The first day of summer is not quite upon us, but it seems the season's blockbuster movie and hit song may already have been decided. And when it comes to long-term news, I'm ready to declare that medication is the hot topic of summer 2013.
Mr. Fogel quietly passed away last week at a Chicago-area nursing home. Most of the staff didn't know he was in the building. Among the few who did, he was a resident with heart problems. What a shame.
It's an established fact that Social Security will be kaput by the time we need it, right? Things may not be as bad as many of us have led ourselves to believe.
A visit from state surveyors should be seen as a chance to "put on a show," a long-term care expert says.
Every few days I read the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) news to see if there is anything relevant to eldercare that I should be aware of. Recently, I came across an extremely eye-opening item.
A new poll* finds that two-thirds of people 40 years old and older have done little or no preparing for the challenging and expensive reality of aging. I think most people seem to have the mentality, "I'll cross that bridge when I come to it." Kids, if you're at least 40 years old, the bridge is here.
Experts have proposed standards for minimum and ideal facility staffing, and some states have adopted minimums as legal requirements. However, there is no industry-wide agreement on any of the three targets for staffing to acuity, as described in 2002 by the Kaiser Commission on Nursing Home Staffing Standards: the minimum staffing level to avoid harm, the preferred process level and the optimal level. Discover your ideal staff size by looking at your data.
Many long-term care providers are worried about rising health insurance costs for groups. Health insurance costs will climb 15% to 40% for groups in 2014. However, there are opportunities to manage this expected cost increase to a level that is affordable.
Maybe your dining program can't compete with McDonald's for sheer speed, pseudo nutrition and potentially hazardous toys. But how does your disaster response plan compare? That's the real question.
Will working in long-term care — or anywhere else, for that matter — soon become like flying Samoa Air? It's possible, maybe even likely.
Is it time for a diet? Not a food diet, but a documentation diet. I've written previous blogs about documentation quick tips, top 10 reasons for denials, and so on. But, how many of you are guilty of over-documentation? Is that even possible? Well, yes, it is.
As the scrutiny continues to increase on rehabilitation documentation, finding ways to document objectively has become a major focus for just about everyone involved.
