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The topic is complex and sometimes requires multiple visits, but right now doctors are paid for it only if they discuss end-of-life planning in their initial visit with a new Medicare patient.
New research finds that patients who repeatedly use costly hospital and emergency room services, known often as super-utilizers or frequent fliers, generally don鈥檛 seek such intense care for a lifetime but instead for a short period of time.
Counseling by mental health professionals over the phone was effective in reducing anxiety and depressive symptoms, according to researchers.
The fines, in their fourth year, are assessed on hospitals that have patients frequently return and will cost nearly 2,600 hospitals $420 million in total.
On Medicare's 50th birthday, two brothers who helped get it off the ground tell their stories. A younger member of the Lee family is at the helm of Covered California, the state insurance exchange.
Medicare patients must be told when they're in "observation" status but not admitted in a hospital, under legislation expected to be signed into law by the president.
Medicare provides coverage to one in six Americans, and federal officials hope to trim the increasing cost and improve how the program operates.
An ambitious demonstration to transform clinics into 鈥渕edical homes鈥 treating patients in the community instead of the hospital didn鈥檛 save money. Some blame the test, not the idea.
Trust fund solvent until 2030, but some seniors may see a big spike in Part B premiums.
For the first time, the government is assigning one to five stars to the agencies that care for seniors in their homes. Nearly half of 9,000 agencies rated captured average scores.
The proposed rules, released in advance of the White House Conference on Aging, cover wide-ranging topics, from meals to roommate selection to staff training.
Across the country, hospitals are offering seniors social activities and other benefits to help them stay healthy and out of the hospital, while also encouraging them to come back to visit.
Seniors can opt to stay in their marketplace plans when they become eligible for Medicare, but most lose their access to subsidies and failing to move into Medicare promptly results in premium penalties.
Less than 1 percent of beneficiaries use the technology because Congress has put tight restrictions on it.
The Part D plans have cut back coverage of a newer version of OxyContin that has been formulated to make it tougher for people to snort or inject it. That new version is 20 times more expensive than the generic.
But a new study of Medicare beneficiaries finds that hospice services had little impact on depression suffered by individuals after the death of their spouses.
Having blood work and other tests before cataract surgery isn鈥檛 usually recommended, but a study finds that more than half of Medicare beneficiaries get them.
Federal officials release data showing prescription histories of hundreds of thousands of doctors and identifying the most common and costly drugs.
Under Medicare鈥檚 hospice benefit, patients agree to forgo curative treatment, but they can continue to receive coverage for health problems not related to their terminal illness. Federal officials suspect some of those expenses should be covered by hospice.
KHN's Julie Rovner reflects on the constant battle over what Medicare pays doctors -- a fight that ended this week as President Obama signed into law an overhaul that repeals the old method and institutes new provisions to pay doctors based on the quality of care they give.
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