“American Jobs Act proposes big dollars for caregiving — here’s the bigger vision it lacks” – The Hill
“It’s about time we as a nation acknowledged the critical importance of caring for adults in their fragile years to both the economy and the fabric of our society.”
by Amy Cameron O’Rourke, opinion contributor
Study | “Medicare Advantage beneficiaries save more money on out-of-pocket costs than Medicare fee-for-service” – Fierce Healthcare
“Medicare Advantage offers care for more low-income individuals compared with traditional Medicare, a new analysis from Better Medicare Alliance said.” (Getty/zimmytws) “Better Medicare Alliance is the nation’s leading research and advocacy organization supporting Medicare Advantage. Together, we are over 150 Ally organizations from across the health care spectrum and more than 500,000 grassroots beneficiary advocates united in our mission to build a healthier future through a strong Medicare Advantage.” – Better Medicare Alliance
by Robert King
“Medicare Advantage plan holders spend $1,640 less a year compared with traditional fee-for-service, a new analysis finds.
“The analysis released Tuesday from the advocacy group Better Medicare Alliance also found that lower-income Medicare beneficiaries are more likely to choose MA over the traditional program.
“Beneficiaries in MA reported out-of-pocket and premium spending of $3,354 a year in 2018, compared with $4,994 in fee-for-service, the analysis added. That was a $42 increase since 2017.
“’This results in a 40% lower cost burden for consumers than traditional Medicare’” said Allyson Schwartz, president and CEO of Better Medicare Alliance, in a statement. ‘The consumer savings in Medicare Advantage translates to meaningful financial security and peace of mind for millions of beneficiaries.’
“The analysis also found that more than 40% of beneficiaries who make under 200% of the federal poverty level were enrolled in MA, compared with 27% of beneficiaries that make more than 400% of the poverty level.”
Click to continue reading this article at Fierce Healthcare.
“‘Providers Don’t Even Listen’: Barriers To Alzheimer’s Care When You’re Not White” – NPR
“As a researcher at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, Alice Mukora says she understands the need to enroll diverse populations in Alzheimer’s research. But that would be more likely to happen, she notes, if people of color had better experiences getting Alzheimer’s care.” – Siri Stafford/Getty Images
by Jon Hamilton
“Many members of racial and ethnic minority groups say they face extra barriers when seeking care for a friend or family member with Alzheimer’s disease.
“Black, Hispanic, Asian and Native American caregivers were far more likely than whites to encounter discrimination, language barriers and providers who lack cultural competence, according to a report released Tuesday by the Alzheimer’s Association.
“‘Among nonwhite caregivers, half say they’ve faced discrimination when navigating through the health care system,’ says Maria Carrillo, the association’s chief science officer. Just 17% of white caregivers reported that sort of problem.
“Black caregivers were most likely to report barriers, followed by Native American, Asian American and Hispanic caregivers.
“One major concern reported by those trying to get treatment or other support for a loved one is that ‘providers don’t even listen to what they are saying, perhaps because of their race, color or ethnicity,’ Carrillo says. ‘What they’re experiencing is actually affecting their care,’ she notes.”
“Learning to Listen to Patients’ Stories” – The New York Times
“Narrative medicine programs teach doctors and other caregivers ‘sensitive interviewing skills’ and the art of ‘radical listening’ to improve patient care.”
“Waclawa ‘Joanne’ Zak, who now lives in Oxford, Wis., fought in the Polish resistance during World War II. As a teenager, she served as a scout, assessing German troop strength and positions. Later in the war she trained as a nurse and was liberated from a German P.O.W. camp. She told her story as part of the ‘My Life, My Story’ program at the William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital in Madison, Wis.” Credit…Andy Manis for The New York Times
by Richard Schiffman
“The pandemic has been a time of painful social isolation for many. Few places can be as isolating as hospitals, where patients are surrounded by strangers, subject to invasive tests and attached to an assortment of beeping and gurgling machines.
“How can the experience of receiving medical care be made more welcoming? Some say that a sympathetic ear can go a long way in helping patients undergoing the stress of a hospital stay to heal.
“’It is even more important now, when we can’t always see patients’ faces or touch them, to really hear their stories,’ said Dr. Antoinette Rose, an urgent care physician in Mountain View, Calif., who is now working with many patients ill with Covid.
