HHS Launches New Web Site Promoting Long-Term Care Planning Launched, USA

HHS' Assistant Secretary for Aging Josefina G. Carbonell announced a new Web site that will make it easier for consumers to get the information they need to plan for long-term care. The National Clearinghouse for Long-Term Care Information Web site provides comprehensive information about long-term care planning, services and financing options, along with tools to help people begin the planning process.

Connecting Tags; long term care, choice, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

False Spring in Long-Term Care Winter

Savvy public policymakers know that funding long-term care (LTC) will be a long, cold slog.

Even if they weather the perfect storm of impending Medicare and Social Security insolvencies, Medicaid--especially its LTC component--threatens to sink the ship of state when Boomers need expensive care.

Everyone knows the scary demographics and Medicaid's frightening budget impact. No need to repeat that here.

So, given the foreboding future of an industry heavily dependent on government financing, why are long-term care providers and the capital markets that support them thriving again? After a turn-of-the-millennium slump that sent eight nursing home chains into bankruptcy, left the assisted living industry overbuilt and under-occupied, and nearly choked off capital for all sectors of seniors housing, long-term care providers and financiers are cheerful and optimistic again.

Connecting Tags; LTC, Medicaid, choice, community-based, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

Tizard Report Advances Knowledge And Understanding Of The Abuse Of Vulnerable Adults

Researchers at the Tizard Centre, University of Kent, have conducted the most detailed analysis of adult protection referrals ever carried out in the UK. They used information from Kent and Medway Councils’ records, which are among the most detailed of any local authorities in England.

Connecting Tags; LTC, abuse, rights, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

Bill aims to give people choices on long-term care

CHEYENNE -- Sixty-one-year-old Virginia Snow of Torrington is unable to walk because of childhood spinal tumors. She uses what she calls a "scooter" to get around her home, where she lives alone with her cats and a dog.

Because of her disability, she needs considerable help, which she gets from homemaking services through the local senior center as well as Meals on Wheels. The Independent Living Program pays mileage to anyone who drives her anywhere.

Connecting Tags; LTC, Medicaid, choice, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

Panel wants to offer seniors more choices

CHEYENNE - A legislative committee is sponsoring a bill to give more Wyoming senior citizens alternatives to nursing homes.

The Joint Interim Committee on Labor, Health and Social Services is sponsoring a bill in the legislative session that begins next month that would commit about $2 million to expand existing programs for seniors through June 2008. It also would set up pilot projects for adult foster care and other new programs.

Connecting Tags; LTC, choice, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

CMS Publishes Final Patients' Rights Rule On Use Of Restrains And Seclusion - Better, More Extensive Training Of Staff Required, USA

Health care workers who employ physical restraints and seclusion when treating patients must undergo new, more rigorous training to assure the appropriateness of the treatment and to protect patient rights, according to a regulation published in the Federal Register today by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

Connecting Tags; LTC, Medicaid, Medicare, rights, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

Grant Results Topic Summary:

Improving the Quality of Long-Term Care

Connecting Tags; LTC, quality, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

Governor: State faces $1B budget shortfall

Gov. Jennifer Granholm will start her second term next month much as she started her first, wading into a sea of red ink that will force spending cuts and other measures to balance the budget.

The Democratic governor on Thursday warned during her traditional year-end news conference that the state needs to come up with at least $1 billion to balance this year's and next year's budget.

Connecting Tags; LTC, deficit, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

A flap over recouping costs of Medicaid

Ever since Judy Clifford's parents died, she had planned to move with her husband into their Nashville, Tenn., home, which she knew so well.

"I felt like they were still there," says Ms. Clifford, who is retired. "I could see my mother standing at the sink washing dishes and my daddy watching TV, and I wanted to stay in the house because of that."

Instead, the two-bedroom ranch-style home is for sale for $122,000, the subject of a bitter tug-of-war between the Cliffords and TennCare, Tennessee's healthcare program for the poor and uninsured.

Connecting Tags; LTC, Medicaid, housing, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

Home Health-Care Workers Have Few Legal Protections, Law Professor Finds

As more and more Americans turn to in-home health care workers to take care of elderly family members, research from a University of Iowa law professor has found nobody is taking care of the caregivers.

