Mr. Obama proposed higher premiums and deductibles for many Medicare beneficiaries and lower Medicare payments to teaching hospitals and rural hospitals. He would start charging co-payments to frail homebound older people who receive home health services. And he would reduce the growth of federal payments to states for treating low-income people under Medicaid.

The White House said Mr. Obama’s proposals would cut $248 billion from the projected growth of Medicare in the next 10 years, while shaving $72 billion from Medicaid and other health programs. A large share of the Medicare savings would, in effect, be used to pay doctors, who would otherwise face deep cuts in the fees they receive for treating Medicare patients.

A group effort among staff with a focus on residents has landed Garvey Manor among an elite group of nursing facilities.The facility at 1037 S. Logan Blvd. is one of 12 statewide to receive a 2010 Excellence in Quality Care Award from the Pennsylvania Department of Aging and the Office of Long-Term Living. This is the first year for the award.

Secretary of Aging John Michael Hall presented a plaque to Administrator Sister Joachim Anne Ferenchak Wednesday. Facility recipients are eligible for up to $40,000 to improve the quality of life of their residents, Ferenchak said. What made getting the award special, she said, was that they weren’t trying for it, they achieved it together, and they got it because of the facility’s focus on its residents.

Read the full article: Garvey Manor Recognized

The Daily American Reports:

A local personal care home was recognized as one of 12 facilities in the state to receive an Excellence in Quality Care award. Pennsylvania Department of Aging Secretary Michael Hall was at Golden Living Center Wednesday to present administrator Sandra Grenke with the award.

“The staff has earned this award,” Grenke said. “This is the result of what they do.” Of 631 facilities in Pennsylvania, only 12 met the criteria of maintaining a five-star rating from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and were deficiency free in 2009.

“I want to talk about how unusual and rare and special you are in receiving this award,” Hall said. “That doesn’t come easy.” Hall said being a deficiency-free facility is extremely difficult when state inspectors go through a facility with a fine-tooth comb.

Read the full article: Meyersdale personal care home recognized with state award

At Ann’s Choice, the retirement community where the Alleys live, 58 residents are participating in the Penn study, which will examine the physiology and psychology attributes of participants to learn why some elderly people maintain strong brain function.

The research study is the first the Warminster retirement community has been involved in, said Jody Gerstman, a social worker at Ann’s Choice.

More than 150 Ann’s Choice residents initially applied to be part of the study, and those chosen range in ages from 63 to 93.

The Penn Memory Center study is described as a mini version of the large, long-running Religious Orders Study out of Rush University in Chicago. That study involves more than 1,000 retired Roman Catholic clergy who agreed to medical and psychological evaluation annually and brain donation after death. The study started in 1993 and is expected to wrap up this year.

The Religious Orders Study and others show that people can live long lives with no sign of memory loss, but post-death exams of their brains show key markers of deterioration, said Dr. Steven Arnold, director of the Penn Memory Center and one of the lead scientists in the local study.

….

Growing evidence suggests that people who experience high, prolonged periods of stress or who have a negative outlook on life can have a two times higher risk of developing cognitive decline later in life, Arnold said. Cognitive skills are used in the process of acquiring knowledge and include reasoning, perception and intuition.

Arnold said he wanted Ann’s Choice involved in the study because it’s an active senior community. The researchers want to determine how lifestyle – the degree of social interaction, physical and mental exercise – play in maintaining healthy brain function.

Read the full article: Study focuses on why some remember better than others

The Sisterhood of the Dumbbell meets three times a week at St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Devon. “Sisterhood of the Dumbbell” is my name for the group, and Sharon Eisenhour, who kindly invited me to meet these iron-pumping ladies, and Jeanne Lynam, their inspirational leader, embraced my suggestion.

…

Dumbbells in hand, Lynam led the women through a varied menu of resistance exercises, some done standing up, others on a mat – overhead presses, triceps extensions, shoulder shrugs and arm raises, chest flyes, curls, crunches, leg raises, and some mysterious female rite involving the pelvis and glutes that probably best falls under the rubric “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Lynam kept the movements slow and gentle, calling for different weights – light, medium, or heavy – for different exercises. Nothing explosive, no macho competition to see who could hoist the most iron or do the most reps. Each woman chose a weight range she could handle. Some dumbbells weighed as little as two pounds; others, as much as 12.

Read more of the article: Women on the move, and better for it

The new changes in insurance regulations provide an opportunity for scammers to take advantage of consumers. Several insurance scam cases in Pennsylvania have been reported and there is an expected increase in the near future. 

 The Intelligencer reports:

“One consumer group found more than one-third of state insurance bureaus reported “much higher” health insurance fraud last year. Scammers are seeking to exploit consumer confusion over coming changes involving insurance coverage.

