“Why The WSJ Is Wrong About Long-Term Care Planning,” by Jamie Hopkins, Forbes “A recent Wall Street Journal article, “Millions Bought Insurance to Cover Retirement Health Costs. Now They Face an Awful Choice,” has been circulating on the internet but for all the wrong reasons. The WSJ piece essentially falls into the “bad news sells” category of reporting. While the article itself provides plenty of great statistics and touches on a very important topic, the article really misses the mark on two main points about long-term care insurance.  Its ‘Woe is me!’ theme actually pushes people away from doing quality
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“GE’s LTCI Block Might Be Different: Rating Agency,” by Allison Bell, ThinkAdvisor “The overall state of the U.S. long-term care insurance (LTCI) industry could be healthier than the blocks of LTCI business reinsured by General Electric Co.’s reinsurance units. Analysts at Moody’s Investors Service give that assessment in a new analysis of the big GE reserve shortfall. . . . GE’s blocks may look worse than typical blocks . . . because GE has assumed responsibility for the blocks from the insurers that originally wrote the coverage, and because GE has operated the reinsurance business as a runoff business, the analysts write.”
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 “The true cost of obesity to SNFs,” by Joy Stephenson-Laws, McKnight’s LTC News “It is now estimated that more than 40% of obese adults are between the ages of 65 and 74 and that almost 30% are over 75.  On average, more than 35% of adults over 60 are obese. At some point in their lives, many of these older obese adults will need rehabilitative, short-term or long-term care. It has been reported that at least a quarter of patients entering skilled nursing facilities are either moderately or severely obese. Given that obese adults are almost twice as likely to
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“One Day Your Mind May Fade. At Least You’ll Have a Plan,” by Paula Span, New York Times “Dr. Barak Gaster, an internist at the University of Washington, had spent three years working with specialists in geriatrics, neurology, palliative care and psychiatry to come up with a five-page document that he calls a dementia-specific advance directive. In simple language, it maps out the effects of mild, moderate and severe dementia, and asks patients to specify which medical interventions they would want — and not want — at each phase of the illness.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center
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“Long-Term Care Insurance Claim Payments Rise 6.4%,” by Allison Bell, ThinkAdvisor “Long-term care insurance (LTCI) providers paid about $9.2 billion in U.S. long-term care claims in 2017, or about 6.4% more than they paid in 2016, according to the American Association for Long Term Care Insurance. . . . The number of people on claim increased 5.4% between 2016 and 2017, to 295,000, according to AALTCI.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform): Something tells me we won’t see these findings on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Long-Term Care Insurance Claim Payments Rise 6.4% #long-term #goldencareagent
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“Only 7% of Caregivers Prefer to Work in Nursing Homes, Report Finds,” by Maggie Flynn, Skilled Nursing News “Nursing homes fared particularly poorly in a new report on caregiver preferences, with only 7% saying they preferred to work in that setting. The other results highlighted what many in senior care have known for a long time: The labor market is tough, and the ramifications could be extensive. Specifically, 65% of caregivers are “always looking for a better job,” while 97% are open to a job opportunity at any given time, according to the findings from Chicago-based MyCNAjobs, which offers a
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“Alzheimer’s Association issues new guidance for dementia care in nursing homes,” by Kimberly Marselas, McKnight’s LTC News “The Alzheimer’s Association Thursday published new recommendations meant to shape dementia care practice at nursing homes, assisted living facilities and other long-term care and community care providers. The recommendations, posted online and to be published as a supplement to the February issue of The Gerontologist, outline 56 recommendations across 10 content areas. By age 80, 75% of people with Alzheimer’s are admitted to a nursing home. The new recommendations are aimed at guiding person-centered care in those settings and reflect an expert panel’s
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“Mutual of Omaha plans to sell Medicare Advantage health plans in 2019,” by Steve Jordon, Omaha World-Herald “Mutual of Omaha will begin selling its first Medicare Advantage health plans in 2019 in cooperation with Lumeris Inc., a St. Louis company that will arrange health provider networks and manage the plans. It’s a big step for the Omaha-based insurer, which got out of the individual and small-group health insurance business more than a decade ago, although it has sold Medicare Supplement plans since 1966 and is the second-largest source of those plans. But Medicare Supplement enrollment is declining and Medicare Advantage
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