Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Dementia Care -- Where And How -- Often Dictated By Money
USA Today: It Takes A Village - And Lots Of Money - To Care For A Parent With Dementia
Sandy Markwood, CEO of the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging, advises families to start thinking about how to get and pay for 24-hour care as soon as a loved one is diagnosed with dementia. That way, parents can have a say in their care when they are lucid enough to do so, and family members can know the patient’s wishes. They can also start thinking about ways to arrange caregiving among siblings, find the supportive services they need, adapt the parent’s home, and ensure that there is safe transportation to and from doctor’s appointments. (O'Donnell and Ungar, 10/17)
Kaiser Health News: Nursing Homes’ Residents Face Health Risks From Antibiotics’ Misuse
Antibiotics are prescribed incorrectly to ailing nursing home residents up to 75 percent of the time, the nation’s public health watchdog says. The reasons vary — wrong drug, wrong dose, wrong duration or just unnecessarily – but the consequences are scary, warns the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Overused antibiotics over time lose their effectiveness against the infections they were designed to treat. Some already have. And some antibiotics actually cause life-threatening illnesses on their own. (Gillespie, 10/19)
ProPublica: Medicare Spending For Hepatitis C Cures Surges
Medicare’s prescription drug program spent nearly $4.6 billion in the first half of this year on expensive new cures for the liver disease hepatitis C — almost as much as it spent for all of 2014. Rebates from pharmaceutical companies — the amounts of which are confidential — will reduce Medicare’s final tab for the drugs, by up to half. Even so, the program’s spending will likely continue to rise, in part because of strong demand. (Ornstein, 10/16)
