Half of Medicare beneficiaries, about 30 million people, are enrolled in Medicare managed care plans such as Medicare Advantage (MA). And increasingly those plans are offering modest, but important, non-medical services to older adults living at home. These supplemental services are the only long-term care-type benefits most seniors will receive through Medicare. The assistance may include anything from meal and [...]
It Is Medicare open-enrollment season. And retirees are confronting the usual confusion about what to do. Perhaps the biggest question: Should I enroll in a Medicare Advantage managed care plan or in traditional, fee-for-service Medicare? Like almost everything in the world of insurance, the answer is: It depends. In 2022, almost half of all Medicare beneficiaries were enrolled in MA [...]
As of Monday, only about 22 percent of the covid-19 vaccine doses that have been distributed for use in long-term care facilities have made their way into the arms of residents and staff. As has been well documented, these residents—nearly all with pre-existing medical conditions and functional and cognitive impairment-- are the most vulnerable to serious illness and death from [...]
The statistics simply are staggering. More than 728,000 residents and staff of long-term care facilities have contracted covid-19 over the past nine months. More than 100,000 have died—a number that has doubled since June. That is equal to roughly the entire population of San Mateo CA, or Green Bay WI. Four of every 10 covid-19 deaths in the US have [...]
Could all those COVID-19 nursing home deaths have been prevented? No. Could some of them have been prevented? Certainly. And many more can be prevented in the future. How? With more testing, with better testing that produces rapid results, with more personal protective equipment (PPE) and better staff training in how to use it, with far better management of staff [...]
With great fanfare, President Trump announced yesterday that his administration would deliver about two weeks’ worth of masks to nursing homes by the Fourth of July . And he’d stand up a commission to study quality and safety in nursing homes. All just in time to celebrate May as “Older Americans Month.” The masks apparently are going only to nursing [...]
The headlines are eye-opening: On Friday, the Kaiser Family Foundation reported that, as of as of April 23, there were more than 10,000 reported deaths from COVID-19 in long-term care facilities—in just the 23 states that publicly report this information. That may be shocking. But it should not be surprising. COVID-19 has exposed and amplified our profoundly flawed system of [...]
One of the biggest misconceptions seniors have about health care is this: I have Medicare so don’t need to worry about medical costs in old age. It is a dangerous mistake. Not only does traditional Medicare generally not pay for long-term supports and services (either at home or in a nursing home), but it doesn’t pay for a significant chunk [...]
A typical 65-year-old couple will need to save nearly $400,000 to pay for out-of-pocket medical care and long-term care in old age, according to new estimates by the Fidelity Benefits Consulting. That is $60,000 more than a typical couple’s entire savings at retirement, including equity in their home. Fidelity estimated an older couple will need to put away an average [...]
The public overwhelmingly thinks doctors should have end-of-life conversations with older patients. It even thinks Medicare ought to pay for those talks. It just doesn’t want to have them, at least not yet. Those are results of a new Kaiser Family Foundation poll, which found that 89 percent of respondents felt physicians should discuss end-of-life choices with them. But only [...]