LeadingAge has started a financial and legal advice service for its not-for-profit members. Struggling facilities can request an assessment and receive advice from experts for free. Read More »
Bold colors, modern artwork, sleek lines…this isn’t your grandmother’s nursing home. Long-term care owners and administrators have heard it before but it bears repeating. Today’s seniors, more active and engaged in mainstream culture than any other generation before them, appreciate good design. Read More »
State reform to limit medical liability claims and facility-based arbitration agreements can have huge impacts on long-term care’s finances, notes a study by ACHA/NCAL and Aon Global Risk Consulting. Read More »
According to a recent study, one in every six admissions to nursing homes was for individuals who had a history of emphysema or COPD. This puts greater pressure on LTC facilities to gain a stronger understanding of the disease and to meet new demands in terms of assessment and treatment. Read More »
One group cheering the court’s decision is the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America (AFA), which maintains that upholding of the healthcare act will result in earlier detection of Alzheimer’s disease—with care thereby starting sooner—while helping millions with more effective and efficient treatment. Read More »
With the crackdown on “pill mills” in Ohio, nursing homes have become targets for employee theft of narcotic prescription drugs. Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine intensifies anti-drug abuse efforts. Read More »
Major efforts are needed to increase the mental health workforce and train them in the mental health and substance abuse issues that relate to seniors, a new Institutes of Medicine report warns. Read More »
Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) infections remain at historically high levels whereas most other types of healthcare-associated infections are declining. The CDC recommends that healthcare clinicians and facility administrators implement the following six prevention steps into their facilities’ infection control plan. Read More »
A stunning 99 percent of nursing home records examined by the OIG failed to meet one or more of the federal guidelines for assessing and documenting the use of antipsychotic drugs. Read More »
Identifying a project manager, or owner’s representative, to lead the project team is becoming a vital factor in accomplishing an integrated approach to the LTC building process. Read More »
Where a consumer lives plays a large role in his or her financial planning for long-term care. Costs from the nursing home through the home care categories vary greatly, according to a national study. Read More »
As of July 1, 89 new accountable care organizations (ACOs) began serving 1.2 million people with Medicare in 40 states and Washington, D.C., the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced today. Read More »
While trying to save on prescription costs, seniors in the Medicare Part D doughnut hole are skipping or reducing their maintenance medications for depression, chronic heart failure and diabetes, among other chronic conditions, recent data suggests. Read More »
Innovative planning can allow traditional senior living spaces to be transformed into neighborhoods of shared spaces and private spaces, encouraging interaction and fostering memory care. Architect James Moyer describes the before and after designs. Read More »
High doses of vitamin D play a role in preventing bone fractures, especially in older women, according to a study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. Read More »
The Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and technology company Jvion have developed an online tool to help facilities calculate the financial impacts of migrating to ICD-10. Read More »
Pressure ulcers are painful and dangerous for residents and costly for facilities. Next year, PUs are going to cost facilities even more. Learn how to improve wound care intervention to protect your patients and manage risk. Read More »
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has proposed policy changes that would increase reimbursement rates for end-stage renal disease services. Performance data collected next year would affect the payment rates starting in 2015. Read More »
Fire, flood, tornado, earthquake and tidal waves are just a few of the ways nature asserts itself to remind us of its power. Are you prepared to care and protect your residents if you get in Mother Nature’s way? The OIG doesn’t think so according to a recent study. Read More »
Long-Term Living talks with Front Porch CEO Gary Wheeler about helping not-for-profits (NFPs) survive these challenging economic times.People and organizations need to do more with less. For stand-alone NFP organizations, this has become increasingly difficult. Read More »
For most families, entry into a nursing home is like being teleported onto a strange new planet. The arrival is often swift and unanticipated, and the customs are foreign and frequently unnerving. Consider what services you can offer to improve the experience of anxious family members. Read More »
In the aftermath of last week’s 5-4 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the Affordable Care Act (ACA), long-term care providers are taking stock of the far-reaching ramifications for an industry in transition. Read More »
Leaders digest: So the ACA stays. What now? Long-Term Living’s editors speak with leaders in the long-term and post-acute care industry the day the Supreme Court decision is announced. Read More »
BREAKING NEWS: Supreme Court has decided the Affordable Care Act will stay in place. The majority voted to keep individual mandate and the right for Congress to offer funding for state reform programs. Read More »
Private pay has become the holy grail of long-term care, and a powerful combination of industry leadership and political action is opening up access for the consumer to new funding options. Every owner of a life insurance policy has the legal right to convert their policy to pay for long-term care while still alive—but too few consumers and LTC industry professionals are aware of this fact. Read More »
With the need for states to rein in healthcare budgets, we are seeing a rapid move toward managed long-term care in states across the country. These changes are forcing many LTC providers to adapt to a new healthcare environment. Read More »
Some insurers aren't waiting for the Supreme Court's decision to show how they feel about some of the reforms within the Affordable Care Act. Read More »
Last spring (May 2011), the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) published a report titled, "Medicare Atypical Antipsychotic Drug Claims for Elderly Nursing Home Residents." Here is what medical directors practicing in long-term care had to say about the appropriate prescribing of antipsychotic medications. Read More »
Sexual appetites don’t disappear after age 50, an Australian study concludes. However, seniors in nursing homes often have to sneak around because administrators are concerned about safety risks. Read More »
