Note to President Obama: Families don’t just care for young children. They also care for aging parents, spouses, and adults with disabilities. In his State of the Union address last night and in an announcement last week, Obama proposed a number of steps aimed at helping working parents care for sick kids. Among his ideas: requiring employers to offer up to seven [...]
Imagine being able to receive fully integrated medical, social, and spiritual care in your own home. Nursing care is available 24/7. Home health aides provide basic personal assistance. Care is person-centered and focused on the specific needs of each patient. And for people with incurable chronic conditions, it focuses on managing symptoms, including pain, thus vastly improving their quality of [...]
The quality and accessibility of long-term supports and services depends in large part on where you live, according to a new report by AARP, The Commonwealth Fund, and the SCAN Foundation. Eight states—Minnesota, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Alaska, Hawaii, Vermont, and Wisconsin—provide the best care by nearly all of AARP’s measures. Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Indiana provide the [...]
Americans 40 or older know they’ll need some personal care as they age and worry about losing their independence or having to rely on others. Yet, they are more likely to plan for their funerals than for their care needs, have no idea what such care costs, and more than 4 in 10 mistakenly believe Medicare will pay for their [...]
Should you buy inflation protection for long-term care insurance? Absolutely. In fact, if you don’t think you can afford that extra coverage, you should probably rethink whether you should buy the insurance at all. The issue of inflation protection was just one of the subjects that I, along with financial adviser Michael Kitces and insurance industry spokesman Jesse Slome, discussed [...]
The other day, I wrote about a troubling report on the high likelihood of falls or medication errors in skilled nursing facilities. The problem is real and serious, but at least we can measure it-- which is a first step towards fixing it. In contrast, there is home care. More than eight of every 10 people who need long-term supports [...]
A new Medicare payment model would encourage health systems to provide fully-integrated medical care for people with chronic disease, according new bipartisan legislation sponsored by senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA), and congressmen Erik Paulsen (R-MN) and Peter Welch (D-VT). The measure would allow, but not require, participating providers to offer long-term services and supports as well as medical [...]
On Monday, I participated in a PBS NewsHour panel on how to improve services and supports for an aging America. PBS brought together a diverse group of long-term care experts to discuss some interesting international models for delivering supports and services to the frail elderly in a way that allows them to preserve their dignity and independence. The models ranged from [...]
On Monday, Nov. 4, I’ll be on a panel with a group of some highly respected long-term care policy experts to discuss some international creative models for delivering supports and services. The program, which will be held in Washington, is sponsored by the PBS Newshour and funded by the SCAN Foundation. We’ll be discussing a broad range of ideas—from the [...]
Americans have little idea how long-term supports and services are paid for, according to a new poll by Harris Interactive and the medical publishers HealthDay. Yet, they are worried about the cost, believe most people should buy long-term care insurance, and also favor a new government program to pay some or all of the costs of LTC. It is hard to [...]