More than 900 U.S. nursing homes, including six in Georgia, have been listed by federal officials as not fully complying with a regulation to have automatic fire sprinklers in every patient area. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) sent a memo to state officials last week on the sprinkler rule compliance. It did…
Recent problems with the Affordable Care Act — a poorly functioning insurance exchange website and an uproar over canceled policies — have dominated headlines and reignited political debates. But Jonathan Blum has a positive message to deliver about the ACA and its effect on the Medicare program, which covers about 1.4 million Georgians. Blum, principal…
Johnnie Collier, 71, recently went to Mercy Care’s downtown Atlanta facility to have a tooth extracted. He said it had been hurting him for many years. Another patient, David Perlete, 63, who is uninsured, also had a painful tooth pulled there. Other facilities charge hundreds of dollars, he said. Despite the work of charity clinics…
“It’s about people,” said U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson, a Georgia Democrat. Johnson was referring to proposed legislation (H.R. 1507) to provide enhanced services for those affected by dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. It’s the Health Outcomes, Planning, and Education Act, also known as the HOPE Act. If passed, the bill would provide Medicare coverage for clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer’s and…
Con artists looking for their next scheme can usually find plenty of fodder in the health care field. Especially enticing to these crooks are new health programs. One example was the Medicare prescription drug benefit, which led to a rash of scams after it was launched in 2006. Now, with the rollout of Obamacare, health-related…
Medicare will impose fines on 73 Georgia hospitals for excessive readmissions of patients within 30 days of discharge. Kaiser Health News reported that 68 percent of eligible hospitals in the state received a penalty — roughly the national average. In all, 2,225 hospitals nationally will have payments reduced for a year starting Oct. 1. Eighteen hospitals…
Five hospitals in Georgia are among 55 facilities in 21 states settling allegations of overcharging Medicare for a back procedure. The overall $34 million settlement, announced Tuesday, involved a false claims case involving kyphoplasty, a procedure for treating spinal fractures that are frequently caused by osteoporosis. The U.S. Department of Justice said in a press…
Outcomes Health Information Solutions, based in Alpharetta in northern metro Atlanta, has launched a company that aims to address gaps in the medical care of seniors. SeniorCare will send nurse practitioners into people’s homes to assess the health of individual seniors and send the information to the appropriate insurers and physicians’ office. It will primarily…
Oct. 1 is a big milestone for the Affordable Care Act. That’s when open enrollment begins for the ‘‘marketplaces,’’ the insurance exchanges where individuals and small businesses will get health coverage under the 2010 law. Renard Murray is well aware of the upcoming calendar. Murray is the regional administrator for the Centers for Medicare &…
At South Georgia Medical Center in Valdosta, front-desk clerk Frances Blanton, 72, sees countless people bounce back and forth between hospital and home. This is a high-traffic hospital, one of two in a county with nearly 115,000 people, but similar patterns can be seen in any hospital. “We have a lot of frequent flyers in and…