If you operate a senior living facility, here is something to put at the very top of your to-do list: Survey your residents to understand the choices they have made in the Medicare open enrollment period,...
CMS to hold Medicare Advantage conference
Jun 12, 2014
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will hold its Medicare Advantage & Prescription Drug Oversight & Enforcement 2014 Program Audits conference on Tuesday, June 24 .It is designed to “provide...
Coordinated care programs: A lifeline for patients and your facility
By
Ronald Shumacher, M.D.
May 08, 2014
If you serve elderly populations in a long-term care or nursing facility, you have my respect — for the compassion you bring to work each day and the challenges you must face.
CCRCs need to check residents’ health insurance plans twice a year, expert urges
By
Tim Mullaney
May 01, 2014
Continuing care retirement communities should ask residents about their health plans twice a year, to keep tabs on the increasing number of seniors being shifted into Medicare Advantage, an expert told...
Final rate notice signals continued pressure on Medicare Advantage payments
By
Jennifer Rak
Apr 21, 2014
CMS recently finalized Medicare Advantage plan payment rates for Calendar Year 2015 and announced other changes to payment and program policies for MA and Part D plans. Although the announcement included...
Government would pay seniors to create advanced directives under Senate bill
By
Tim Mullaney
Apr 16, 2014
Medicare beneficiaries would be paid to create advance directives and store them in an easy-access system if a recently proposed Senate bill were to become law.
Jimmo correction: Assistants may provide maintenance services in skilled nursing facilities
By
Tim Mullaney
Jan 17, 2014
Skilled nursing facilities may be reimbursed for maintenance therapy services performed by assistants, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services clarified in a recent Medicare Benefit Policy manual...
The ACA’s ‘comprehensive’ long-term care failure
By
Tim Mullaney
Nov 19, 2013
There’s been a lot of talk lately about what constitutes “comprehensive” health insurance coverage — and long-term care notably has not been part of this national conversation.
I pay dead people
By
Jacqueline Vance, RNC, CDONA/LTC
Nov 12, 2013
On Oct. 31 (an ironic coincidence?) a report from the Office of inspector General frighteningly said Medicare paid some $23 million in benefits for more than 17,000 dead people in 2011. And my husband...
Fraud-fighting efforts not much to brag about
By
John O'Connor
Nov 30, 2012
In what has become a frequent event, the Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services has just issued yet another report that crows about heroic fraud-fighting efforts.