“Giving States A Tool To Improve Long-Term Services and Supports,” by Susan C. Reinhard, Wendy Fox-Grage, Ellen O’Brien, Health Affairs “AARP’s Long-Term Services and Supports (LTSS) State Scorecard aims to pick up the pace of improving LTSS by providing comparable state data to benchmark performance, measure progress, identify areas for improvement, and improve lives. The Scorecard includes twenty-five indicators in five dimensions of performance: affordability and access, choice of setting and provider, quality of life and quality of care, support for family caregivers, and effective transitions. The numbers give comprehensive, multidimensional insight into LTSS. Our goal is for the Scorecard
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“A physician homebuilder tries to upend the nursing home industry — and give seniors back their independence,” by Bob Tedeschi, STAT “‘I spent my career trying to change the nursing home industry,’ [Dr. Bill Thomas] said. ‘But I’ve come to realize it’s not really going to change. So now what I’ve got to do is make it so people don’t need nursing homes in the first place. That what this is about.’ The idea sounds, in one sense, simple: create and market small, senior-friendly houses like this one and sell them for around $75,000, clustered like mushrooms in tight groups
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“Investors excited about independent and assisted living: report,” by Lois A. Bowers, McKnight’s Senior Living “CBRE forecast that active adult housing will become increasingly important to the senior housing and care industry — which traditionally is thought to include independent living, assisted living, memory care and skilled nursing — because it will attract baby boomers, who will be aged 53 to 72 years in 2018. Although overall, investors ranked active adult housing in third place in the survey as far as interest, 13% said they viewed it as the segment in which they were most interested, more than twice as
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“Gene Wilder’s widow on what it’s like to care for someone with Alzheimer’s,” by Karen Wilder, ABC News “In an exclusive essay for ABC News, Karen Wilder opens up about her 35-year marriage to the late actor and activist Gene Wilder. The ‘Young Frankenstein’ star died last year at the age of 83, after battling Alzheimer’s disease in the final years of his life. Wilder discusses some of the trials and tribulations caregivers or spouses can experience when caring for someone living with the debilitating disease. . . . Then came the biggest shocker: 40 percent of Alzheimer’s caregivers die
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“New Tax Law Enhances Life Settlements Market,” by Robin S. Weinberger and Peter N. Katz, ThinkAdvisor “The new tax law, the Tax Cuts and Job Act of 2017 (TCJA), contains two provisions that provide a boost to life settlements, which should spur added growth of the life settlement market. First, the law makes the tax treatment of a life settlement to the seller more favorable and, second, the increased estate tax exemption could make some policies, which were purchased for estate tax purposes, unnecessary and, therefore, candidates for a life settlement. It took more than eight years, but the IRS’s
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“LTC Costs Continue to Rise in 2018, but Some Buyers See a Drop,” by Melanie Waddell, ThinkAdvisor “While long-term care insurance costs increased slightly in 2017, some coverage can be less expensive depending on the insurer, according to new data from the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance. The 2018 Long-Term Care Insurance Price Index, an annual compendium of pricing prepared by the AALTCI, found that some costs have actually declined since a year ago.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform): Onward and upward. LTC Costs Continue to Rise in 2018, but Some Buyers
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“CMS Mulls Ways to Address Improper Skilled Nursing Discharges,” by Tim Regan, Skilled Nursing News “The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced a new initiative aimed at blunting the growing trend of improper discharges at skilled nursing facilities (SNFs). Across the country, the illegal ‘dumping,’ or eviction, of SNF residents has become a widespread issue—so much so that it’s now one of the most frequent complaints made to states’ long-term care ombudsman programs, CMS said in a Dec. 22 memo addressed to state survey agency directors.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform):
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