelines, which would update a 2018 version, could have enormous, and conflicting, implications for drug [...]

By Howard Gleckman|2023-08-08T10:47:15-04:00August 8th, 2023|dementia|0 Comments