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The Partnership for Health in Aging released a set of 23 skills that all health care professionals - doctors, dentists, nurses, social workers and others - should have by the time they receive their degrees.
People who are dying currently can't get Medicare to pay for hospice care if they continue aggressive curative treatment. But the new health overhaul law could lead to a major change in olicy that allows both hospice and curative care.
CLASS takes a step towards moving long-term care financing from the welfare-like Medicaid program to an insurance-based system. But CLASS alone won't get there. Private insurance, currently a niche product that covers only about seven million Americans, will have to play an important role as well.
In Kansas, cuts to Medicaid in-home services for the elderly produce quick consequences for some people who have had to move out of their apartments and into nursing homes.
The CLASS Act, part of the health care overhaul, will provide about $75 a day to people who sign up for the long-term care insurance policy. Advocates say it could help people stay in their homes. But critics raise concerns about the financial viability of the program.
The TennCare cuts, which followed the resolution of a long-running court battle, affected mostly elderly or disabled residents, including approximately 37,000 who had relied on the state program for all their health care needs.
The act will promote saving for long-term assistance and will especially benefit senior citizens. This story comes from our partner
Seniors who reach the "doughnut hole" for prescription medications find that price increases are far outpacing inflation, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study.
Like many nursing homes, the Parker Jewish Institute in New Hyde Park, N.Y., was having problems with some of its patients with dementia wandering at night. The staff worried about falls, but they didn't want to hand out more psychotropic medicines. But one night in 2007, a nursing assistant accidentally stumbled on a solution.
What if your state helped you turn unused home equity into cash to pay for the care you need when you become old and frail?
Finding the right balance between too much and too little care is excruciating and highly personal for physicians, patients and families - one reason it's not discussed at a national level. This reluctance is mirrored by an unwillingness by lawmakers to confront hard choices on medical spending.
In the era of modern medicine, there is often no easy way to navigate between an acceptable quality of life and a death with dignity. But palliative care specialists, relatively new players on the health care scene, offer comfort, support, pain control and, if requested, spiritual counsel, helping people sort through often confusing and ambiguous medical options.
Living wills and advance directives were the hope for end-of-life decision-making decades ago. But a 2004 survey by FindLaw found that 36 percent of Americans have a living will, and even when people have filled out living wills, doctors often ignore them.
Palliative services are designed to help patients and their families sort through their options - ome of which may help restore the patient, while others may increase suffering for a minimal health benefit.
A directive passed last November in Tulsa, Okla., raises fresh questions about the ability of patients to have their end-of-life treatment wishes honored - and whether and how a health care provider should comply with lawful requests not consistent with the provider's religious views.
It is not clear why it's happening, but some hospice officials blame both a bad economy and Medicare rules that unintentionally discourage doctors from referring all but those who are about to die.
Nearly three years ago, Harry Rosenberg and his wife, Barbara Filner, met with nine of their neighbors about starting an aging-in-place "village" in Bethesda, Maryland. The idea: If neighbors could help one another with basic services such as transportation and simple home maintenance and with friendly visits, people could stay in their homes longer as they aged.
Families should be freed from the whims of politicians and the inevitable battles over government dollars by passing a national long-term care insurance program, such as the proposed CLASS Act.
There are two important lessons from the European experience with long-term care.
Critics of the CLASS Act argue that $75-a-day is insufficient. But a new study shows that millions could benefit.
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