Veterans Legacy Memorial

The Veterans Legacy Memorial is the first digital platform dedicated entirely to memory preservation for the 3.7 million Veterans interred in VA national cemeteries. Each Veteran has or will have memorial page. Search the site for Veterans, find out where they are buried or interred and read the details of their lives and service. Future capabilities may be expanded to allow families, survivors, fellow Veterans and others to add photos and share memories to a deceased Veteran’s memorial page.  Check it out here. 

Aging in Place: 39 Million Home and Personal Care Robots A Year By 2024

ID 112050146 © Vladislav Kochelaevskiy | Dreamstime.com

McKnight's Senior Living recently published an article with the headline, "Report Predicts 39 Million Robot Shipments A Year By 2024."  A new report from ABI Research predicts that number of home care and personal/social robots a year will be shipped, and that almost 79 million homes around the world will have robots in them. 

According to the article, "[r]obotic capabilities will be particularly useful for older adults who are aging in place or for ambient assisted living end-users"  Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) tools are designed to be sensitive and responsive to the presence of people, and include,  for example. robots that can detect falls, or track a person's health.

According to Jonathan Collins, smart home research director at the research company: 

"Robotic device start-ups such as Intuition Robotics and Blue Frog Robotics already target the AAL market with devices that can integrate with smart home systems. “While home care robots release residents from time-consuming and repetitive tasks, social robots offer the potential to further extend into physically interacting in homes and the individuals within them in ways that can go beyond monitoring into the realm of kinship and socialization.”

Amazon and Google are positioned well to lead in social robot advances because artificial intelligence and voice recognition are the basis of their Alexa and Assistant platforms, which are already popular, the report authors stated.

This blog has repeatedly reported articles that support the proposition that technology is providing solutions for Aging in Place planning precisely at the time when these solutions are most needed.  

Increasing Blood Pressure Drugs Upon Hospital Discharge Poses Health Risks

Increasing blood pressure medications when older patients are discharged from the hospital may also increase falling, fainting or kidney injury risks, according to a new study reported by a recent article in McKnight's Long-term Care News. Investigators claim such dangers outweigh possible treatment benefits.

Researchers from University of California, San Francisco and San Francisco VA Health Care System studied more than 4,000 patients who were at least 65 years old and hospitalized for non-cardiac issues. Patients discharged with greater amounts of blood pressure drugs saw no fewer cardiovascular events and no improvement of blood pressure control after one year. At the same time, risk for readmission and serious adverse events surged for some patients within 30 days of discharge.

“Our findings suggest that making medication changes during this period is not beneficial,” said the study’s lead author, Timothy Anderson, M.D., MAS, MA, a primary care research fellow in UCSF’s Division of General Internal Medicine.  “Instead, deferring medication adjustments to outpatient doctors to consider once patients are recovered from their acute illness is likely to be a safer course,” he added. 

This blog rarely reports regarding hospital health outcomes, but this study impacts directly Aging in Place since it concerns prescriptions written at or near discharge from the hospital. Seniors and their families should be aware of the findings, and the concerns raised by these findings, and may want to independently verify the advisability of such prescriptions with a primary care physician upon discharge. 

Class-action Challenges Observation Status Determinations - Seeking Medicare Eligibility for Nursing Home Care

More than 1.3 million Medicare observation stay claims could be appealed if a class-action lawsuit filed against the Department of Health and Human Services is successful.

The lawsuit challenges a rule that requires an individual to spend three consecutive days as a hospital inpatient in order to receive Medicare skilled nursing coverage. The lawsuit was first filed in 2011 by seven Medicare observation patients but now figuratively represents hundreds of thousands.

Patients are often admitted to hospitals under observation status — and remain at that designation without their knowledge, sometimes for multiple days — before being sent to a skilled nursing facility. Medicare normally pays for some nursing home care following a three day hospitalization. Observation care, however, is considered outpatient service and doesn’t qualify as a prerequisite for Medicare’s nursing home coverage, often leaving patients responsible for unexpected medical expenses.  

