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  • About Us
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How we can help others during the holidays with health and well-being needs

It’s the season of goodwill, gratitude, and giving. And in case you didn’t know it, research has shown that being generous to others also can have health benefits for the charitable.

For those interested in helping others with their health, medical, and other needs, here’s a sampling of ideas that may be useful and how to get started.
 

1. Take time to support those giving care
 

President Biden and the Democrats in Congress overcame fierce opposition this year to pass health care reforms that many patients, especially older Americans, will benefit from in the days to come. Seniors on Medicare, for example, soon will see the cost of insulin capped at $35 for a month’s supply. In 2025, they are scheduled to enjoy a $2,000 yearly cap on their prescription drug costs. And in 2023, the federal government plans to use its enormous market sway to begin negotiating via Medicare with Big Pharma over the prices for a small but expanding number of prescription drugs. Advocates hope this effort will provide a new, big way to slash what we all pay for medications.

Still, in months of negotiations — with opposing Republicans and reluctant Democrats, too — the administration failed to get Congress to provide vital financial support to a giant group struggling with the U.S. health system: home caregivers. These unsung Great Samaritans quietly battle with major life challenges, as the Washington Post reported:

“More than half of Americans 50 and older — 54% — are considered to be caregivers because of the help they provide to one or more people 65 and older, according to the most recent findings of the University of Michigan’s ongoing National Poll on Healthy Aging. Most often, caregiving involves helping with health care, usually through making appointments, talking with doctors, and handling insurance issues, but it can also include assisting with home cleaning, yard work, grocery shopping, meal preparation, banking and bill paying. The survey found that 94% are not being paid for their help, and nearly half (47%) have been helping out for at least three years. The most frequent recipients are parents (45% of the time) and friends, or neighbors (19%). The researchers note … that such support ‘is often essential for aging in place and managing chronic conditions’ — issues that people increasingly confront as they age.”

Alas, as those who have experienced the responsibility of home caregiving know, it can be an isolating, lonely, arduous, and costly labor of love. In the days ahead, individuals can acknowledge caregiving’s extreme stresses confronted by family members, friends, work colleagues, neighbors and others. Give them a call. Schedule a visit. Make time to have a cup of coffee or a meal with them to let them know they are valued, and their struggles are appreciated. Perhaps circumstances will allow you or your church or social group to provide a caregiver or two with a formal or informal, occasional or regular respite, letting them have what for too many is the rarity of time and resources for themselves.
 


For more information on resources for those involved in family caregiving, AARP has a special web page devoted to this topic and accessible by please clicking here.

2. Help erase scandalous medical debt

Reporter Noam Levey, the independent and nonprofit Kaiser Health News Service, and National Public Radio developed an important, tragic series over many months of 2022, detailing the bankrupting burden that tens of millions of Americans suffer with: medical debt.

This scandal of the U.S. health care system afflicts as many as 100 million regular folks, with Levey finding that “a quarter of adults with health care debt owe more than $5,000. And about 1 in 5 with any amount of debt said they don’t expect to ever pay it off.” Their indebtedness to doctors, hospitals, and others in the health system forces far too many to forgo needed medical treatment and prescription medications, as well as causing “families to cut spending on food and other essentials. Millions are being driven from their homes or into bankruptcy.”

Despite the efforts exerted too often by doctors, hospitals, and other providers to squeeze patients — especially the poor, working poor, and uninsured or underinsured — for every penny they possess, collection efforts frequently go for naught. That leaves financial institutions to aggregate, buy, and sell medical debt with what can be cruel abandon for those who find these stressful obligations hanging over their lives. Enter RIP Medical Debt, a New York-based 5013(c) founded by, yes, two former debt-collection executives. They have shown how gifts from the charitable can wipe out substantial medical debts, with a $100 contribution, for example, eliminating $10,000 in others’ obligations.

Officials in Ohio, the city of Toledo and Lucas County, have done this, using $800,000 in coronavirus relief funds to eliminate an estimated $240 million in medical debt for local residents. Television satirist John Oliver has done this, as has political activist Stacey Abrams. So, too, have churches and charities nationwide. Abrams persuaded a political action committee to donate $1.34 million to RIP, which then wiped out $212 million in medical debts owed by 108,000 residents of five southern states. Oliver chronicled how his show’s $60,000 donation wiped out $14.9 million in medical debt. RIP says it has wiped out $7.4 billion in medical debt.
 


