New blog post: Cuts for nursing homes in Medicare this fall http://ping.fm/O29Gz - Article - WSJ.com
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The federal government has proposed a 1.2% cut in payments to nursing homes from the Medicare program as part of regulations that would take effect this fall.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, announced the proposed payment cut, which would amount to $390 million. The cut takes into account a 3.3% reduction in payments based on changes to CMS payments to skilled nursing facilities for "medically complex" patients and a 2.1% increase to account for inflation….
New blog post: http://ping.fm/yOD4z - CDC releases guidance for long-term care on swine flu infection - McKnight's Long Term Care News
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released interim guidance for healthcare facilities, including long-term care, for care of residents with confirmed or suspected swine flu, also known as the H1N1 virus.
The guidance offers recommendations regarding patient placement, isolation, management of visitors, and surveillance of healthcare professionals, among other guidelines. To date, there have been 109 confirmed cases in the United States and one death….
See the swine flu guidelines from the CDC at http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/guidelines_infection_control.htm.
CDC releases guidance for long-term care on swine flu infection - McKnight's Long Term Care News
Off to the Arc Michigan Straegic Planning Session
Disableism Day Blog Post http://bit.ly/Tb6Yq
My name is Eunice Spooner, I’m a member of First Congregational Church in Waterville, and I live in Sidney. I was a school teacher until a car crash left me a quadriplegic and confined to a wheelchair over 20 years ago. Since then, I have had many blessings in my life – wonderful family, friends, and caregivers, the chance to be a deacon at church, a volunteer at the Atwood Elementary School, and a member of the SAD #47 School Board. Still, the fact is that I cannot get through my day without a lot of assistance throughout the day, from getting up, doing light housework, driving to appointments, going me to bed and even using the bathroom…….
Worries About Losing Her Caregivers at Health Care for Health Care Workers
Culture is Frozen Struggle.
-after Roberto Unger
In our fight against ableism/disableism, we have passed through a legislative age (peaking with the passage of the ADA), and we are now in an operational age, in which building support systems and creating communities that are accessible are the focus, whether through policy change, legislation, or community organizing.
What might the future hold?
- Collaboration with other communities for change that includes our issues, in a broader context of struggle
We remain isolated from the community of psychiatric survivors and that of people with developmental and cognitive disabilities. The joke still is, “I may be _____, but I’m not ______!” (replace with your favorite vulnerable and oppressed communities). There is still no usable consensus on how to make the web accessible to people with low literacy, and the web as a whole is still growing faster than the accessible web. Driving change through peer relationships and peer organizations is still at its very beginning in both of these communities.
But Michigan has 500 peers working in the mental health system, a group of adults with DD is developing a model of peers, and I saw a nice article about an anarchist conference where safe spaces for recovery was a break out session.
- The oppression of people with disabilities still remains a cultural and ethical “right”.
While there is a lot more going on internationally than even a couple of years ago, people with psychiatric labels and persons with developmental disabilities still wallow in hideous institutions, not to mention nursing homes, both here and everywhere.
Medicine is finding (even developing standards for), killing us before we would die on our own, not treating us, and consigning us to ethical limbos based on our “inferiority”. Sterilization of people with DD still goes on in hospitals everywhere. Stephen Drake and Not Dead Yet still have way too much to do.
But, institutions are being challenged internationally, families are finding the courage to challenge their members oppression, and multi-ethnic culturally focused collaborations are fighting against the assumption of cultural “rights” to oppress.
I think these two arenas are the grounds upon which our struggles will take place for the next generation.
And we need to start working on prisons and disability and post-incarceration peer support.
Struggles they will be…….
Technorati Tags: disableism day
There’s actually a little-known veterans’ benefit that helps wartime veterans and their surviving spouses pay for a variety of medical and long-term care costs. Here’s what you should know.
The VA benefit that may help your dad is called “Aid and Attendance,” a special pension benefit established in 1952 that provides a tax-free monthly income up to $1,644 for a veteran; $1,056 for a surviving spouse; or $1,949 for a veteran and one dependent. The money can be used to pay for in-home care, assisted living and nursing home care as well medical expenses, prescription drugs and more.
Today, around 150,000 veterans and surviving spouses receive this benefit, but hundreds of thousands more are eligible and either don’t know about it, or don’t think they can qualify for it.
To qualify, your dad must have served at least 90 days of active military service with at least one day of service during a period of war (stateside or overseas), and was not dishonorably discharged. (Single surviving spouses of war time vets are also eligible if their marriage ended due to death.) Your dad will also have to meet certain physical and financial requirements to be eligible……
Image by Getty Images via Daylife
Sens. Max Baucus (D-MT) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) this week released several policy ideas for revamping America's healthcare delivery system. Many of these would affect the long-term care and post-acute care fields.
Under their proposal, a Medicare value-based purchasing plan would be implemented for skilled nursing facilities by 2012. Baucus and Grassley also suggest bundling payments for post-acute care services occurring or initiated within 30 days of hospital discharge. These would include skilled nursing facilities…..