“’This pandemic has forced many caregivers to embrace the human stories that are playing out. They have no choice. They become the “family” at the bedside,’ said Dr. Andre Lijoi, a medical director at York Hospital in Pennsylvania. Doctors, nurses and others assisting in the care of patients ‘need time to slow down, to take a breath, to listen.’
“Both doctors find their inspiration in narrative medicine, a discipline that guides medical practitioners in the art of deeply listening to those who come to them for help.”
Click here to continue reading this article at The New York Times.
“My Life, My Story: Advancing the Veteran Experience” – Veterans Affairs
“Village doctor in Ukraine faces coronavirus challenge” – Associated Press
“Dr. Viktoria Mahnych, walks on country road to attend to her patient near Iltsi village, Ivano-Frankivsk region of Western Ukraine, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)“
by Mstyslav Chernov and Yuras Karmanau
“VERKHOVYNA, Ukraine (AP) — Riding a horse-drawn cart, Dr. Viktoria Mahnych trots along country roads to attend to her patients in several villages nestled in the Carpathian Mountains in western Ukraine.
“The country of 42 million has recorded more than 1.1 million confirmed COVID-19 infections and nearly 20,000 deaths. Mahnych, 30, now fears that the long holidays, during which Ukrainians frequented restaurants and other entertainment venues, attended festive parties and crowded church services, will trigger a surge in new coronavirus infections and make her job even more difficult.
“Starting Friday, Ukraine imposed a broad lockdown aimed at containing a surge in infections, but many medical workers say that the move came too late.
“The streets of Ukrainian cities swarmed with festive crowds during the holidays and thousands flocked to churches to attend Christmas services Thursday in the mostly Orthodox country without worrying about social distancing or wearing masks.”
Read this compelling article at the Associated Press, click here.
From top to bottom: “A medical worker talks with coronavirus patients in a hospital organized in the medical college in Lviv, Western Ukraine, on Monday, Jan. 4, 2021. A medical worker treats Mykhailo Kaldarar, patient with COVID-19 as his wife Oleksandra Kaldarar, left, looks at him in a hospital in Rudky, Western Ukraine, on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)”
“LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — A medical college in western Ukraine has been transformed into a temporary hospital as the coronavirus inundates the Eastern European country.
“The foyer of the college in the city of Lviv holds 50 beds for COVID-19 patients, and 300 more are placed in lecture halls and auditoriums to accommodate the overflow of people seeking care at a packed emergency hospital nearby.
“The head of the hospital’s therapy division, Marta Sayko, said the college space has doubled treatment capacity. She hopes a broad lockdown ordered Friday will reduce the burden on the Ukrainian health care system.
“’Considering that now the number of cases is growing, more patients arrive in a grave condition with signs of respiratory failure,’ Sayko said.”
“Poll: Most Americans plan to use telehealth after the pandemic” – MedCity News
Most Americans plans to use telehealth after the pandemic, according to a survey conducted by the Harris Poll. While most respondents were comfortable using virtual visits, they were also keen on keeping in-person visits with their doctor.
by Elise Reuter
“As many people sought out virtual visits for the first time during the Covid-19 pandemic, most plan to continue to use them in the future. Roughly 65% of people plan to continue to use telehealth after the pandemic ends, according to a survey recently conducted by The Harris Poll.
“In general, people over age 65 were more likely to favor in-person visits over telehealth, according to the survey of 2028 adults conducted between December 18 and 20.
“Early in the pandemic, telehealth visits soared as in-person visits were restricted to conserve resources. But many returned to in-person care over the summer, though telehealth use was still up significantly from before the pandemic.
“Roughly 83% of all survey respondents said they had ever used telehealth. The majority across all age groups said they were comfortable with virtual visits, especially those that had already used telehealth. But a majority of respondents also indicated that they still wanted to keep in-person appointments with their primary care physician.
“If given the option between a telehealth visit or an in-person visit, relatively few respondents (15%) said they would opt for telehealth services alone.”
Click here to read this article at MedCity News in its entirety.
“Think Your Health Care Is Covered? Beware of the ‘Junk’ Insurance Plan” – Kaiser Health Network
(KHN Illustration/Getty Images)
by Michelle Andrews
“Looking back, Sam Bloechl knows that when the health insurance broker who was helping him find a plan asked whether he’d ever been diagnosed with a major illness, that should have been a red flag. Preexisting medical conditions don’t matter when you buy a comprehensive individual plan that complies with the Affordable Care Act. Insurers can’t turn people down or charge them more based on their medical history.
