At present, when a patient survives a heart attack, they are left with permanent structural damage to their heart through the formation of a scar, which can lead to heart failure in the future. Fish and salamander, on the other hand, can regenerate the heart throughout life.
CMS Further Expands Medicare Advantage Benefits for In-Home Services for the Chronically Ill
CMS is expanding the scope of Medicare covered personal care services to include patients with chronic conditions.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is proposing to further expand Medicare Advantage (MA) flexibilities for certain in-home services and supports for chronically ill Americans starting in 2020, the agency announced Wednesday.
The move is in line with CMS’ larger goals of broadening the scope of the MA program, which has quickly grown in popularity over the past several years.
Specifically, the newly proposed changes will help older adults and chronically ill individuals pick plans that are more closely catered to their health needs, according to CMS. Federal policymakers previously announced they were providing new supplemental benefits and flexibilities for the 2019 plan year last April.
The Top Trends in Home Care for 2019
The year of 2019 in home care was a year of change with a focus on the overall continuum of care. Between Medicare Advantage beginning to pay for in home care and the shortage of qualified caregivers we are in for a ride in 2019.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) shook the home care world in April 2018 when it announced that some non-skilled in-home care services would be allowable as supplemental benefits under the increasingly popular MA program. Home care providers have since been scrambling to form payer partnerships, strengthen their data-collection efforts and figure out how to best capitalize on the new opportunity.
Recruiting and retaining qualified workers has long been a challenge in the home care industry, especially as demand rises with America’s aging population. Most estimates put the industry’s turnover rate somewhere between 40% and 67%, though some individual agencies have been able to avoid those high levels by creating career ladders for caregivers and offering stronger benefits packages. The projected cost of hiring and training a new caregiver to fill a vacancy: about $2,600, according to research firm Home Care Pulse.
All signs point to the labor crunch persisting — or worsening — in 2019. Home care agencies should expect more aggressive poaching of workers and legal issues to crop up as agencies clamp down with noncompetes and other contract provisions.
“You’re going to have lots of companies [with] lots of clients and a great pipeline of work,” Angelo Spinola, a shareholder and attorney who represents home care companies at international labor and employment law firm Littler Mendelson, told HHCN in December. “The issue [they’ll] have is that they don’t have enough of a labor force to satisfy their client demands, so you’re going to see noncompetes, non-solicits and direct hire provisions.”
Source: The Top Trends in Home Care for 2019 – Home Health Care News
Veterans get care in family-like home in new program – The Washington Post
For many years our Veterans’ housing options have been ignored. A pilot program by the VA placing Veterans in “foster homes” with caregivers needs to become pervasive.
Source: Veterans get care in family-like home in new program – The Washington Post
Camera on Your Laptop – Trouble or Beneficial?
Cameras on your laptop can either be detrimental or beneficial.
Source: Home – Quora
How betrayal, near-failure, and a vacuum saved a $19M startup
The challenge, however, is to choose a project that you’re willing to take on a very long and bumpy ride. The prevailing startup narrative celebrates unicorns and seed-round superstars, but the accolades are hollow when you’re staring down serious trouble.
Source: How betrayal, near-failure, and a vacuum saved my $19M startup
Opioid-Related Deaths Possibly Prevented By Gene Testing – Clinical Chemistry
The time is now to use pharmacogenetic testing to prevent opioid-related deaths. Many deaths are caused by overdoses when in fact the patient took the medications according to the dosing schedules. Poor metabolizers can “store” doses such that an overdose can occur when the drugs are released into the patients’ system.
Source: Opioid-Related Deaths Possibly Prevented By Gene Testing – Clinical Chemistry – Labmedica.com
Combination Liquid Biopsy Diagnoses Early Cancer – Pathology
The authors concluded that the combination of the circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) and protein markers was superior to any single marker. Moreover, the combination detected nearly two-thirds of pancreatic cancers that had no evidence of distant metastasis at the time of surgical resection. The strategy may represent an approach to detect cancers of many types at an earlier stage.
Source: Combination Liquid Biopsy Diagnoses Early Cancer – Pathology – Labmedica.com
9 Ancillary Services That Can Boost Practice Revenue
Great article from Medscape with the pros and cons for nine different practice revenue generators.
Source: 9 Ancillary Services That Can Boost Practice Revenue
Wasting the Wild by Throwing “People Food” into the Woods
We have always believed throwing away “biodegradable” or table food helped to the flora and fauna survive around us. It’s actually harmful.
Source: Wasting the Wild – Center for Biological Diversity – Medium
Specific MicroRNA Identifies Glioblastoma Subtypes Through Molecular Diagnostics
Through MicroRNA diagnostics, the technology now exists to to identify subtypes of Glioblastoma Multiforme, an extremely aggressive form of brain cancer.
Source: Specific MicroRNA Identifies Glioblastoma Subtypes – molecular-diagnostics – Labmedica.com
The Six Keys to Building a Startup for the BIG Payout
Many people build a startup for acquisition, sale or IPO. While that is not the course that many top advisors recommend, it is a fact nonetheless. Here are the top six actions to take in order to build your startup for a big change of a control.
Source: How to Build a Startup That Gets Acquired – ThinkGrowth.org
The AMA Code of Medical Ethics’ Opinions on the Sale and Dispensing of Prescriptions… Virtual Mentor
As providers migrate towards an evidence-based model to increase outcomes, it is imperative to make sure patients are filling their prescriptions. In fact, 30% of all scripts go unfilled for various reasons. One way to insure medication compliance (and make some extra money) is to provide patients with an in-office dispensary. Patients fill their meds at the time of service, and best of all the practice makes the profit on the scripts – not some big box drug store. Regardless of profit potential, patients are only prescribed meds based on medical necessity and reasonable expectations for the effectiveness of the drug. The ethical question is addressed by the AMA: “Physicians may dispense drugs within their office practices provided such dispensing primarily benefits the patient.” When selecting a dispensary partner it is imperative to make sure that compliance is their #1 focus. Other options that are very attractive include no upfront fees, no inventory purchase requirements, custom formularies and real-time reimbursement software. See http://www.unyter.com
Wound Healing – The Stem Cell Dynamic – Enhancing Veteran’s Lives
We applaud the use of stem cells in our Veteran’s wound care. Reducing the amount of pain that our Veterans experience will lessen their need for pain medications including opioids. Thanks to forward thinking by our legislators, our Veterans can now take FULL advantage of stem cell technology in treating wounds. The DOD and VA healthcare systems are approved to use stem cell treatments for many treatments, one of which is to expedite wound healing and lessen the amount of time our Veterans spend in pain.
Researchers at the Université libre de Bruxelles, ULB define for the first time the changes in the stem cell dynamics that contribute to wound healing. One of the key questions in biology is to identify how tissues are repaired after trauma and understand how stem cells migrate, proliferate, and differentiate to repair tissue damage.
Pharmacogenetics in the Community Pharmacy | Drug Topics
Another great little article on the future of pharmacy and the value of Pharmacogenetics testing. Worth the read to learn how patients benefit from testing which medications work and which ones don’t work with their genetics.
Mark Dunnenberger, PharmD, Program Director for Pharmacogenomics at the NorthShore Center for Personalized Medicine said, “It can bring a lot of value to the patient.”
Read on…
Pharmacogenetics is moving into the community pharmacy. A patient’s DNA sample is taken in the pharmacy, sent to a lab, and in a couple of weeks, the patient, pharmacist, and health-care provi
Source: Pharmacogenetics in the Community Pharmacy | Drug Topics