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Home Health Care The Center has been hearing from people unable to access Medicare-covered home health care, or the appropriate amount of care, despite meeting Medicare coverage criteria. In particular, people living with long-term and debilitating conditions find themselves facing significant access problems. For example, patients have been told Medicare will only cover one to five hours per week of home health aide services, or only one bath per week, or that they aren’t homebound (because they roam outside due to dementia), or that they must first decline before therapy can commence (or
recommence). Consequently, these individuals and their families are struggling with too little care, or no care at all. Home health access problems have ebbed and flowed over the years, depending on the reigning payment mechanisms, systemic pressures, and misinformation about Medicare home health coverage. Regrettably, if recent policies and proposed rules are fully implemented, it appears these access problems will only get worse. To respond to this crisis, the Center is building a coalition to
support a Home Health Access Initiative. This Initiative is working to oppose inappropriate restrictions on Medicare to open doors to Medicare-covered, necessary home care, but we need your help. In addition, it is important for beneficiaries and advocates to know what Medicare home health coverage should be under the law, especially for those with long term, chronic, and debilitating conditions. See our detailed information below, and download our Infographic, Fact Sheet, and Toolkit: Medicare
Home Health Coverage & Jimmo v. Sebelius. Click on the links below for more information When does Medicare cover home health care? What services are covered? What if I attend religious services once a week; am I still considered "homebound" for the purpose of Medicare coverage? The home health agency told me my aide services would be reduced. My doctor hasn’t given me this information. What are my rights?
As the Eyes Go, So May the Mind A new study sheds light on how vision loss is linked to mental decline in seniors. For the study, University of Miami researchers analyzed health data from more than 2,500 adults, aged 65 to 84, who were followed from about 1993 to 2001. The investigators found that the rate of vision loss was associated with the rate of declining mental (cognitive) function. But mental function
did not have a strong effect on vision, according to the report. The study is the first to show that eyesight is the dominant factor in the link between vision loss and mental function, according to lead author D. Diane Zheng, a doctoral candidate in the university's department of public health sciences. However, the study couldn't
prove that vision loss was the cause of the mental decline. Vision loss and mental decline are common in aging Americans, and this study suggests that preventing or treating eye problems may help protect against mental decline. "The takeaway is that we need to pay more attention to preventing and treating vision loss to possibly reduce the rate
of cognitive decline," study coauthor David Lee said in a university news release. Lee is a professor in the department of public health sciences. The new report was published June 28 in the journal JAMA Ophthalmology. More information The U.S. National Institutes of Health has more on aging eyes. SOURCE: University of Miami, news release, June 28, 2018
Sitting increases frailty risk for women Sedentarism is known to have adverse health effects, but a new study looked at how it affects women, specifically, and their ability to recover after illness or injury. Prolonged sitting harms our health in various ways. The more time you spend sitting down, the likelier you are to die prematurely, studiesshow. And, sadly, exercising does not cancel out these pernicious effects. Too much sitting impairs our cardiovascular health and raises
the risk of diabetes, researchers warn. Some studies have even suggested that it may cause the brain to shrink. With age, sitting becomes even more dangerous, as increased sedentarism heightens the risk of walking disability, as well as dementia, among seniors. Now, a new study looks at the effects of sedentary behavior on aging women. Researchers at the University of Queensland (UQ)
in St. Lucia, Australia, studied the impact of prolonged sitting on 5,462 middle-aged women who were clinically followed for
of Women's Health. The women enrolled in the study were born between 1946 and 1951, and they self-reported their daily sitting time. The researchers assessed the 12 years. women's frailty using the FRAIL The findings were published scale, ranging from 0 (healthy) in the American Journal of to 5 (frail) and broke down Epidemiology. sitting time into three categories: low (3.5 hours each day), What is frailty? How does it affect women? medium (5.5 hours per day), and Researchers Maja Susanto, Ruth high (10 hours per day)….Read Hubbard, and Paul A Gardiner More analyzed data from the Australian Longitudinal Study
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