Health and Disability

Americas Watchdog has created the Nursing Home Abuse Center to go after nursing homes that abuse their patients, and wants to assist law firms that also have an interest in Medicare-Medicaid fraud, Class actions, and employee wage and hour issues. According to the group, "we want to team up with larger personal injury law firms in specific cities, where we know nursing home abuse, Medicare or Medicaid fraud, and employee wage, and hour issues are rampant, to put a big dent in the problem." Personal Injury Law Firms, class action law firms, or employment law firms that might have an interest in this are welcome to call the group at 866-714-6466, or visit their web site at Http://NursingHomeComplaintCenter.Com………

Americas Watchdog Creates The Nursing Home Complaint Center To Team Up With Personal Injury Law Firms To Do Some Good

Video images of advanced dementia can help patients choose the type of care they want in the future, finds a study published on bmj.com today. The images also led to more stable treatment preferences over time.

 
Respecting patients' preferences for treatment is a key component of high quality end of life care. Traditionally, doctors help patients engage in advance care planning by describing hypothetical situations, such as advanced dementia, and exploring possible goals of care, but this approach is limited.

Visual images have been shown to improve communication of complex health information and inform end of life decision-making. So a research team, led by Angelo Volandes at Massachusetts General Hospital, examined whether a video of a patient with advanced dementia could shape the choices made by patients about the kind of care they would want in the future.

Video Decision Support Tool For Advance Care Planning In Dementia: Randomised Controlled Trial, UK

The Kaiser Family Foundation has launched a new health care reform gateway page which features numerous resources in one central location.

As part of the gateway page, the Foundation unveiled some new resources:

• An interactive tool for comparing major health care reform proposals,……
• A new interactive Web-based timeline that chronicles key events……
• A series of Explaining Health Care Reform Briefs…..
• A glossary…………….

Kaiser Annouces New Health Reform Gateway at Health Care for Health Care Workers

As the nation debates health reform options, the Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS) is launching Transforming Care for Dual Eligibles , a state initiative to test innovative care models for people who are dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid ("dual eligibles"). Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Vermont will implement strategies to improve care and control costs for dual eligibles, a high-need population with health care costs nearly five times those of other Medicare beneficiaries. The program is made possible through support from The Commonwealth Fund.

States To Pursue New Integrated Care Approaches For Dual Eligibles

The 2009 edition of the Almanac of Chronic Disease (pdf), subtitled “The Impact of Chronic Disease on U.S. Health and Prosperity,” has been released by The Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease (PFCD).

The report combines peer-reviewed data with commentary from national health care leaders and policy experts to provide a comprehensive collection of current information as well as guidance for making improvements through changes in individual, community, and national action.

A few notable facts from the ninety-two page report include:

• More than 133 million Americans, or 45 percent of the population, have at least one chronic condition.
• Of each dollar we spend on health care nationwide more than 75 cents – or about $1.7 trillion annually – goes toward the treatment of chronic illness.
• Treatment of patients with one or more chronic diseases now accounts for the vast majority of spending in both Medicare (96 percent) and Medicaid (83 percent).

Report: Chronic Diseases Take Heavy Toll on Health System, Economy at PHInational.org

……………….

For three hours, a variety of Senators and healthcare experts discussed options.  And for three hours, not one person said anything about long term services and supports (long term care, by another name).

Sadly, the closest that the hearing came to a mention of long term services and supports (LTSS) was when they engaged in a discussion of “the high cost of dying.”

Yup, the Senate, in all its gentle wisdom, is showing more interest in how much it costs for seniors and others to stay alive at the very end than they have shown in how seniors and people with disabilities live for the DECADES before we get around to dying…………………

Chairman Baucus, what’s on your political palate? : Center for Disability Rights : Free Our People

As we speak, Congress is deliberating on vast and important changes to the system of health care in the United States. This issue is one of crucial importance to all Americans, but of particular interest to those Americans who interact with public health insurance more than almost any other group -- people with disabilities. Ranging from veterans with disabilities who receive care through the Veteran's Administration health care system to the many low-income disabled adults who are eligible for Medicaid, the disability community interacts with the public health care infrastructure in the United States in a wide variety of ways. As we consider how to reform, streamline and expand that infrastructure through any of a variety of means, it is incumbent upon us to remember the key issues for making sure that health care reform doesn't leave disabled adults and youth behind……..

Ari Ne'eman: Health Care Reform and the Disability Community

Nearly two of every three adult Americans under age 65 who were covered by public insurance from 2005 to 2006 had at least one chronic illness, such as diabetes, heart disease, and kidney disease, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
-- About 57 percent of people with private insurance and 36 percent of the uninsured had one or more chronic ailments, such as diabetes, heart disease, and kidney disease
-- People who had two or more chronic illnesses accounted for 45 percent of the publicly insured, 32 percent of the privately insured and 17 percent of the uninsured.
-- Health expenditures for treatment of chronic conditions for adults with two or more such conditions averaged $6,455 for people who only had public insurance compared with $1,987 for the uninsured and $3,598 for people with private insurance.
-- However, a publicly insured person with two or more chronic illnesses had lower average annual out-of-pocket expenses than a similar uninsured person ($708 vs. $1,040).
-- Chronic diseases accounted for 57 percent of medical care spending for adults who only had public insurance, 46 percent for the privately insured, and 47 percent for the uninsured.

Two-thirds Of Publicly-insured Adults Have One Or More Chronic Conditions

Full report link is on the page through the link at bottom. 

Despite a public perception that the state's landmark health care reform law has turned out to be unaffordable, a new analysis by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation finds that the cost to taxpayers of achieving near universal coverage has been relatively modest and well within initial projections of how much the state would have to spend to implement reform, in part because many of the newly insured have enrolled in employer-sponsored plans at no public expense. 

The Foundation report concludes that state spending on the reform has increased by $350 million between fiscal 2006, the last year before reform, and fiscal 2010 - an average annual increase of only $88 million.

Massachusetts Health Reform: The Myth of Uncontrollable Costs | Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation

This is a pdf from Consumers Union about medical Errors and the 1 million people that have died from them in the last decade.

safepatientproject.org-ToDelayIsDeadly.pdf (application/pdf Object)