For more information on RIP Medical Debt, please click here.

3. Food insecurity poses global challenge

In 2022, Americans learned more than ever about the desperate straits regular folks can be left in after extreme weather and other natural and man-made calamities strike. Since 2010, a novel group of people with expertise in food have tried to ensure that nutritious meals, a fundamental of human welfare, get to those in the worst circumstances. Chefs around the globe have answered the emergency calls and rallied around José Andrés and the World Central Kitchen charity he founded with his wife.

Andrés, who launched his superstar culinary career in Washington, D.C., has defined the group’s global mission: “WCK is a nonprofit organization that is first to the frontlines providing fresh meals in response to crises, while working to build resilient food systems with locally led solutions. Applying our model of quick action, leveraging local resources, and adapting in real time, WCK has served more than 200 million nourishing meals around the world.” The organization has fed the hungry in war-torn Ukraine, inundated Pakistan, flooded Kentucky, wildfire-ravaged California, and hurricane-stricken Florida. The group welcomes volunteers, as well as donations of many different kinds.

To be sure, food insecurity is a persistent problem, not only after disasters and not just in the developing world. As the experts and advocates underscored in the 2022 White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, the first such event in a half century: “Millions of Americans are afflicted with food insecurity and diet-related diseases — including heart disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes — which are some of the leading causes of death and disability in the U.S. The toll of hunger and these diseases is not distributed equally, disproportionately impacting underserved communities … Lack of access to healthy, safe, and affordable food, and to safe outdoor spaces, contributes to hunger, diet-related diseases, and health disparities …”
 


To learn more about battling food insecurity nationally and in the region, click on these links (they represent a slice of the many charitable groups involved in the struggle): D.C. Central Kitchen, Maryland Food Bank, SOME (So Others Might Eat), Capital Area Food Bank, and D.C. Hunger Solutions.

4. How do future MDs learn all about you?

Technology makes strides by the day, including in the use of virtual reality to help teach aspiring doctors crucial, basic information about human anatomy and physiology. It may sound macabre, but the demand is still big for “anatomical donors” — those who make what Maryland officials describe as a posthumous, selfless gift of their whole body for training medical students, surgeons, first responders, and other health personnel.

The Georgetown University Medical School explains the importance of donor bodies: “When a medical student peers inside a human body that he or she has just dissected, his or her medical training takes a quantum leap from theory into practice. After all, a doctor’s patients are real people. And the only way doctors-in-training and health care professionals get the chance to immerse themselves in the intricacies of human anatomy comes from dissecting an actual body of a deceased person. Simply put, dissection of a human body by every medical student is nothing less than an indispensable part of a first-rate medical education and of medical research, in general.”

The Howard University Medical School offers this insight about the possible benefits to donors’ families: “Burying a loved one has become an expensive commitment during an already trying and emotional time. The cost of a funeral home, a casket, transportation costs, a burial plot and the other numerous expenses associated with the loss of a loved one can be devastating to people of modest means. The Department of Anatomy at Howard University will at no cost pick up the deceased, embalm them, cremate, and return the ashes to the family in a funeral urn. The body will be used to learn anatomy by the very same health professional students who will serve the community after their education.”

This gift has constraints, including personal and religious belief, the common-sense exclusion of those who have died from highly communicable diseases or who were emaciated or obese. The sensitivities of loved ones obviously comes into play, especially because unlike “live” organ donations that many people automatically may think of, anatomical gifts occur after death. Don’t forget that live organ donors also are desperately needed.
 


For more information on making anatomical donations, check with your favored medical school, or you may wish to learn more from online postings by the states of Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. Those interested in “live” organ donations (hearts, kidneys, livers, lungs, pancreases, and more) can check out another of our firm’s newsletters on this topic by clicking here.

