Health and Disability

Using the new “Care.com Benefits,” caregivers registered on Care.com can now access Stride’s financial guidance, personalized recommendations and year-round navigation support for dental and medical insurance plans in time to meet the Jan. 31 deadline to enroll in health plans for 2016.

“Caregivers are professionals doing one of the most important jobs imaginable; yet, because their workplace is frequently in someone’s home, they often don’t have access to the same benefits other professionals take for granted. In teaming up with Stride Health, we hope to change that,” said Sheila Lirio Marcelo, founder, chairwoman and CEO of Care.com, in a prepared statement. “Care.com Benefits delivers easy, personalized access to health care and coverage for U.S. care providers registered on Care.com, regardless of how many hours they work. We expect to expand upon the benefits offering later this year.”

Through Care.com Benefits, each Care.com caregiver registered in the United States is set to receive personalized health plan recommendations that optimize total cost of care and coverage every year, comparing 38 factors across thousands of plans to keep preferred doctors, determine the most cost-effective plan and guarantee affordable prescription drug coverage, according to the company.

"Although we found that physicians said the same things to their black and white patients, communication is not just the spoken word," wrote Dr. Amber E. Barnato, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the study's senior author. "It also involves nonverbal cues, such as eye contact, body positioning and touch."

And that's where the doctors in the study let their black "patients" down, the research suggests.

When interacting with whites -- explaining their health condition and what the next steps might be -- the doctors in the simulations tended to stand close to the bedside and were more likely to touch the person in a sympathetic way.

With blacks, the doctors were more likely to remain standing at the door of the hospital room and to use their hands to hold a binder -- a posture that could make them appear defensive or disengaged.

The requirement that nonprofit hospitals earn their tax-exempt status by benefiting their communities is enshrined in U.S. tax policy. This expectation reflects the substantial financial value conferred by tax-exempt status of about $24.6 billion in 2011, according to the most recent estimate.

The significant reduction in the proportion of uninsured Americans as a result of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) health insurance expansions, coupled with the greater focus on community health planning under the ACA’s reforms governing tax-exempt hospitals, has increased interest among hospitals in how they might expand the traditional community benefit concept into a newer and larger horse for health and society.

One such health care delivery system example detailed in this post is Trinity Health’s Transforming Communities initiative. Trinity Health is focusing on Community Health and Well-Being as a way to empower low-income, disadvantaged, and underserved populations and communities while also addressing the social determinants of health.

According to Trinity Health’s Community Health and Well-Being strategy, achieving these goals rests on three pillars comprised of clinical services through the Trinity Health system for those living in poverty, community engagement through wraparound services focusing on poor and vulnerable populations, and of particular relevance to this post, community transformation focusing on the built environment, economic revitalization, and other social determinants of health.

The New England Journal of Medicine published a letter to the editor reporting results of a 10-year study using Rituxan (rituximab) in combination with intravenous immune globulin for the treatment of pemphigus vulgaris (PV), a potentially fatal autoimmune blistering disease that affects the skin and mucous membranes.

Findings showed that, following the discontinuation of Rituxan, all patients continued to remain in remission without recurrence of the disease.

Results showed that:

• During the 10-year follow up period, there were no short-term or long-term adverse events observed, and there was no need for hospitalization.
• No other autoimmune disease, cancer, or deaths occurred after treatment with either Rituxan or intravenous immune globulin.
• Counts of CD19+ B-cells revealed normal levels in starting in 2006 and continuing on.
• Skin biopsy specimens obtained 5 years after the last dose of Rituxan was administered from sites that had previously been affected by the disease showed no indication of disease on direct immunofluorescence assay.

2016 is here and we thought it would be a great time to examine the best Arthritis blogs to enjoy for the New Year! Check out our top selections (in no particular order). If you feel that there is a blog that we missed, simply comment at the bottom of the page- we will review reader suggestions and add more blogs to this list on a rolling basis.

We also are awarding Blog Badges to the winners! Scroll down to the bottom of the page to grab the html. If you have any trouble installing the blog badge – ping ryan@chronicpaindisorders.com.

Section 1557 is the primary nondiscrimination provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA).

It prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, and disability by applying existing civil rights laws to health insurers and providers that receive federal financial assistance. Specifically, the provision covers health insurers on the federal and state exchanges, hospitals, and physicians who receive Medicaid, meaningful use payments, and other forms of federal funding.

However, under the proposed rules issued by the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Section 1557 would not reach physicians who receive Medicare Part B payments but no other federal funding.

If the proposed rules are accepted without change, a nontrivial segment of physicians will be exempt from complying with the ACA’s nondiscrimination provision. Contrary to the text and purpose of Section 1557, this would allow physician bias—a well-documented factor that may contribute to health disparities based on race and ethnicity (see, e.g., here and here), sex (here, here, and here), sexual orientation (here), age (here and here), and disability status (here)—to remain unchecked in many cases.

HHS offers two justifications for its decision to exempt Medicare Part B physicians, neither of which are compelling. The first is a pragmatic argument: HHS concludes that the number of physicians who would be exempt is very small, though its analysis likely significantly underestimates the impact of the exemption.

Second, HHS offers a substantive argument based on its prior interpretations of civil rights laws. However, these prior interpretations rely on inapplicable and outmoded rationales that run counter to Section 1557’s application of civil rights laws to health insurance and its sweeping breadth generally.

A number of studies have reported the negative health effects of consuming some processed foods, including increased risk of weight gain and heart disease. And last October, the World Health Organization (WHO) concluded that eating processed meats can cause colorectal cancer.

Now, Prof. Aaron Lerner, of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, and Dr. Torsten Matthias, of the Aesku-Kipp Institute in Germany, suggest the consumption of processed foods may be associated with development of autoimmune diseases.

There are more than 100 types of autoimmune disorders. Some of the more common forms include celiac disease, type 1 diabetes,multiple sclerosis (MS), Crohn's disease and rheumatoid arthritis.

In their study, the researchers identified at least seven common food additives - including glucose, gluten, sodium, fat solvents, organic acids, nanometric particles and microbial transglutaminase (an enzyme used as a food protein "glue") - that weakened tight junctions in the intestine.

Based on their findings, the researchers suggest that consumption of processed foods may increase the risk for autoimmune diseases. They note that the food additive market is not highly regulated, making such findings a cause for concern.

Diet is a huge component of managing your Fibromyalgia pain. Today we are going to look at milk and the role it plays in interacting with Fibromyalgia pain.

The problem of dairy for Fibromyalgia sufferers

Patients with diabetic foot complications have an increased risk of developing cognitive issues further down the line, new research shows.

The first-of-its-kind study, conducted by researchers from Israel's Ben-Gurion University, involved 99 patients with diabetic foot ulcers. The patients' cognitive abilities were tested before and after they developed ulcers. All patients reported similar cognitive function prior to developing ulcers.

Compared to patients who did not develop ulcers, those who did showed reduced concentration, poor memory, learning problems, slower motor responses, reduced inhibition and decreased verbal fluency.

In a small pilot project, seniors utilizing monitoring technology had about 50% fewer emergency room visits and hospitalizations than peers with similar health status but no in-home sensors, according to STAT, a health and science publication from Boston Globe Media.

The project involved monitors from Healthsense, a company that already is working with many assisted living providers to help track residents’ health and safety. Now, the company is looking to expand into private homes.