Patients were often wholly unaware of the fact that they were being treated under observation status, prompting passage of the NOTICE Act, about which you can read more here.  Even with the protections of the Act, however, patients are often unable to make real decisions regarding their care and status, and consequently, patients often find themselves responsible for large nursing home bills which remain uncovered by Medicare if the care follows a hospital stay deemed under observation status.

Worse, the determination that the stay is under observation status cannot be appealed to Medicare. The class-action lawsuit challenges the provision that Medicare disputes involving observation claims are not subject to appeal.

“This is about whether the government can take away healthcare coverage you may be entitled to and leave you no opportunity to fight for it,” Alice Bers, litigation director at the Center for Medicare Advocacy, one of the groups representing the plaintiffs, told Kaiser according to an article in Kaiser Health News.

If successful, people with Medicare who received observation care services for three days or more from January 2009 through 2017 would be able to file an appeal and seek reimbursement for bills the program should have paid, according to the report. About 1.3 million observation claims reportedly meet that criteria.

In March, industry advocates praised legislative efforts that would allow patients under observation stay to be eligible for Medicare skilled nursing coverage.  In a statement to the U.S. House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee in May, the Observation Stays Coalition urged Congress to address observation stays while discussing surprise medical billing. The coalition is composed of several beneficiary and provider organizations, including LeadingAge, the American Health Care Association, the American Association of Post-Acute Care Nursing and the National Association for the Support of Long Term Care.

“Unfortunately, there have been countless heart-wrenching stories from older people and their families who have had to pay high out-of-pocket charges since they were deemed to be on observation status, and Medicare did not cover their necessary skilled nursing facility care. Often, these individuals didn’t even know they were on observation status — or know to ask,” the statement said. “It is simply not right to limit access to quality care for those most in need.”

Less Than One-Third of New Medicare Beneficiaries Enroll in Medicare Advantage

The Kaiser Family Foundation recently released new findings about what coverage new Medicare enrollees choose. This information is important in understanding what beneficiaries want from their coverage, and may shed insight into whether beneficiaries are availing themselves of available options. Some thought that the aging Baby Boom generation, having had more experience with HMOs and PPOs during their working years, would select the private plans over traditional Medicare at relatively high rates.  In fact, the share of new beneficiaries choosing Medicare Advantage has increased only modestly over the years.  

When you first become eligible for Medicare, either upon turning 65 or because you have a disability that makes you eligible, you have a decision to make: will you stay in the default program, referred to as original or traditional Medicare, or will you choose a Medicare Advantage (MA) plan? There is no one right choice. The best choice for an individual depends on their personal circumstances and their preferences. If  you have a trusted adviser, such as one the professionals at Harding & Harding and Associates, you may have someone that can assist you in navigating the array of choices and decisions. Our office highly recommends Harding & Harding, particularly for those new clients seeking to implement Aging in Place Planning.  

Often, your decision will be based on practicalities rather than financial considerations.  If you have a trusted medical provider, for example, you may not want to join an MA plan that might require you to change doctors.  If you are more concerned with financial objectives, you may prefer MA’s out-of-pocket maximum, especially if you expect your health care costs to be high.  The decision is not a simple decision, and recent changes may make the decision even more difficult than it has been in the past.  Readers of this blog are aware that recent changes to Medicare incentive and encourage long-term care planning, and Aging in Place benefits to be added to new MA plans.   

According to the report, around 22% of new enrollees chose Medicare Advantage in 2011. This number increased to around 29% in 2016, the most recent year of the report. These numbers are nationwide, but the rate of enrollment varies considerably depending on the enrollee’s geographic location, age, and whether they are eligible for Medicaid in addition to Medicare.

Importantly, when people with high needs enter the Medicare program, they are less likely to choose MA. This could mean that these new enrollees want to avoid potential issues with narrow provider networks and are not drawn to MA benefits like gym memberships, preventive care, and the like, that may be tailored to enrollees who are in excellent health.  Time will tell how individuals view the recent additions to MA plans.

The reasons newcomers choose to remain in traditional Medicare or switch to MA are important. But whatever the reason, it is clear that the majority of people with Medicare prefer the original program.