Aging

(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Home health agencies, hospitals and consumer groups are complaining that a new rule intended to curb unnecessary Medicare spending will make it harder for senior citizens to get home care services. Under the requirement, which takes effect April 1, Medicare beneficiaries will have to see a doctor 90 days before […]

Imagine that you’ve just been told you have only a short time to live. What would you want your family and community to remember most about you? In St. Louis, a hospice program called Lumina helps patients leave statements that go beyond a simple goodbye. Suzanne Doyle, the founder of Lumina at BJC Hospice, sits […]

Mark Parkinson, who heads the nation’s largest nursing home lobby, finds it hard to celebrate government estimates predicting an explosion in the number of Americans aged 85 and older during the next few decades. “This would be terrific news, but the challenge is that at a time when we have this enormous demand on resources […]

This story was done in collaboration with our partner Despite tough economic times, there are some things the government can’t give away. Starting this year, seniors enrolled in Medicare no longer have to pay for more than a dozen tests and other services to help prevent or control cancer and other costly and debilitating diseases. […]

This story comes from our partner At age 78, Milton Jones feel like he’s earned his Medicare benefits. “I imagine so,” he says. “I paid taxes all my life.” Today, Jones is retired. He volunteers and calls bingo once a week at his local community center. But for 30 years, he worked in Pittsburgh’s steel […]

This story comes from NPR’s health blog Shots. About 1 in 7 elderly residents of nursing homes receives a so-called atypical antipsychotic medicine, a federal audit finds, despite an increased risk of death when the medicines are used to manage dementia in older people. A review of medical records found that most of the atypical […]

Martha Roherty represents people who are facing a perfect storm. Martha Roherty As the executive director of the National Association of States United for Aging and Disabilities, Roherty knows what’s happening to officials in charge of state programs that help older and disabled residents get access to basic services. For the past few years, they’ve been facing […]

Nursing homes have little to gain directly from the 2010 health law’s expansion of health coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans. That’s because nursing homes have few uninsured residents, as nearly all have private or government insurance. Yet to help finance the law, the nursing home industry will have to absorb a $14.6 billion cut in […]