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According to the National Association of Home Care and Hospice there’s a 125 percent increase in demand for home care workers. William Dombi the president of NAHC, said the demand intensified in March and has been a full force ever since. "It is a viable and probably more protective environment for care for individuals that are trying to avoid the virus," Dombi said. Although many patients are vulnerable to the virus, Dombi said home care workers are at risk too. "By our estimations, there are tens of thousands of actively infected COVID patients under the care of home care providers today. We’ve also seen deaths.. we have had home care workers die from COVID-19," Dombi said. (Whitfield, 1/31)

Hernias are among the most common conditions in the U.S. and for some patients, surgery is recommended to ease the pain and discomfort they typically cause. But research shows hernia repair surgeries—nearly 1 million are performed every year—aren’t foolproof. Patients can have recurrent hernias or experience continued discomfort that sometimes require additional procedures. Interested in understanding how effective hernia repair surgery is in improving quality of life for specific patient populations, Dr. John Fischer, associate professor of surgery at Penn Medicine who performs the procedure, began over five years ago exploring a patient-reported outcomes tool specifically for this surgery. Patient-reported outcomes are quality measures that assess quality of life for a patient and have become increasingly more popular in recent years across disease states. (Castellucci, 1/30)

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act—HIPAA—turns 25 years old in August, and experts say it’s time for the patient privacy law to finally live up to its promise. While HIPAA mostly succeeded in safeguarding patient health information created in the healthcare system, it hasn’t enabled widespread information sharing and doesn’t really protect health-relevant information outside the traditional healthcare system. Most experts agreed the nation’s health privacy rules are long overdue for an overhaul, given all the changes that have taken place in healthcare and technology since 1996, though some insiders think the current regulatory system works well enough. (Brady, 1/30)

KHN: ‘An Arm And A Leg’: Tips For Fighting Medical Bills From A Former ‘Bad Guy’ Lawyer

Lawyer Jeff Bloom used to be the person whom medical providers and debt collectors would hire to represent them in court. “I was a bad guy, for sure,” he said. Then, a few years ago, he switched sides. Bloom now represents consumers and, in this episode, shares what he knows. He said consumers have more rights than they may realize, although enforcing those rights may be tough. (Weissmann, 2/1)