Are you or a family member receiving dialysis? ProPublica has done a series of articles in the past month spotlighting the lack of proper oversight of dialysis clinics (Led by California, Inspection Backlogs Weaken Dialysis Oversight) that you should read. They report that in California alone, for example, regulators responsible for ensuring that dialysis facilities meet health and safety standards have not conducted full inspections of at least half of the state's 500 dialysis centers for five years or more.

ProPublica has also posted a database that will let you check the trackrecord of your dialysis clinic and those in your area. ProPublica used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain reports to Medicare by dialysis clinics across the country, going back to 2002. This is data and information that the public should have but which the government has not shared with us. ProPublica analyzed the data and the result is a web database that allows consumers to search for a dialysis clinic by name or location. Using the database, you can see how a dialysis clinic is rated and compares on 15 key quality of service measures, ranging from mortality rate, complications, and hospitalization to transplant rates and infection control. The database will help you make informed choices about where to receive dialysis.

Studies show that when this type of data is made publicly available, in report card type form, the mere fact of getting the data out in the open motivates the health care providers who are reviewed to improve their care, because they don't want to lose out on business that might go to better rated competitors.

I looked at the data for dialysis clinics in Oakland, for example, and there's a big difference in mortality rates among different clinics. Medicare will pay for you to have dialysis at any licensed clinic, so use the data base to make an informed choice about where to go.

The url for the ProPublica database is: http://projects.propublica.org/dialysis ... 2&w=10

To go the the dialysis website, click here.

To read about the faulty federal oversight of dialysis clinics, click here

Felicia Curran
www.ElderAdvocacyBlog.com
www.ElderAdvocacyLaw.com

The National Assocaition of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA.org) has announced

"Next Tuesday, June 8, at 11:15 a.m. EDT, President Obama and Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, will host a "tele-town hall" event with older adults in Wheaton, MD. The purpose of the event is to answer questions from older adults in person and by phone about how the Affordable Care Act will affect Medicare. NAELA is co-sponsoring the event along with other national organizations which represent older adults.

Individuals interested in viewing the town hall may do so through the White House website or at a regional viewing events. The town hall will also likely be broadcast on C-SPAN. Obama Administration officials will be present at some of the regional viewing events in order to answer questions from participants. The list of regional events includes some private events highlighted in yellow. The rest of the events on the list are open to the public and include the location and contact information for the person organizing the event.

Individuals interested in asking a question of President Obama or Secretary Sebelius can call in during Tuesday's town hall at 1-800-837-1935, pass code: 80272058."

Felicia Curran
www.ElderAdvocacyBlog.com
www.ElderAdvocacyLaw.com

Did you ever think that the term "death panel" would be applied to the scenario in which you speak to your doctor about making an advanced directive, stating your wishes in the event that you became comatose, in a vegetative state, or needed to be kept on a ventilator?


That's the term that is being used by the right wing of the Republican Party (including Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, and Sarah Palin --who said that Americans would have to "stand in front of Obama's death panel so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their level of productivity in society, whether they are worthy of health care") to describe the provision in the healthcare reform bill that would authorize Medicare to reimburse a physician for providing counseling sessions about end-of-life directives.

Do these right wing pundits even know what an advanced directive is? The AARP, not exactly a subversive left wing group, recommends that seniors complete advance directives so that their wishes will be known to their families and doctors in case they are unable to speak for themselves in a medical emergency. Believe me, a crisis situation in an emergency room or hospital is not the time to consider for the first time how you would feel about living on a ventilator for the rest of your life, or how you would feel about being kept alive in a vegetative state for the rest of your life, or how you would feel about any one of a number of calamities that could befall you in the event of a medical emergency. The idea that your physician would be reimbursed by Medicare to discuss the matter with you, at the time of, or in advance of any medical crisis, is a good one, and by no stretch of the imagination can it be compared to a "death squad."

