Alerts47 posts

Courtesy of The Executive Office of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors For Immediate Release June 26, 2020 The Executive Office of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors announced Max Huntsman has been appointed as interim Inspector General to oversee the County’s skilled nursing home facilities, effective today. On May 26, the Board voted unanimously to appoint an Inspector General to oversee skilled nursing home facilities, which account for more than half of the County’s deaths from COVID-19.

Courtesy of the Center for Medicare Advocacy The Center for Medicare has written an Issue Brief, Medicare and Family Caregivers, as part of collaborative work to advance the RAISE Family Caregivers Act, Public Law 115-119 (1/22/2018). The RAISE Act directs the Department of Health and Human Services to develop and maintain a national family caregiver strategy that identifies actions and support for family caregivers in the United States.

Courtesy of Justice in Aging COVID-19 is putting a spotlight on our nation’s healthcare system—exposing both the ways in which programs that serve older adults are essential and the gaps. In particular, the pandemic is emphasizing how older adults’ lives are at stake in California v. Texas, when the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether to uphold the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Courtesy of the Center for Medicare Advocacy Since March 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has limited surveys to two types: targeted infection control surveys and complaints and facility-reported incidents that states triage as immediate jeopardy. The Center for Medicare Advocacy analyzed the infection control surveys released by CMS on June 4, 2020 and found that less than 3% of 5724 infection control surveys resulted in infection control deficiencies; 163 infection control deficiencies were cited at 162 nursing facilities.[1]   The Center has now analyzed the information on Nursing Home Compare for the 160 facilities that were cited with infection control deficiencies.[2] By various measures, these facilities provide poor quality care.

Courtesy of Justice in Aging The Trump Administration has once again blatantly attacked the civil rights of low-income older adults who are LGBTQ, limited English proficient (LEP), and others who experience discrimination in health care in our country. Last week, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights finalized dangerous and far reaching changes to regulations implementing the Health Care Rights Law, also known as Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, and disability in health programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.

Courtest of the Center for Medicare Advocacy On March 4, 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) suspended non-emergency inspections of health care facilities[1] and on March 20, CMS limited surveys to two types: targeted infection control surveys and complaint/facility-reported incidents triaged as immediate jeopardy.[2]  Three months later, CMS released infection control survey data for 5724 nursing facilities that were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Jun 8, 2020  Press Release from the House Committee on Ways & Means Nursing homes and assisted living facilities have been hotspots for COVID-19 and represent nearly one in three related deaths WASHINGTON, DC – Following reports that some nursing homes and assisted living facilities have been seizing residents’ economic impact payments (EIPs), House Ways and Means Chairman Richard E.

Courtesy of Justice in Aging Governor Newsom’s revised budget makes deep cuts to nearly every program on which low-income older adults rely. The cuts to programs will be especially hard on older adults of color, who, because of systemic racism and discrimination, are at greater risk from COVID-19 and rely on these programs to survive. If enacted, these cuts will cause great harm to the health and economic security of the state’s low-income older adults and their families.

Courtesy of the Federal Trade Commission May 15, 2020 By Lois Greisman Elder Justice Coordinator, FTC Do you or a loved one live in a nursing home or assisted living facility? Are you (or they) on Medicaid? If you said “yes” to both, please read on and prepare to get mad. We’ve been hearing that some facilities are trying to take the stimulus payments intended for their residents on Medicaid.

This Alert courtesy of the California Care Rationing Coalition “Governor Newsom has the chance to make a bold choice to lead with love, rather than being the kind of ‘white moderate’ who Dr. King lamented in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail …. to make California into a real-life Beloved Community, a real California for All” –  Ira X.