Healthcare attorney Alan C. Horowitz explains the background to the latest revisions to the CMS compliance rules on fire sprinklers in skilled nursing facilities. Read More »
Under a proposed bill, SNFs meeting certain criteria based on Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services quality ratings automatically would qualify to waive the prior hospitalization requirement for Medicare coverage of Part A skilled nursing care benefits. Read More »
These days, the definitions of "service lines" are blurring as traditionally separate entities merge, partner and expand to capture more and more of the consumer’s healthcare spend. As the lines between payers and providers erode, where will post-acute care end up? Read More »
CMS has revised its fire sprinkler compliance measure to ease the burden on facilities that are in the middle of sprinkler installations. But is the workaround just as challenging as the fire sprinkler citation? Read More »
You can use a new poster from the government as part of your efforts to educate employees about the proper use of adult bed rails. It comes in English and Spanish language versions. Read More »
Preventing or managing diabetes can mean lower health insurance and other personnel-related costs for employers as well as healthier employees and residents. Here are some tips to help combat the disease, in observance of National Diabetes Month and World Diabetes Day. Read More »
A plan by Congress may finally fix sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula issues for physicians, but long-term care and outpatient therapy services could suffer in the process. Read More »
You may see some familiar faces on Nov. 24 when HBO debuts a comedy about a “ragtag crew” caring for elderly women at a hospital’s extended care unit. Read More »
Long-Term Living blogger Kathy Mears takes a headline out of the news to give her perspective on a California assisted living facility's abandonment of a number of residents when it shut its doors, leaving them without caregivers, care and basic necessities. Read More »
Payers, providers and care networks are making vast efforts to combine care delivery, coverage and costs—merging control over the once-siloed segments of healthcare business. Will the post-acute care sector be the golden ticket to success or the cost-laden component that drags the system down? Read More »
If you or those for whom you care are concerned about how to pay for long-term care, you may be interested to learn that the Internal Revenue Service has increased the tax deductions allowed for the purchase of long-term care insurance policies in 2014. Read More »
In what the federal government maintains is one of the largest healthcare fraud settlements in U.S. history, Johnson & Johnson and subsidiaries will pay more than $2.2 billion for allegedly promoting three drugs for unapproved uses in the elderly and others as well as purportedly paying kickbacks to doctors and the country’s biggest long-term care pharmacy provider. Read More »
OSHA is taking a harder look at workplace violence in long-term care facilities. These tips can help you prepare your staff and shore up your documentation procedures. Read More »
This society’s eagerness to seek legal action against perceived harm or injustice to their loved ones in long-term care gives plaintiffs’ lawyers a wide-open client base to pursue. Read More »
As the end of daylight saving time approaches in most parts of the United States, here are some tips to keep you—and residents—healthy and alert in the coming weeks. Read More »
A Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in an Alabama nursing home leaves one person dead and a dozen others ill, while earlier this fall the same bacterium killed five and sickened nearly 40 in an Ohio retirement community. Read More »
Facility laundry operations do an admirable job on maintaining linens and clothing. However, the laundry room can be a minefield of potential problems when caring for residents’ personal wardrobes, as Kathleen Mears has experienced. Read More »