“But Bloechl, now 31, didn’t know much about health insurance. So when the broker told him a UnitedHealthcare Golden Rule plan would cover him for a year for less than his marketplace plan — “Unless you like throwing money away, this is the plan you should buy,” he recalls the agent saying — he signed up.
“That was December 2016. A month later Bloechl was diagnosed with stage 4 non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after an MRI showed tumors on his spine.
“To Bloechl’s dismay, he soon learned that none of the expensive care he needed would be covered by his health plan. Instead of a comprehensive plan that complied with the ACA, he had purchased a bundle of four short-term plans with three-month terms that provided only limited benefits and didn’t cover preexisting conditions.”
Read this article in its entirety at Kaiser Health Network, click here.
“Has the time come for ‘hospital at Home’?” – next avenue
“How patients with certain conditions get care in the comfort of their home.”
by Ken Terry
“Herbert Prahl, a 73-year-old retired Lutheran pastor, was recently admitted to the Mayo Clinic hospital in Eau Claire, Wisc., for an infection of his vertebral spine. He underwent surgery so his doctors could take bone samples and determine what kind of bacteria were causing the infection. Afterwards, he was placed on powerful IV antibiotics.
“Once Prahl was stabilized, he normally would have been transferred to a rehabilitation facility to continue receiving the antibiotics. But his doctors were making this decision on a Thursday, and there was no possibility of Prahl being placed in one over the weekend. So he was facing four additional nights in the hospital, followed by a transfer to an institution that was 40 miles from his home.
“Then Prahl’s nurses told him about an alternative: The Mayo Clinic was conducting a pilot of a new acute-care model, in which he could receive hospital-level treatment at home. Was he interested in going home to his wife right away? He was.”
Click here to continue reading this article at next avenue.
“Our Average Life Expectancy Could Increase to 115 Years Very Soon” – Allure
“The more scientists learn about how we age, the more likely they are to recalibrate the clock. But that poses another question: Should they?”
Illustration by Liana Farmer
by Liz Stinson
“Humans are born with an expiration date. From the moment of conception, we’re assigned a shared fate — that someday, in some way, we all die. It used to come earlier. In ancient Roman times, people could expect to live 30 to 35 years. By the mid-20th century, life expectancy in the United States had risen to 65 for men and 71 for women. Today, the average American life span hovers around 78 years, though that’s far from the bounds of what is possible.
“Scientists believe that the capacity of the human body currently reaches its limits at around 115 years old. But most people fall short of that due to the ailments and vulnerabilities that accompany old age, a fact that has been tragically underscored by the COVID-19 pandemic. But what if it was possible to reach that outer edge? Just think about that delta for a second: 80 versus 115. “That leaves 35 years to realize,” says Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and author of Age Later (St. Martin’s Press). Barzilai is part of a growing cadre of scientists studying longevity — why we age, how our bodies break down, how it affects our well-being and quality of life, and what we can do to slow the process. These scientists believe in a future where interventions will forestall our physiological wear and tear, effectively making us better resistant to age-related diseases and, yes, maybe even pandemics.
“Extending life span is rooted deep in the human psyche.” Keep reading this article at Allure, click here.
“Survey finds nearly half of Americans having insurance coverage troubles” – Fierce Healthcare
“A new survey from the Commonwealth Fund found that 43% of Americans experienced coverage instability, which could worsen due to the COVID-19 pandemic.” (Getty/vinnstock)
by Robert King
“The first half of this year had 43% of working-age adults without stable insurance, an issue compounded by not just the COVID-19 downturn but by lingering problems with health plan affordability, a new survey finds.
“The survey, published Wednesday by the Commonwealth Fund, looks at reasons for instability in health insurance coverage, which has been thrown into disarray due to major job losses from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“’Even before the pandemic, people were struggling with inadequate health coverage and mounting medical debt,’ said David Blumenthal, president of the Commonwealth Fund, in a statement. ‘It has never been more important to ensure that all U.S. residents have affordable, comprehensive coverage to survive this pandemic and beyond.'”
Read this article in its entirety at Fierce Healthcare.
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