Finding reliable data on assisted living isn’t easy. Federal and state statistics can be hard to come by, and it’s often simpler to search for restaurant reviews on Yelp than it is to locate ratings and reviews for a local assisted living facility. So where do consumers begin if they’re considering sending a loved one to assisted living? We put ...
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The bipartisan leadership of the House Energy and Commerce Committee is asking the Food and Drug Administration how it monitors the safety of the popular blood thinner Coumadin, particularly in light of deaths and hospitalizations of nursing home residents taking the drug. The committee's letter, sent last week, follows a ProPublica report co-published by the Washington Post in July that focused ...
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After nearly 30 years, the Obama administration wants to modernize the rules nursing homes must follow to qualify for Medicare and Medicaid payments. The hundreds of pages of proposed changes cover everything from meal times to use of antipsychotic drugs to staffing.  Some are required by the Affordable Care Act and other recent federal laws, as well as the president’s executive ...
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  LOCKHART, Texas — The call from the nursing home came just before dawn, jolting Martha Sherwood awake. During the night, fire ants had swarmed over her 85-year-old mother, injecting their stinging venom into Natalie Sealy’s face, arms, hands and chest. “She was just lying there being eaten alive,” said daughter Billie Pender, who said she and her sister had repeatedly complained about ...
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When Loren Peters arrived in the emergency room in October 2013, bruises covered his frail body, and blood oozed from his gums. The 85-year-old had not been in a fight or fallen down. Instead, he had been given too much of a popular, decades-old blood thinner that, unmonitored, can turn from a lifesaver into a killer. “My goodness, I’ve never seen anything ...
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This story was originally published by Kaiser Health News (KHN), a nonprofit national health policy news service. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health could receive nearly $15 million in additional state funds and about 70 more staff members under a proposed new contract with the state to expand and increase oversight of nursing homes. But a yearlong training and certification ...
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