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

Medicare has announced that it will no longer pay hospitals for the costs of treating injuries and illnesses resulting from errors made by the hospital, according to Robert Pear of the New York Times. “If a patient goes into the hospital with pneumonia, we don’t want them to leave with a broken arm,” said Herb B. Kuhn, acting deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

“Under the new rules, to be published next week, Medicare will not pay hospitals for the costs of treating certain ‘conditions that could reasonably have been prevented.’”

Among the conditions that will be affected are falls, mediastinitis (an infection that can develop after heart surgery), urinary tract infections that result from improper use of catheters, pressure ulcers, and vascular infections that result from improper use of catheters.

In addition, Medicare says it will not pay for the treatment of “serious preventable events” like falls, leaving a sponge or other object in a patient during surgery and providing a patient with incompatible blood or blood products.”

And if you’re worried that the hospitals will bill the patient for charges that Medicare refuses to pay, the rules make that forbidden. “The hospital cannot bill the beneficiary for any charges associated with the hospital-acquired complication,” the final rules say.

Consumer advocates reportedly have been urging Medicare to adopt these rules for twenty years. The reason being that if hospitals know that they won’t get paid for making you sick, they will take precautions to prevent these illnesses and accidents.

The rules don't take effect until October 2008.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that “patients develop 1.7 million infections in hospitals each year, and it says those infections cause or contribute to the death of 99,000 people a year — about 270 a day.”

“Hundreds of thousands of people suffer needlessly from preventable hospital infections and medical errors every year,” said Lisa A. McGiffert of Consumer’s Union. “Medicare is using its clout to improve care and keep patients safe. It’s forcing hospitals to face this problem in a way they never have before.”

The change in the rules is coming too late for Margaret M. O’Neill(pictured here with her daughter Eileen O’Neill-Pardo). In 2004, Margaret died of an infection that developed during intestinal surgery at a Seattle hospital.

“The operation — to remove scar tissue — was successful, but the patient died,” Eileen said. “The hospital staff did not take steps to control the infection, which took over her body. My mother died less than a week after the operation.”



Studies have shown that well-established infection-control practices, "like covering doctors and patients from head to toe with sterile gowns and sheets while the catheters were inserted, can greatly reduce the incidence of hospital-acquired infections."

Medicare absolutely made the right call in putting pressure ulcers on the list of preventable conditions. Studies have repeatedly showed that hospital-acquired pressure ulcers can be virtually eliminated if correct precautions are taken by the hospital.

Presumably the rules also apply to nursing homes. If so, then Medicare will refuse to pay nursing homes for treatment of pressure ulcers that are acquired in the nursing home, or where the nursing home lets the existing pressure ulcers get worse. About time!

There are many unanswered questions, but one thing is for sure. Hospitals will begin to do things differently if they are not paid for their mistakes. The new Medicare rules will also provide patients and their lawyers with a formidable weapon to use in a neglect lawsuit against the hospital or nursing home. If Medicare deems that the expense of treating the illness or injury was preventable, that is powerful evidence that the hospital or nursing home was negligent in letting the illness or injury develop.

To read Robert Pear's article, click here.

Felicia Curran
www.ElderAdvocacyLaw.com