A person bearing a government ID badge appears at your door with a sales pitch that goes something like this:

By law, all Americans are now required to obtain health insurance. You have 30 days to comply or face jail time. Sign here to buy your coverage.

The claim sounds legitimate. Most people have heard something, somewhere, about the new federal health care law and how it requires that everyone carry health insurance. But those coverage requirements don’t kick in for another four years. The law also carries no criminal penalties for not obtaining health insurance. And one more thing, the government won’t offer insurance policies under the law. But crooks are counting on people not knowing these things, or anything about the Affordable Health Care Act, consumer rights and protection advocates say.”

Read the full article: Health insurance scams flourishing

Tips on avoiding medical insurance scams

 Currently, there are different types of scams that exist. Educating the community on the 2011 expectations of the Affordable Care Act is will aid in eliminating the scams. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ have published tips and reminders on how to avoid scammers.

The Intelligencer reports:

“The National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ tips on how to avoid being a scam victim:

Be aware: Beware of fax, e-mail, telephone poll solicitations. For seniors, Medicare officials contacting you should have your account information on record so don’t give it out.

Check if insurer is legit: Don’t give out any personal information until you verify with your state insurance department that the insurer and agent are licensed to write insurance in your state. Generally, health insurance companies that sell policies to individuals or to employers must be licensed in each state where they do business; the producers (agents or brokers) who sell policies must also be licensed in the states where they sell policies.

Keep paperwork: Ask for copies of all paperwork you sign. Keep a copy of the payment receipt or check for your initial premium payment.

Follow up: Call the insurer if you don’t receive a copy of your insurance policy outlining your coverage within 30 days of your purchase.”

Read the full article: Avoid the new health law scams

Blackburn and Fitzpatrick argue that countless patients have already seen significant increases in their health insurance premiums since the law took effect. 

They have developed a bill that would allow senior citizens to avoid being forced to take Medicare.  Instead, seniors would be given vouchers for a private health savings account or high-deductible private health plans.

Read more.

During Cindy Cool’s almost daily visits to the nursing home, she would routinely find her Alzheimer’s-suffering father wearing urine-soaked clothes.

The Blue Lake, Calif. resident said it would take upwards of 20 minutes for the apparently short-handed staff of Eureka Healthcare and Rehabilitation to respond and help Cool clean her father. Other patients fared worse, she said.

“A lot of times I walked out of there crying because of the things I saw,” Cool said an interview.

She provided key testimony before a Humboldt County jury last month slammed the owners of her father’s nursing home with a $677 million verdict, sending shock waves through the industry and rekindling calls for tort reform.

The verdict as it stands is already thought to be the largest in the country this year and its ramifications are still being sorted out weeks after the jury surprised even the plantiffs’ lawyers with the size of their verdict. Tort reformers have seized on the verdict as the latest example of litigation abuse.

The company’s stock price has plunged on fears it will have to file bankruptcy. Cool, 58, was part of a class-action lawsuit representing 32,000 patients that blamed the nursing home staff shortage for the misery she encountered — echoing a common complaint across the country that for-profit nursing homes are too concerned with the bottom line.

After Wall Street investment firms went on a nursing home buying spree during the early years of the new century, critics charge that many companies drastically cut payroll expenses to prop up stock prices.

Read more.

A new report on retail prices of brand-name drugs shows the 217 products most used by older Americans increased by an average of 8.3 percent during 2009, the largest increase in years, even as inflation was negative.

Over the last five years, according to the report to be released on Wednesday by the senior lobby AARP, the retail prices for the most popular brand-name drugs increased 41.5 percent, while the consumer price index rose 13.3 percent. An AARP official called for measures to hold down drug prices.

Drug industry officials challenged the finding, however, saying select brand-name prices did not reflect the reality of more people using low-price generic drugs. Generics now account for about 75 percent of all dispensed prescriptionsin the United States, according to IMS Health, a research firm.

The industry pointed to a broader survey of drug prices showing they rose by 3.4 percent during 2009. The survey, conducted by the government for its official Consumer Price Index, includes generic as well as brand-name drug prices, Jonathan Church, an economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, said on Tuesday.

Find out more.

Dozens of seniors at the White Rose Senior Center, both curious and skeptical about what the Affordable Care Act means for health care reform, took part in a national tele-town hall meeting Tuesday morning.

While some sat close to the television screen, with a notepad in hand, listening closely to President Barack Obama, others sat in the back of the room playing cards quietly with their peers — pausing to listen when something sparked their interest.

Nonetheless, all seniors were there for the same purpose: to grasp a better understanding on health care reform.

Learn more.