Briefly Noted
Briefly Noted
• The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has designated a toll free hot line where patients, families, and caregivers can share concerns regarding the quality of care at accredited healthcare organizations. The hot line, (800) 994-6610, will be staffed between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. weekdays for those providing or receiving care. The commission hopes complaint information will help strengthen the oversight activities and improve the quality of care in hospitals, home health agencies, nursing homes, and other healthcare businesses. Matters it will cover are patient rights, safety, staffing, and security, but not matters of billing, insurance, and payment disputes.
• If family members who take care of ailing relatives were paid for their work, it would cost the nation $196 billion more a year, according to a study conducted by Peter Arno and Margaret Memmott of Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. The estimate is based on data from five databanks, including the National Family Caregiving Survey and the National Health Interview Survey. With 25.8 million Americans spending an average of 18 hours a week caring for relatives at the rate of $8.18 an hour, the added healthcare costs go up $196 billion nowhere near the $32 billion a year currently being spent on home healthcare, reported The Washington Post. The researchers warned that the nation must find "more effective ways to support and sustain" people who care for ailing relatives because they are "the bedrock of our nation’s chronic care system."
• Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has publicly opposed a 10% co-pay for home health services, and recently sent a letter with the signatures of 50 congressional colleagues to the Bipartisan Commission on Medicare stating their opposition. At a press conference in early March, Sanders and staff of the Home Care Association of America (HCAA; Jacksonville, FL) voiced their opposition. HCAA has long opposed co-pays because the majority of homebound patients live under the poverty level, it said.
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