Medicare Advantage (MA) enrollment is expected to skyrocket in coming years, with more than one-third of Medicare beneficiaries currently signed up. But the pace of the great MA migration may be slower than originally anticipated — and vastly different across state lines. For home care providers, this means there could be fewer older adults with […]
Kaiser Family Foundation
Individuals who jump ship from traditional Medicare to Medicare Advantage (MA) typically spend less on health care in the year prior to their switch, a new issues brief from the Kaiser Family Foundation suggests. This may mean those enrolled in MA plans are healthier than their Medicare peers — and less in need of the […]
More long-term care spending is going toward home- and community-based services (HCBS), according to a recent survey of all 50 states and the District of Columbia by Kaiser Family Foundation. Through the three main Medicaid HCBS programs in 2014—mandatory state plan home health services, personal care services, and Section 1915 (c) waivers—nearly 3.2 million people […]
High-quality Medicare programs and a healthy senior population have made Colorado, Maine, and Hawaii the best states in the U.S. for growing old, according to new rankings from U.S. News & World Report. To come up with its rankings, U.S. News examined the 50 states across 12 metrics, including life expectancy, quality of Medicare programs, cost of care, […]
The average Medicaid reimbursement rates for home health and personal care providers ticked up slightly last year, newly released data show. Home health agencies received $93.93 per home health visit on average in 2015, up from $92.69 the year before, according to information compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation. In states that paid registered nurses […]
End-of-life care discussions between patients and doctors are getting major support from the public as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) weighs its proposal to include these talks as part of practitioner billing, a new poll revealed. About eight out of 10 Americans support Medicare and private insurance coverage for advance care discussions, […]
Over one-third of seniors living in the community report having self-care or mobility needs, according to an issue brief published by The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. Rachel Garfield of the Kaiser Family Foundation and her co-authors used the 2011 National Health and Aging Trends Study to analyze rates […]