Bloomberg The Job of the Future Is... Home Health Care The BLS has projected that by 2022 there will be 1.9 million home health care workers, making it the fastest growing industry in the land over the coming years, just ahead of the not entirely dissimilar categories of individual and family services and outpatient, laboratory [...]
Read More >
What We’re Reading: Sep. 14, 2015
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services: Addressing Disparities in Medicare - A Six-point Plan CMS released a six-point plan (“The CMS Equity Plan for Improving Quality in Medicare”) for addressing health equity in Medicare at a conference that noted both the 50th anniversary of Medicare and the 30th anniversary of the Heckler Report on minority health. [...]
Read More >
Read More >
What We’re Reading: Aug. 24, 2015
Associated Press U.S. Court Reinstates Home Care Pay Rules A federal appeals court on Friday reinstated regulations drawn up by the Obama administration to extend minimum wage and overtime protections to almost two million workers who provide home care for the elderly and disabled. The regulations, struck down by a lower court about nine months [...]
Read More >
Read More >
What We’re Reading: Aug. 10, 2015
NPR Will Doctors Soon Be Prescribing Video Games For Mental Health? At the University of California–San Francisco, neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley is putting a fully immersive video game focused on multitasking through the paces of the FDA approval process for medical devices. If successful, Gazzaley sees great potential to use these games for a range of [...]
Read More >
Read More >
What We’re Reading: May 18, 2015
This week we’re reading about an ‘epic’ regulation in the works for Medicaid managed care, home health worker pay, disability-informed police training, graduation rates, and more. New Medicaid regulations – expected any day now – could be ‘epic’ for managed long-term care, writes the National Journal. More: “When the rules were last updated 13 years [...]
Read More >
Read More >
What We’re Reading: Jan. 26, 2015
Disability advocates sharply critical of plan to ease testing. Current regulations allow students with the severe cognitive disabilities to take alternate assessments as opposed to the general, grade-level tests required of most students. Only 1 percent of all students — or roughly 10 percent of those with disabilities — can be counted as proficient by [...]
Read More >
Read More >
What We’re Reading: Jan. 19, 2015
Caregiver wage, overtime protections struck down. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said this week that the U.S. Department of Labor overstepped its authority when it moved to mandate pay protections for caregivers. (Disability Scoop, Jan. 16) Congress seeks to limit transfers between Social Security and Disability funds. A sweeping rules package the House approved at [...]
Read More >
Read More >
What We’re Reading: Jan. 12, 2015
On day one, the new Congress launches an attack on Social Security. The rule hampers an otherwise routine reallocation of Social Security payroll tax income from the old-age program to the disability program. Such a reallocation, in either direction, has taken place 11 times since 1968, according to Kathy Ruffing of the Center on Budget and [...]
Read More >
Read More >
What We’re Reading: Dec. 29, 2014
Judge strikes down wage boost for some home workers. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said part of the rules approved last year conflict with federal law that has long exempted third-party providers of in-home care for the elderly and disabled from complying with minimum wage and overtime laws. The decision. (AP, Dec. 22) With caregiver [...]
Read More >
Read More >
What We’re Reading: Dec. 22, 2014
Bill boosting financial security for individuals with disabilities clears U.S. House, awaits passage in Senate. When his daughter Audrey was 4 years old, Rick Hodges went to a financial planning seminar — “like a dutiful dad,” he recalled. But he knew immediately it was of no help. “All these plans are designed for people with [...]
Read More >
Read More >