5. A lifesaver must be replenished, always

It becomes an instant, urgent need for those involved in terrible vehicle wrecks. Or for those who must undergo major surgery. It is a big, sustained demand for patients with chronic illnesses, including certain cancers. As the American Red Cross advises, “every 2 seconds someone in the U.S. needs blood and or platelets.“

Approximately 36,000 units of red blood cells are needed every day in the U.S. But insufficient numbers of Good Samaritans give blood and do so regularly, leaving the nation’s health care system — and countless patients across the country — in constant worry about supplies.

Not everyone may give blood, and there are eligibility requirements to safeguard donors and the supply. But giving is painless and hospitals, clinics, and blood-banking institutions, with a boost from supporting charitable organizations, try to make the process as easy, simple, and convenient as possible. Those who donate, the Red Cross emphasizes, give a special gift, as “blood and platelets cannot be manufactured; they can only come from volunteer donors,” and “one donation can potentially save up to three lives.”
 


For more information on donating blood, please click here.

Season’s best greetings from all of us at our firm!

Over the years, this newsletter has suggested for our readers other health-related gifts, including participating in a randomized clinical trial.

Or you may want  to donate items you and your loved ones no longer use, including eyeglasses, hearing aids, rehabilitative gear, and prescription medications

You may resolve to share service-oriented activities with others and in your community, as members of our firm do. If you’re looking for charitable groups that can always benefit from help, the firm has a list of suggestions, available by clicking here.

No matter how you choose to give to others, all of us at the firm are grateful to work with you and to wish you and yours the merriest and healthiest holidays as well as all the best in the months and years ahead!
 


 

Credits: Photo above, Chef José Andrés dons protective gear as he helps deliver food assistance to combat-besieged Ukrainians. World Central Kitchen/WCK.org

Painting, above, Rembrandt van Rijn. The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp. The Mauritshuis, the Hague, the Netherlands. Work commissioned by members of Surgeons’ Guild, Amsterdam, 1632; Surgeons’ Widows’ Fund, Amsterdam, 1798-1828; purchased by the Dutch State and placed in the Mauritshuis at the order of King William I, 1828

Negotiate those bills — especially if medical prices prove to be so arbitrary

In recent months, consumers have started to see big federally required downloads of previously proprietary data on hospital prices, especially those negotiated with health insurers and big employers. This economic information, of course, comes atop increasing scholarly scrutiny of skyrocketing medical charges.

The still-developing read-out from the increasing price transparency should not come as a shock to patients who foot the bills: Medical charges vary wildly and seemingly without sensible explanation, as the medical journal Health Affairs has reported:

“Studies of price variation among hospitals and insurers within the U.S. suggest that much of the price growth driving spending growth is excessive, particularly in the private sector. In their 2018 article ‘The Price Ain’t Right?’ Zack Cooper and colleagues used Health Care Cost Institute data from 2011 to find enormous variation in private insurer spending by hospitals for the same procedures … A 2021 Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) analysis (also of commercial payers) showed massive variation in prices for common hospital and physician procedures by geographic area. According to the KFF analysis, in 2018 the average price for a knee or hip replacement at an in-network facility varied by a factor of two between the Metropolitan Statistical Area with the lowest average price (Baltimore, Md., at about $23,000) and that with the highest average price (New York City Metro area, at about $58,000).

“Comparing Medicare prices with prices paid by private insurers offers another measure of variation in U.S. health care prices and provides further evidence of excessive prices. Christopher Whaley and colleagues at the RAND Corporation analyzed data on spending for hospital inpatient and outpatient services from a selection of employers and private insurers and found that in 2018 those insurers paid 247% of what Medicare would have paid for the same services at the same facilities…”

While the experts parse data reluctantly flowing from parties in the U.S. health care system, regular folks can choose in the days ahead to pursue a strategy the information points to: If prices for medical services and goods are as arbitrary as they seem, why not consider them flexible and negotiable? Why give away your hard-earned money when a little dickering can go a long way?