Connecting Tags; community-based, LTC, waiver, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

After storm, a scramble to check nursing homes

The realization hit public-health officials the morning after the Dec. 14 windstorm, when they gathered in the county's emergency-response center. Someone mentioned that a nursing home didn't have power.

Seniors' Physical And Mental Functioning Enhanced By Exercise

For older Americans, reversal of the brain shrinkage that occurs as people age is just one benefit of greater physical activity, according to research published in the latest issue of The Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences (Vol. 61A, No. 11). In a special section devoted to exercising and aging, this edition of the journal features five separate reports on the topic.

Connecting Tags; fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

Nursing Home Fiction vs. Facts

Nursing Home Fiction vs. Facts

Posted December 24 2006

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Nursing Home Fiction vs. Facts

What you might hear and what are the facts, from 20 Common Nursing Home Problems - and How to Resolve Them:

"You need to sign these papers before we'll admit your mother."

Connecting Tags; LTC, choice, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

HHS Releases FY 2008 FMAP Figures

State	Federal Medical Assistance Percentage	Enhanced Federal Medical Assistance

Michigan

58.10

70.67

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released figures for the Federal Medical Assistance Percentages and Enhanced Federal Medical Assistance Percentages for Fiscal Year (FY) 2008 in the November 30, 2006 Federal Register. These percentages will be in effect from October 1, 2007 through to September 30, 2008. FMAPs are used in determining the amount of federal matching funds for state expenditures for assistance payments for certain social services, and state medical and medical insurance expenditures.

Connecting Tags; Medicaid, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

LONG-TERM CARE REFORM: LEGISLATIVE EFFORTS TO SHIFT CARE TO THE COMMUNITY

Legislators are key players in each state’s political system. They join with a state’s chief executive to develop the framework for public policy and for its implementation. In the course of a legislator’s career, he or she is faced with a myriad of critical issues from highway construction to educational issues to health and drug safety.

In recent years, one of the most significant of these issues – and one of the toughest challenges – for state legislators has been escalating Medicaid spending, which now outranks education as the largest slice of a state’s budget. Total Medicaid expenditures in FY 2005 were $304.5 billion, of which about 31 percent or $94.8 billion was allocated to long-term care.

Connecting Tags; Medicaid, long term care, community-based, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

Electroconvulsive Therapy Causes Permanent Amnesia And Cognitive Deficits, Prominent Researcher Admits

In a stunning reversal, an article in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology in January 2007 by prominent researcher Harold Sackeim of Columbia University reveals that electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) causes permanent amnesia and permanent deficits in cognitive abilities, which affect individuals' ability to function.

Connecting Tags; Medicare, choice, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

FamilyCare Offers Free Shingles Vaccine To Oregon Medicare Enrolled Members

The new vaccine for adult shingles is now available free of charge to Medicare members of FamilyCare. Known as Zostavax, the vaccine is used in adults age 60 and older and reduces the incidence of shingles by half and pain and discomfort by nearly two-thirds according to Merck research.

Connecting Tags; Medicare, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

Health Costs For Minnesota Seniors At Least Double That Of Younger Residents, Study Finds

Minnesota seniors in their 60s and 70s have health costs double and sometimes triple the amount of spending for state residents in their 30s and 40s, according to a study released Friday by the Minnesota Council of Health Plans, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.

Connecting Tags; health, Medicare, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

More long-term care could become entitlement

John McMahon, director of Washburn County’s Department of Health and Human Services, has been leading a nine-county regional effort called the Northwest Wisconsin Long-Term Care Options (NW-LTCO) Collaborative to establish an array of long-term managed care services, called “Family Care,” an entitlement for the elderly and people with a physical or developmental disability.

Connecting Tags; LTC, Medicaid, community-based, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

U.S. Is Proposing to Cut Medicaid’s Drug Payments

WASHINGTON, Dec. 17 — The Bush administration on Monday will propose sweeping reductions in payments to pharmacies as a way to save money for Medicaid, the health program for more than 50 million low-income people.

