Health Law

When I speak to my friends who are physicians, specifically primary care doctors who have many senior patients, I ask them do they have someone in their office who helps patients and there families access community resources.  In many cases, the answer is no.  At most, the practice’s office manager may refer the patient or a family […]

Last Friday, myself and four of my office colleagues attended a Medicare Symposium in Washington, DC.  Among the presentations was a session on the impact of Medicare on American society since 1965.  I was struck by how far reaching Medicare’s impact has been.  Specifically, how President Lyndon Johnson used the Medicare Act of 1965 to force southern hospitals […]

The federal government last Thursday announced that it was changing the way it measures nursing homes making to make it more difficult for nursing homes to earn coveted four- and five-star government ratings. Under the changes, scores are likely to fall for many homes, federal officials have said.  In the past, the federal rating system relied so […]

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned the lower court decision in the Observation Status case (Barrows v. Burwell).  The decision reinstates the class action filed against CMS files by Medicare beneficiaries who were placed into observation status. An link to an article about the case is below: http://www.mcknights.com/appeals-court-keeps-observation-stay-case-alive-questions-the-role-of-doctors/article/394013/    

Interesting article in the New York Times on increased health care costs for retirees in Florida compared to their spring and summer homes in the northern states.

Last week, the FY15 Omnibus Appropriations Bill, H.R. 83, was released. It includes $4 million for the Elder Justice Initiative, which would be the first direct congressional appropriation for the Elder Justice Act (EJA) since it became law four years ago as part of the Affordable Care Act.  H.R. 83 represents a breakthrough in the long-stalled […]

Last week, Governor Christie signed into law the CARE Act, that will benefit caregivers and their families.  The CARE Act is an acronym for Caregiver Advise, Record, Enable. The law will go into effect 180 days after the governor signed the law. The CARE Act addresses the problems family members have when their loved one […]

As you may know, we are in the middle of Medicare’s annual Open Enrollment period.  To assist you in choosing the right Medicare health plan for you, the Kaiser Family Foundation has just come out with a review of the literature comparing quality and access provided under traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage plans. Here is […]

The White House Conference on Aging is schedule to take place in 2015.  The Conference is held every ten years.  The last Conference was held in 2005.  No date has been set, but organizers are setting the agenda, reaching out to interest groups and gathering ideas from the general public through a new website and social […]

The annual report on mortality rates by the National Center for Health Statistics is in.  Although it is no surprise, we are living longer than ever before.  However, living longer does come at a cost.  Alzheimer’s disease is now the sixth leading cause of mortality.  In 1990, it did not even rank in the top 15.  […]

The September 26, 2014 New York Times contained a great article describing the difficulties a caregiver daughter encountered in attempting to keep her ailing father at home, instead of in a nursing home.  Although the article described the State of New York Medicaid system, the article was equally applicable in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The Medicaid […]

The State of New Jersey has announced that it intends to expand the income eligibility requirements for seniors and those with disabilities living in a community setting.  To  date, if a senior not living in a nursing home had monthly fixed income in excess of $2,163 per month, that senior was not eligible for home and community […]

  Five years after it exploded into a political conflagration over “death panels,” the issue of paying doctors to talk to patients about end-of-life care is making a comeback, and such sessions may be covered for the 50 million Americans on Medicare as early as next year. Bypassing the political process, private insurers have begun […]

I always instruct our clients and families not to rely on federal nursing home ratings alone in choosing a nursing home.  Below is an article from the New York Times giving further evidence that the Medicare nursing home rating system may be misleading. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/25/business/medicare-star-ratings-allow-nursing-homes-to-game-the-system.html?src=xps  

When families investigate nursing home placement options for their aging loved ones, we always instruct them not to rely on the Medicare nursing home rankings as their sole criteria.  It is important for families to visit each community, and speak with current residents and their families.  A recent study by Miami University in Ohio provides evidence that the Medicare […]