This will take patience, persistence, a willingness to educate oneself in frustrating red tape and bureaucracy. But experts say you can save yourself real money in 2023 and beyond by taking steps such as:

  • Getting an itemized bill and reviewing it, yes, line by line, asking questions about items that do not make sense
  • Talking with your doctor about the costs of your care, inquiring gently if less-costly options will work. While some M.D.s are conscious of and try to assist patients with the nose-bleed expenses of medical care, too many practitioners keep hectic schedules and fail to consider patients’ finances when ordering tests, procedures, and prescription medications.
  • Talk to the people in the doctor’s office, clinic, or hospital who deal with medical bills. Find out if your bill would be less if you paid cash, rather than making an insurance claim. Determine if paying cash, up front, can result in negotiated, lower charges for major tests or procedures.
  • Don’t ignore a medical bill. Do understand the infuriating flurry of paperwork that ensues when patients get charged — with insurers providing a detailed explanation of benefits (EOB), doctors firing back about their charges, and so on. At the end, drill down on what you as the patient owe and whether your insurer and providers still might negotiate and lower that charge.
  • Don’t be shy. Ask if you qualify for assistance programs, especially those that may be based on income or age. Recent news reports have focused on hospitals’ failure to inform the uninsured, poor, and working poor about charity care to which they are entitled under programs that give institutions giant tax breaks in exchange.
  • Ask around to see if your doctor’s office, hospital, or local governments provide patient advocates or ombudsmen to help those who feel overwhelmed and mistreated by medical bureaucracy. If you even think your case has gotten sufficiently out of hand, you may wish to consult with an attorney, remembering that lawyers do not charge for such initial discussions and many lawsuits get handled on a contingency basis.

Recent Health Care Blog Posts

Here are some recent posts on our patient safety blog that might interest you:

-As cardiologists and other medical specialists grow increasingly aware of big differences in the heart and circulatory health of men and women, researchers also are prodding doctors who take medical histories of female patients to be sure to ask simple but important questions about their experiences with problem pregnancies. That’s because vital preventive information can be surfaced, if clinicians learn, for example, that their patients had preeclampsia, “a complication that occurs in about 5% of pregnancies and in which dangerously high blood pressure can lead to seizures, organ failure, and death,” according to Stat, a science and medical news site. 

-Almost three dozen leading groups representing a range of doctors, specialists, and other health workers have called on the Biden Administration to deal urgently with the long-running but increasing and dangerous practice of hospitals allowing their emergency care facilities to be overwhelmed because they also are parking patients waiting for rooms and treatment. This “boarding” crisis, already at breaking points for many exhausted ER staffs, will worsen and imperil patients even more if the nation gets hit — as growing indicators suggest is occurring — with a “tripledemic,” a choking load of coronavirus, flu, and other respiratory infections serious enough to require hospitalization.

-People around the planet must be more wary of the fungus among us, because the too often overlooked pathogens are becoming “increasingly widespread, resistant to treatment, and deadly.” That’s the view of the World Health Organization, as reported by the New York Times and other media organizations. WHO has sought to heighten awareness about an array of fungal infections because fewer of them can be treated well with familiar therapeutics, the newspaper reported

-The liquor cabinets, beer coolers and wine cellars in our homes harbor one of the most pernicious substances  in U.S. households, a leading (but often overlooked) cause of preventable death and debilitation: Yes, alcohol itself. Federal officials estimate that 1 in 8 deaths of Americans ages 20 to 64 results from injuries or illnesses tied to excessive drinking. And if you look only at the prime ages of 20 to 49, the booze toll is tied to 1 in 5 U.S. deaths, according to a study newly published on the medical JAMA Network.

-The Biden Administration is encountering stiff industry opposition but is forging ahead with plans to announce in coming months major regulatory reforms that advocates hope finally will force nursing homes to meet minimum staffing guidelines to care for some of the nation’s most vulnerable. The tragic devastation of long-term care facilities and their residents by the coronavirus pandemic demonstrated the dire need for federal regulators to set baseline standards for nursing and other front-line resident care, critics say. Their arguments have been bolstered by lawsuits against nursing homes and their subsequent disclosure of harms done to seniors, the sick, and injured — those who are so debilitated that they require substantial living assistance but too often do not get it due to substandard staffing and profit-driven decision-making by facilities’ owners and operators.

HERE’S TO A HEALTHY 2022!

Sincerely,

Patrick Malone
Patrick Malone & Associates

Copyright © 2022 Patrick Malone & Associates P.C., All rights reserved.

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