“Medicare Part B Premiums Rise 7% In 2020, With Premiums For Highest-Income Couples Nearing $12,000 A Year,” by Ashlea Ebeling, Forbes “The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has announced Medicare Part B premiums for 2020, and the base premium increases nearly 7% from $135.50 a month to $144.60 a month. That $9.10 monthly increase compares to a modest $1.50 monthly increase last year. Meanwhile high earners are still getting used to income-related surcharges that kicked into higher gear in 2018, and those have been bumped up again too. The wealthiest senior couples will be paying nearly $12,000 a year in Medicare
Read More

“A Retirement Community That Comes to You,” by Paula Span, New York Times “Typically, a C.C.R.C. operates a complex or campus where residents shift from independent living to assisted living, a memory-care unit or a nursing home if their health and mobility decline. But in continuing care at-home programs, members essentially spend the independent living years in their own houses. … Though some at-home programs date to the 1990s, there are still very few. Across the country, nearly 2000 C.C.R.C.’s, mostly nonprofits, serve about 745,000 residents. Only 32, in about a dozen states, have added at-home programs. But more senior
Read More

“IRS Seeks to Adjust RMDs for Longer Lives,” by Melanie Waddell, ThinkAdvisor Quote: “The Internal Revenue Service has released proposed regulations to update the life expectancy tables for required minimum distributions from qualified retirement plans, IRAs and annuities. … With the proposed change, a retiree’s first RMD would be 3.44% of their account, down from 3.65%, according to Jeff Levine, a CPA and financial planner.”   LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform): If this change takes effect, retirees will have more wealth to protect for longer … one more reason to insure for LTC
Read More

“Even If You Have Medicare, You’ll Still Pay Thousands Out-Of-Pocket For Health Care,” by Howard Gleckman, Forbes Quote: “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 of medical treatment. And while most seniors purchase Medicare Supplement (Medigap) insurance to top up their basic Medicare, even they may incur significant
Read More

“Long-term care resident Medicare beneficiaries spend $22,384 out of pocket for healthcare annually: study,” by Lois A. Bowers, McKnight’s Senior Living “Residents of long-term care facilities who have traditional Medicare coverage spent an average of $22,384 out of pocket for healthcare in 2016, the latest data available, according to a new analysis of Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services data by the Kaiser Family Foundation. In the study, ‘long-term care facility’ was defined to include assisted living, personal care facilities and retirement homes …. Eighty-eight percent of the out-of-pocket healthcare costs for long-term care residents, or $19,632, went toward the cost of long-term care
Read More

“12% of Medicare Advantage Plans Will Offer Expanded Supplemental Benefits in 2020,” by Robert Holly, Home Health Care News “The Medicare Advantage boom for home care is almost here. Ever since the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) first expanded the scope of Medicare Advantage (MA) supplemental benefits in April 2018, at-home care providers have been trying to figure out they fit into a potentially new reimbursement puzzle. … Overall, at least 364 plans will take advantage of CMS’s more flexible MA policies in 2020, according to the Milliman study, which was commissioned by the Washington, D.C.-based Better Medicare Alliance.
Read More

“How Much Do Medicare Beneficiaries Spend Out of Pocket on Health Care?,” by Juliette Cubanski, et al., Kaiser Family Foundation “In 2016, the average person with Medicare coverage spent $5,460 out of their own pocket for health care (Figure 1). This average includes spending by community residents and beneficiaries residing in long-term care facilities (5% of all beneficiaries in traditional Medicare). Among community residents alone, average out-of-pocket spending on premiums and health care services was $4,519 in 2016. But some groups of beneficiaries spent substantially more than others. Current Medicare-for-all proposals in Congress and from presidential candidates would largely eliminate out-of-pocket costs
Read More

“Wearable activity trackers a reliable tool for predicting death risk in older adults,” MedicalXPress “A federally funded study by Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers shows that wearable accelerometers—mechanical sensors worn like a watch, belt or bracelet to track movement—are a more reliable measure of physical activity and better than patient surveys and other methods used by physicians at assessing five-year risk of death in older adults.”   LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform): No wonder Google bought Fitbit: more searchers longer.
Read More

“What Retirement? People Over 65 Are Launching Encore Careers and Finding Fulfillment Like Never Before,” by Alix Langone, CNN Money “A growing number of older Americans are challenging the idea of traditional retirement, as more retirees decide they want to keep working or pursue passions after leaving the rat race behind: the number of Americans age 65 and over who continue to work has doubled since 1985, according to a study by United Income. Some people simply need to keep a paycheck coming in to cover the bills, but many want some combination of rewarding work on their own terms
Read More

“CDC: U.S. life expectancy rises slightly, mortality rates fall compared to ’07,” by Alicia Lasek, McKnight’s LTC News “Long-Term Care Planning Is Still a Great Way to Connect With Clients: Kristi Rodriguez,” by Allison Bell, ThinkAdvisor “United States life expectancy has increased slightly and mortality rates are down compared to 2007 numbers, while nursing homes are the third-most-used long-term care service, according to new data released this week by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Life expectancy rose to 78.6 years in 2017 – up 0.5 years from 2007, reported the agency’s National Center for Health Statistics. In
Read More