“Medicare Advantage Enrollees More Likely to Enter Low-Quality SNFs,” by Maggie Flynn, Skilled Nursing News “Fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare has been increasingly de-emphasized in favor of newer payment models such as Medicare Advantage (MA), but a new study in the journal Health Affairs suggests that FFS might provide better skilled-nursing choices for its beneficiaries. ‘Even after accounting for the quality of nursing homes in a geographic area and the quality of Medicare Advantage plans in a geographic area, patients in Medicare Advantage plans tended to go to lower-starred nursing homes,’ David Meyers of the Brown University School of Public Health told
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“Wisconsin considers tax-protected long-term care accounts,” by Kimberly Marselas, McKnight’s LTC News “Wisconsin residents will be able to invest in long-term care funds set up like popular, state-based college savings plan, if legislators get their way. A bipartisan bill making its way through the state assembly would allow people to contribute $5,500 to $8,500 per year, depending on age, and withdraw the money tax free for qualified long-term care. . . . The sponsors and aging advocates who helped draft the bill describe it as an alternative to costly long-term care insurance designed to meet needs not covered by Medicare.
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“Millennials flock to nursing at twice the rate of baby boomers, staving off shortage,” by Shari Rudavsky, Indianapolis Star “Millennials are saving the nursing profession. Facing a potential shortage due to baby boomers retiring, nursing has welcomed an unexpected surge of millennials entering the field. Those millennials are nearly twice as likely to be nurses as their grandparents’ generation, the baby boomers, a recent Health Affairs study found. This trend has averted a potential workforce crisis and has implications for the future of nursing, said David Auerbach, one of the authors of the study.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses,
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“Pfizer Ends Hunt for Drugs to Treat Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s,” by Jonathan D. Rockoff, Wall Street Journal “Pfizer Inc. PFE 0.19% said Saturday it will stop trying to discover new drugs for Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, abandoning costly but futile efforts to find effective treatments for the disorders. . . . Like several peers, Pfizer has invested heavily in developing treatments for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s because of the huge need, but met disappointment when once-promising compounds failed to work during testing.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform): More bad news on Alzheimer’s research. Pfizer Ends
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“What happens when retirement expectations meet reality,” by Alison Salka, MarketWatch “While spending patterns in retirement may differ substantially from preretirement expectations, the biggest deviation from expectations seems to be on health and long-term care costs. Four in 10 retirees are spending more than they anticipated. This finding is true across all demographic and income levels. This perhaps explains why four in 10 retirees said they were very concerned that significant health care costs will affect their standard of living, according to a 2017 consumer survey of the LIMRA Secure Retirement Institute.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center
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“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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Beginning January 1, 2018, the 2018 edition of the “Before You Buy” publication MUST be provided to every individual applying for a Connecticut Partnership-approved long term care insurance policy. “Before You Buy” is a publication produced by the Office of Policy and Management which includes a complete description of the Connecticut Partnership for Long Term Care. Click here to download the 2018 edition of “Before you Buy.” Please contact the Transamerica LTC Sales Desk with questions: 877-532-4910.   Connecticut Partnership for Long Term Care 2018 “Before You Buy” Publication Requirements   #goldencareagent #transamerica
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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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