Connecting Tags; Medicaid, pharmacy, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

States struggle to cover retirees

State and local governments are starting to take aggressive steps to reduce the enormous cost of providing health care benefits to retired teachers, police officers, firefighters and other public workers.

As 43 state legislatures prepare to convene next month, governments are cutting benefits, setting aside money to cover future costs and shifting expenses to the federal Medicare program.

Connecting Tags; Medicare, pharmacy, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

Washington State Nursing Homes With High Numbers Of Medicaid Beneficiaries Provide Lower Quality Care, Study Finds

Nursing homes in Washington state that rely primarily on Medicaid funds provide lower-quality care compared with privately funded nursing homes, according to a study released last week by the Northwest Federation of Community Organizations, the Spokane Spokesman-Review reports.

Connecting Tags; LTC, Medicaid, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

Medicaid annuities: Look before you buy

An annuity is a financial asset. It is a contract between the purchaser and the annuity company.

In exchange for the purchaser’s money, the annuity company agrees to pay the money back to the purchaser, with interest, over a period of time, sometimes for the purchaser’s life or the life of a named beneficiary.

Life insurance companies and annuity salespeople have begun aggressively marketing products they call Medicaid annuities or Medicaid-friendly annuities. Salespeople sometimes claim these annuities will shelter your assets from being used to pay for long-term care because they are not counted for Medicaid eligibility purposes.

Connecting Tags; Medicaid, LTC, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

Nursing Home Or Hospital: State Policy Has Big Impact On Elderly

For the first time on a national scale, a team led by Brown University researchers has traced the connections between state nursing home policies and a critical decision in the care of nursing home residents - whether to send these frail elderly to the hospital.

Connecting Tags; LTC, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

Senior Controlling Destiny

Two years ago, Ethel Funck caught a bad break.

Then 85, Funck was a healthy, vibrant woman living independently in a Palmyra apartment, where she had moved after her husband, Harold, died in 1990. But she broke her hip when she stumbled while carrying a chair, changing her life forever.

Connecting Tags;community-based, long term care, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

Want Official LTC Info?

Try the web site of the

Office of Disability, Aging, and Long-Term Care Policy

Connecting Tags;long term care, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

Man charged with kidnapping wife

CENTER LINE - An 85-year-old man has been charged with kidnapping his wife from a nursing home and taking her to Florida, where they lived for nearly a year before being found by authorities.

Joseph Perez of Warren faces a preliminary examination Wednesday in 37th District Court. He has been charged with kidnapping, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, for taking his wife from Father Murray Nursing Center in January.

"We're looking out for the best interests of the alleged victim," John Latella, an assistant Macomb County prosecutor, told The Macomb Daily of Mount Clemens.

But defense lawyer Azhar Sheikh criticized the prosecutor's office, saying Perez was charged too harshly. "This is an extremely sad case," he said. "He was just trying to help his wife. He doesn't belong in jail. This man needs to get some help. He cares for his wife. He wanted to take care of her and did nothing to harm her."

The couple lived in Florida until about Nov. 1, when a Medicaid claim tipped off police.

Perez is being held in the Macomb County Jail, while his wife is living in their Warren home under full-time care.

Latella said Perez had been a guardian for his wife, who is about the same age, for several years but was stripped of that designation because of how he cared for her. She was later placed in the nursing home.

Connecting Tags;long term care, community-based, choice, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

State gives $800,000 to Elder Network

The Elder Network of the Capital Region recently received more than $800,000 in state funding to establish sustainable, aging-prepared communities, which will serve as models to augment the state's long-term care policy reform initiatives.

Connecting Tags;LTC, fan-the-flame, copower, prosynergy

Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report Highlights Medicaid Developments In Texas, Virginia, Washington, D.C.

Texas: Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (R) on Wednesday said that state and federal investigators have served 19 search warrants in Dallas and 11 other cities in a statewide investigation of fraudulent billing practices by ambulance companies, the Dallas Morning News reports.

Tags: Medicaid

Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report Highlights Medicaid Developments In Texas, Virginia, Washington, D.C.

Texas: Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (R) on Wednesday said that state and federal investigators have served 19 search warrants in Dallas and 11 other cities in a statewide investigation of fraudulent billing practices by ambulance companies, the Dallas Morning News reports.