Health and Disability

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The National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), an advocacy group for women, is filing federal sex discrimination complaints against four of the largest American insurance companies for discriminating against women in their long-term care insurance plans. NWLC contends the companies’ plans to charge women more for the policies violates Obamacare protections barring sex discrimination in insurance plans.

The long-term care industry has long maintained that Obamacare’s rules barring insurers from charging women more for their health care don’t apply to them. Early last year, the nation’s largest long-term care insurer announced that it be charging women between 20 and 40 percent more in monthly premiums.

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"These findings show the effects of state policies that are designed to stand in the way of health reform. These restrictive policies are measurably impairing community-level efforts to cover the uninsured," said Sara Rosenbaum, JD, the Harold and Jane Hirsh Professor of Health Law and Policy at SPHHS and a study co-author. "Without the Medicaid expansion or comprehensive enrollment assistance, millions of people in medically underserved communities could go without the benefits provided under the Affordable Care Act."

The newly added conditions are in Red-an accessibility problem, but there you go....

http://goo.gl/f1DDV

Compassionate Allowances (CAL) are a way of quickly identifying diseases and other medical conditions that invariably qualify under the Listing of Impairments based on minimal objective medical information. Compassionate Allowances allow Social Security to target the most obviously disabled individuals for allowances based on objective medical information that we can obtain quickly. Compassionate Allowances is not a separate program from the Social Security Disability Insurance or Supplemental Security Income programs. 

http://goo.gl/BF9q4W

Some 5,000 uninsured people come into O’Connor Hospital’s emergency department each year, and now it is Araceli Martinez’s job to help them find coverage. In an office just down the hall from the ER, Martinez runs the Health Benefits Resource Center which has beefed up staffing and hours, with funding from Covered California, in response to the Affordable Care Act. Martinez says prior to 2014, uninsured patients had few options to pay off hefty hospital bills or enroll in health coverage. Now when they come in through the emergency room and are faced with a bill, “they’re saying at that time, ‘Well, maybe I can afford [some coverage].’”

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But Sebelius, in town to work with new Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan to boost Detroit’s enrollment through www.healthcare.gov, said consumers can only do so much and then let the system work.

The website is the virtual shopping site for coverage under health reform.

“If they have taken steps to get themselves ready, they don’t have to worry about that at all,” she said, referring to tax penalties and credits that otherwise expire March 31.

Consumers need to start the process at the website or at the national call center, but it will be up to the state to make sure the program is in place by April 1, Sebelius said.

http://goo.gl/j1MdCS

The reason why insurance companies do not like to pay for the medication I just wrangled and sweated to get approved is because this particular drug costs between $62,000 and $112,000 per year per patient.

When the average person imagines “using insurance” or “filling a prescription,” they probably envision swinging by a CVS or Walgreens and picking up a bottle of antibiotics. When you live with a chronic illness, though, this pedestrian image bears no resemblance whatsoever to the knock-down, drag-out realities of negotiating with for-profit insurance corporations and “specialty pharmacies” that deal exclusively in expensive, often injectable, drugs.

Since being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in July 2007, I’ve become a veritable expert in navigating insurance companies, pharmacies, drug manufacturers, and like.

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Older adults who received as few as 10 sessions of mental (cognitive) training showed improvements in reasoning ability and speed-of-processing when compared with untrained controls participants as long as 10 years after the intervention. These gains were even greater for those who got additional "booster" sessions over the next three years. Older adults who received brief cognitive training also reported that they had less difficulty in performing important everyday tasks. The findings are published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

http://goo.gl/RMnyJh

The authors make four suggestions for doctors (and adult children):

Don’t focus too much on safety: For many frail elders, safety is not their primary goal. They may be willing to trade off risks (of, say, a fall) for independence. Think about reducing harm rather than eliminating all risk. If, for instance, an apartment is filled with trash, think about reducing the clutter, not necessarily making the home perfectly clean.

Use persuasion: Many physicians are most comfortable giving instructions. But with these patients, gentle persuasion may be more effective. Build trust. Don’t tell a frail elder she must let someone in to help. Ask instead, “What concerns you about letting someone come into your home to help?”

Make home visits: It’s a good way to build the patient’s trust and perhaps begin to allow other members of a care team or community volunteers to enter the home as well.

Plan for the worst case: Work with the elder and her family on advance care planning.

http://goo.gl/XkO8oR

These dogs are individually trained to meet the needs of persons with memory loss problems. They provide safety and companionship. They also relieve the anxiety of family caregivers. 

To support a person with dementia, dogs are trained to help with

• memory and routines. Keeping to a daily regimen helps people with dementia function independently for longer. A trained dog can provide reminders to take pills or eat meals.
• safety. A dementia dog can recognize unsafe situations. For instance, it might cue your family member to turn off the water or the stove. If wandering is a problem, the dog can serve as a door sentry. And if your loved one does wander, the dog can find him or her by scent.
• physical activity. Having a dog companion can prompt your family member to take walks, but you won't have to worry about their getting lost. Some dogs are even trained to help with balance and the physical aspects of walking.
• mood and companionship. Dogs are remarkably intuitive. They can calm an agitated person and comfort someone who is sad.

Loss of the ability to drive independently is a trigger for many to slide into cognitive decline and degradation of health...

http://goo.gl/0bj0iI

Building upon more than a decade of research on older driver safety, The Hartford and MIT AgeLab worked with a panel of leading experts in driving, aging and technology to conduct an in-depth study that involved the review of 25 new technologies and identification of the top ten that can benefit mature drivers. The features that rank the highest include*:

1. Smart headlights: adjust the range and intensity of light based on the distance of traffic and to reduce glare and improve night vision

2. Emergency response systems: offer quick assistance to drivers in the case of a medical emergency or collision, often allowing emergency personnel to get to the scene more quickly

3. Reverse monitoring systems: warn of objects to the rear of the vehicle to help drivers judge distances and back up safely, and helps drivers with reduced flexibility

4. Blind spot warning systems: warn drivers of objects in blind spots, especially while changing lanes and parking, and helps those with limited range of motion

5. Lane departure warning: monitors the vehicle's position and warns the driver if the vehicle deviates outside the lane, helping drivers stay in their lane

6. Vehicle stability control: helps to automatically bring the vehicle back in the intended line of travel, particularly in situations where the driver underestimates the angle of a curve or experiences weather effects, and reduces the likelihood of a crash.........