Facing Death But Fighting The Aid-In-Dying Movement
A young mother with a grave lung disease worries that a California bill that would make assisted suicide legal could pressure terminally ill people to end their lives.
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A young mother with a grave lung disease worries that a California bill that would make assisted suicide legal could pressure terminally ill people to end their lives.
Texas boasts the highest percentage of low-ranked nursing homes in the country, followed by Louisiana, Oklahoma, Georgia and West Virginia.
Even as end-of-life planning gains favor with more Americans, African-Americans, research shows, remain very skeptical of options like hospice and advance directives. The result can mean more aggressive, painful care at the end of life that prolongs suffering.
About 12 percent of people 85 and older who died had no assets left and 20 percent had only their homes, according to the research. But even people who die much younger can face similar financial problems.
Under Medicare’s hospice benefit, patients agree to forgo curative treatment, but they can continue to receive coverage for health problems not related to their terminal illness. Federal officials suspect some of those expenses should be covered by hospice.
Pleasing patients has become more important to hospitals as Medicare takes consumers views into account when setting payments. Most hospitals are getting better, but others have not improved since the government started publishing ratings six years ago.
New federal rules requiring current information apply to insurers selling plans on healthcare.gov and the private policies that are an alternative to Medicare.
A special “daycare at night” program in the Bronx cares for Alzheimer’s patients whose internal clocks mistake night for day.
For many physicians, normal pressure hydrocephalus, or NPH, doesn’t come to mind when they see people with cognitive and gait problems, although it is one of the few treatable causes of dementia.
Obese people are far more likely to become disabled as they age, and researchers say this burgeoning demographic will strain hospitals and nursing homes.
A little known part of Obamacare pays primary care doctors to help overweight seniors drop pounds and improve their health. So why aren’t more seniors taking advantage of the free benefit?
Nursing homes now will be graded on their use of anti-psychotic drugs and will have to do more to get top ratings on the federal website Nursing Home Compare.
The percentage of Americans experiencing pain in the last year of life increased between 1998 and 2010, despite the growth of palliative care programs and hospice use, according to a study released Monday.
About 400,000 beneficiaries have until the end of this month to reconsider their Medicare Part D plan choices after Aetna incorrectly identified some pharmacies as being in-network, dropped others and removed some from "preferred" network status.
With the growth of the hospice industry, consumers have a number of choices for end-of-life care. Here’s a primer to help be prepared.
Penalties for readmissions and patient injuries erase bonuses hospitals earn for meeting stiff quality criteria. Fewer than 800 will end up with higher payments.
Getting basic health care to rural areas has always been difficult, and delivering specialized care is even harder. One doctor is raising money to get palliative care to patients in rural California.
In California, hundreds of thousands of low-income elderly and disabled people receive daily care in their homes from their children, spouses, relatives and others. And, through a program called In-Home Supportive Services, the state pays many of those caregivers about $10 an hour to do the job.
Health insurance doesn't pay for housing, but sometimes that is what a patient needs most. A Medicaid experiment, called Money Follows The Person, helps some elderly and disabled people move out of institutions into their own homes.
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