In fact, it was a Republican Senator, Johnny Isakson of Georgia, who originally made the Medicare proposal that is being labelled "death panel", back in 2007 when he co-sponsored a Medicare End-of-Life Planning Act. On August 10th, Senator Isakson told the Washington Post that analogizing physician counseling for advanced directives to "death panels" is "nuts."

To see President Obama address the death panel issue directly, look at this excerpt of his August 11th town hall meeting in Portsmouth New Hampshire -- click below




To read the text of the town hall meeting click here.

To read the AARP article about advanced directives, click here.

To read the Washington Post's interview with Senator Johnny Isakson,click here.

Felicia Curran
www.ElderAdvocacyLaw.com

What does it take to get a Medicare-paid stay in a nursing home in the United States? The San Francisco Chronicle ("Son Didn't Use His Head In Trying To Put Father In Nursing Home") reported on Friday that a Bay Area man is in jail, charged with attempted murder for hitting his elderly father on the head with a hammer, in an ill-conceived attempt to get his father admitted to a nursing home. The elderly father was treated at the hospital for cuts to the head, and then released home.

"[The man] was under a belief, we don't know why, that you can't go straight into a nursing home without being in the hospital," said Steve Wagstaffe, San Mateo County's chief deputy district attorney. "He thought, 'I can overcome that problem. I'll put him in the hospital.'"

Although the son's conduct was criminal, there was a method to his madness. Nursing charge hundreds and hundreds of dollars a day, something out of the reach of the average person. Medicare, however, WILL pay for up to 100 days in a nursing home, but only if the patient comes to the nursing home from a three-day stay in a hospital. Medicare pays in full for Day 1 through 20; Day 21 through day 100 are subject to a $124 per day co-payment by the patient.

Thus, was the son trying to get a Medicare-paid stay for his father? Quite possibly.

If THAT is the son's excuse for hitting his father, what is our excuse as a nation for failing to provide free universal health coverage? This type of incident would not happen in Canada or in Europe, because in those countries anyone who needs health care --in a nursing home, hospital, or wherever -- can get it, free of charge.

Although you may not like Michael Moore, this is the point that he is very aptly making in his movie SICKO, which compares our healthcare system with Canada's and Europe's. His point is that health care should be recognized as a basic right - like access to the police or the fire department -- that everyone should have access to, regardless of their ability to pay.

The movie SICKO is being released on DVD on November 8. If you haven't seen it, you should. You won't look at health care in this country the same way after you see it, I promise you.

To view a trailer/preview of SICKO, double-click below on the picture:



Felicia Curran
www.ElderAdvocacyLaw.com

The chickens are coming home to roost as a result of President Bush’s mistake in privatizing the Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Benefit.

A New York Times article reviews audits done by the government relating to private Medicare plans, summarizing their findings by saying that “tens of thousands of Medicare recipients have been victims of deceptive sales tactics and had claims improperly denied by private insurers that run the system’s huge new drug benefit program and offer other private insurance options encouraged by the Bush administration.”

If you or a family member have a Medicare plan provided by these companies:

UnitedHealth
Wellpoint
Sierra Health Services
Humana
The Sterling Life Insurance Company
MemberHealth
Bravo Health

I suggest that you read the article, which describes how these private companies have adopted unscrupulous business practices resulting in delaying access to medications urgently needed by Medicare patients.

For example, the article says that in March 2007, Sierra Health Services ended drug coverage for more than 2,300 Medicare beneficiaries with H.I.V./AIDS, alleging that the patients had not paid their premiums. In fact, according to the audit, in many cases, the premiums had been paid, and beneficiaries had canceled checks to prove it. Sierra Health Services had canceled their drug coverage to avoid having to pay for the costly drugs that the AIDS patients needed. The patients were reinstated on the Sierra drug plan only after repeated requests from federal officials.

Read the New York Times article online - click here.

Felicia Curran
www.ElderAdvocacyLaw.com