Aging

Imagine seniors walking around with stylish ear devices that amplify and clarify sound and connect wirelessly to smart phones, tablets, televisions and digital assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri. That day is coming, sooner than you may think. Technology is already moving in this direction, and consumer marketers such as Samsung, Bose Corp., […]

NEW YORK — Clutching a railing for balance, 89-year-old Alan Epstein searched the hospital waiting rooms for families in distress. He paused when he came across a young woman standing alone in the hallway, making a phone call about her grandfather’s faltering health. “Are you aware of the caregiver support center?” Epstein asked when she got […]

Four years after Medicare officials agreed in a landmark court settlement that seniors cannot be denied coverage for physical therapy and other skilled care simply because their condition is not improving, patients are still being turned away. So federal officials and Medicare advocates have renewed their court battle, acknowledging that they cannot agree on a […]

A federal judge has accepted Medicare’s plans to try once more to correct a commonly held misconception that beneficiaries are eligible for coverage for physical and occupational therapy and other skilled care only if their health is improving. “Confusion over the Improvement Standard persists,” wrote U.S. District Court Chief Judge Christina Reiss in Vermont in […]

Home health agencies will be required to become more responsive to patients and their caregivers under the first major overhaul of rules governing these organizations in almost 30 years. The federal regulations, published last month, specify the conditions under which 12,600 home health agencies can participate in Medicare and Medicaid, serving more than 5 million […]

SOBRE NOTICIAS EN ESPAÑOL Noticias en español es una sección de KFF Health News que contiene traducciones de artículos de gran interés para la comunidad hispanohablante, y contenido original enfocado en la población hispana que vive en los Estados Unidos. El cáncer de seno de Marlene McCarthy ha crecido de manera implacable durante los últimos […]

Marlene McCarthy’s breast cancer has grown relentlessly over the past seven years, spreading painfully through her bones and making it impossible to walk without a cane. Although the 73-year-old knows there’s no cure for her disease, she wants researchers to do better. It’s been years, she said, since she has found a drug that has […]

Opponents of aid-in-dying laws are claiming a small victory. They won the attention of Congress this week in their battle to stop a growing movement that allows terminally ill patients to get doctors’ prescriptions to end their lives. The Republican-led effort on Capitol Hill to overturn the District of Columbia’s aid-in-dying law appeared to have died Friday. […]

The number of California seniors who land in emergency rooms after falling has risen sharply in recent years, as their population grows and they live longer with more chronic illnesses often requiring an array of medications. The number of visits to California emergency rooms by people over 65 who fell surged 38 percent from 167,785 […]