The national vaccination campaign has picked up measurable momentum. Coronavirus cases, hospitalizations, and deaths continue to recede from scary winter highs. Even cautious state and local officials are easing public health restrictions. Can it be that the pandemic will be enough in check that Americans can look forward to small family barbecues for the Fourth….
Continue ReadingArchives for March 2021
Nursing homes’ lethal health-staffing problem: Churn rates as high as 300%
Churn may be a wonderful word when discussing fresh milk, heavy cream, and butter. But it can be a nightmare term for the too-common, rapid, and lethal turnover that occurs in health staff at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. Personnel turnover left the aged, injured, and ailing residents at care centers, with an….
Continue ReadingIs killer opioid crisis an ‘afterthought,’ as U.S. struggles with many problems?
Although the Biden Administration may be winning Americans’ approval for its battle against the coronavirus pandemic, drug abuse experts have expressed rising worry that federal efforts are lagging in the fight against a rising health menace: the resurgent opioid abuse and drug overdose crisis. While overdoses for the first time might claim 100,000 U.S. lives….
Continue ReadingInsurers and employers could save $352 billion if hospitals stuck to Medicare rates
Who wouldn’t want $352 billion in health care savings in 2021? Insurers — and more importantly employers — could see that hypothetical big chunk of change staying in their pockets, if somehow they could persuade hospitals to forgo their sky-high and ever-increasing prices, tying those charges instead to rates established and paid in the federal….
Continue ReadingWhile experts say pandemic is far from over, ‘Neanderthal thinking’ booms
The nation has made significant progress, but the coronavirus pandemic is far from over, President Biden and top medical scientists say. That has not stopped a panoply of politicians from coast to coast from declaring a premature victory over the disease that has killed more than 520,000 Americans and infected 29 million people. As infections,….
Continue ReadingPanicked over prediabetes? For older patients, more evidence to say: Not to worry
It’s not an invitation to pile on the ice cream, cake, and candy. But older adults may get to say pshaw to the finger-wagging they may have endured from doctors and loved ones about their raised blood sugar levels and the condition that specialists ginned up to caution them about it: prediabetes. As the New….
Continue ReadingAs virus threat eases, alarms sound on hedge funds owning nursing homes
Just as good news expands about vaccines and declining coronavirus cases and deaths in the nation’s nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, grim information also is developing on how the facilities’ ownership, particularly by wealthy investors, can be lethal to residents. The positive effects of early efforts to get vulnerable long-term care residents and….
Continue ReadingVet, with aid from Congress, forces VA to increase disclosures in malpractice cases
Congress has given U.S. service personnel slightly improved help if they find they have been harmed while receiving military medical care and want to pursue justice via legal actions. Lawmakers, as part of a big bill at year’s end dealing with many different matters affecting the Department of Veterans Affairs, also quietly approved legal provisions….
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