“Medicare, Medicare Advantage physician rates nearly equal,” by Emily Gersema, USC News “Medicare Advantage plans managed by private insurers pay physician prices that are similar to traditional Medicare rates, according to a new USC-led study. . . . For example, the mean rate for an office visit in Medicare Advantage was 97 percent of the traditional Medicare rate. Medicare Advantage’s mean reimbursement rate ranged from 91 percent of traditional Medicare’s rate for the physician fee for a cataract removal in an ambulatory surgery center to 102 percent of traditional Medicare for a complex emergency department visit. The researchers concluded that
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“Aging in America: Crisis in long-term care,” CBS News   “There are currently about 40 million Americans over the age of 65, and those over 80 are the fastest-growing segment of our population. Rita Braver reports on a group of seniors who have banded together and found a way to make their golden years not just affordable, but truly ‘golden.’” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform): This moving story is a bit dated and certainly naïve to suggest the “Villages” movement will fix long-term care. It also shows how little progress has been made
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“Thinking Boomer: Understanding This Generation and What They Need From You,” by Olivia Mellan, and Sherry Christie, ThinkAdvisor “‘Leading boomers, born from 1946 to 1955, and trailing boomers, born from 1956 to 1964, have different outlooks on retirement and money in general,’ said Cam Marston, author, speaker, coach and founder of demographic profiling firm Generational Insights. Understanding these two echelons, and incorporating their differences into your approach, can be the key to connecting with a boomer client.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform): A boomer is a boomer is a boomer? Well, no there
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“Insurance pays little for caregiving of elderly at end of life,” by Ronnie Cohen, Reuters “Unpaid family and friends provide the overwhelming majority of care to the elderly in their last year of life, according to a new study highlighting the need to expand supportive services to caregivers. . . . In 2011, 2.3 million caregivers tended to the needs of an estimated 905,000 older Americans in their final year of life, the report in Health Affairs found. Nearly 9 in 10 of the caregivers were unpaid, and only 9 percent of dying older adults received money for caregiving from
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“2 of 3 Americans Don’t Have ‘Advance Directive’ for End of Life,” by Robert Preidt, HealthDay “The research looked at data from more than 795,000 Americans. Just 29 percent had completed a living will that contained specific end-of-life care wishes, and 33 percent had designated a health care power of attorney. Completion of advance directives was slightly higher among patients with chronic illnesses (38 percent) than among healthy adults (33 percent), and much higher among patients 65 and older (46 percent) than among younger adults (32 percent), the findings showed.” LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term
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“One Woman’s Slide From Middle Class to Medicaid,” by Ron Lieber, New York Times “A dozen or so years into retirement, Rita Sherman had plenty going for her financially. Recently widowed, she had a net worth of roughly $600,000 as of 1998. Her health was excellent, and she dutifully purchased a long-term care insurance policy that would cover three years of nursing home costs should she ever need help. Watching over it all was her daughter, a medical social worker, and her son-in-law, a financial planner. By the time she died at the age of 94 last year, however, all
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“Serious head injuries nearly double your risk of dementia,” by Andy Coghlan, New Scientist “Serious head injuries nearly double a person’s risk of developing dementia. That’s the message from an analysis of over 40,000 people who sustained some kind of head injury between 1986 and 2014. Half the people in the study had moderate-to-severe head injuries, which cause lesions in the brain and require a person to stay in hospital for three days or more. The other half had milder head injuries with no lesions, and were able to go home within a day. Comparing the longer-term health of these
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