Fight Aging! Newsletter, July 25th 2016
This study builds on preliminary findings from the first phase of the INTERSTROKE study, which identified ten modifiable risk factors for stroke in 6,000 participants from 22 countries. The full-scale INTERSTROKE study included an additional 20,000 individuals from 32 countries in Europe, Asia, America, Africa and Australia, and sought to identify the main causes of stroke in diverse populations, young and old, men and women, and within subtypes of stroke.
To estimate the proportion of strokes caused by specific risk factors, the investigators calculated the population attributable risk for each factor (PAR; an esti...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 24, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Matching Fund Donors Sought for SENS Universal Cancer Therapy Crowdfunding
There is a month left to go in the SENS crowdfunding campaign that aims to accelerate development of an important component of a universal cancer therapy, a way to block the mechanisms of telomere lengthening that every type of cancer depends upon. The SENS Research Foundation and Lifespan.io volunteers are looking for donors to put up matching funds of a few thousand dollars or more, in order to take that news and that inducement to a number of conferences and other events over the next few weeks. More than 150 people have donated to the campaign to date, and we'd like to triple that number in the next 30 days.
To ...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 18, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Activism, Advocacy and Education Source Type: blogs
Obama Administration Acts To Stabilize Marketplaces, Implement Expatriate Coverage Legislation
On June 8, the federal departments tasked with implementing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) released a barrage of regulatory issuances, including fact sheets, guidances, a blog post, and a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM). These issuances serve two major purposes.
First, several of them, as summarized in a press release and fact sheet released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), are intended to stabilize the marketplace risk pool. They are, that is, intended to draw healthy as well as unhealthy enrollees into the market and to discourage potential gaming on the part of insurers or enrollees that migh...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - June 9, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Timothy Jost Tags: Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage Medicaid and CHIP Medicare ACA Marketplaces Essential Health Benefits expatriate coverage minimum essential coverage risk pools special enrollment periods Source Type: blogs
HHS Issues Health Equity Final Rule
On May 13, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a final rule implementing section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. The rule finalizes a proposed version issued in September of 2015, analyzed in this blog at that time. The final rule was accompanied by a press release, summary, and series of fact sheets.
Section 1557 of the ACA provides that an individual shall not, on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability, be
excluded from participation in,
denied the benefits of, or
subjected to discrimination under
any health program or activity of whi...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - May 14, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Timothy Jost Tags: Equity and Disparities Featured Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage Medicaid and CHIP Medicare age discrimination disability discrimination health equity national origin discrimination racial discrimination sex discrimination Source Type: blogs
Compromise Prospects Recede In Contraceptive Mandate High Court Litigation (Update)
Implementing Health Reform (April 22 update). On April 21, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid released drafts of six updated federal standard notices to be used by insurers in the individual market when they discontinue products or renew coverage at the end of a coverage year, or non-renew or terminate coverage because an enrollee has moved out of a product’s service area. CMS update notices released in 2014.
For policy years ending before December 31, 2017, insurers may use either the 2014 or updated notices, but for policy years ending on or after that date the updated notices will be required. CMS is requesting co...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - April 21, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Timothy Jost Tags: Following the ACA Mental Health MHPAEA Substance Use Disorders Source Type: blogs
Don’t Let the Talking Points Fool You: It’s All About the Risk Pool
Most people are healthy most of the time, and as a consequence, health care expenditures are heavily concentrated in a small share of the population: about 50 percent of the health care spending in a given year by those below age 65 is attributable to just 5 percent of the nonelderly population. The lowest spending half of the population accounts for only about 3.5 percent of health care spending in a year.
Deciding how much of total health care expenditures should be shared across the population and how to share it is the fundamental conundrum of health care policy. There is more risk pooling the larger the share of healt...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - March 15, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Linda Blumberg and John Holahan Tags: Costs and Spending Equity and Disparities Featured Insurance and Coverage Medicaid and CHIP Medicare community rating Employer-Sponsored Insurance experience rating guaranteed issue and renewal health savings accounts high-risk pools Source Type: blogs
A New Understanding Of Health System Performance For Older Adults
The number of people age 65 and older in the U.S. will almost double between 2012 and 2050, increasing from 43.1 million in 2012 (one in seven Americans) to 83.7 million (one in five Americans). At the same time this large demographic shift is occurring, we are also in the midst of great health care system change, as payments become value-based, and systems focus more on population health. Given the large simultaneous changes, we have an opportunity to pay closer attention to the special needs that come with an aging population and redesign the system to address them.
As we age, our bodies and our priorities change. Our bo...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - March 14, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Julie Bynum Tags: Featured Health Professionals Long-term Services and Supports Medicare Population Health Quality Aging Cancer Dartmouth Atlas End-of-Life Care patient-centered care readmisisons specialty care Source Type: blogs
Administration Finalizes Regulations Implementing ACA Insurance Reforms (Updated)
Implementing Health Reform (November 17 update on deductibles). There has been a good deal of coverage recently of the high and ever-growing level of health insurance deductibles; this was the subject of a major article in The New York Times and even of a question at the November 14, 2015, Democratic candidates debate. A November 17, 2015 post by Kevin Counihan, CEO of healthcare.gov, at the CMS Blog adds some perspective to this issue.
First, it is important to remember that for individuals and families with incomes below 250 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL) ($50,225 for a family of three), cost sharing, includ...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - November 14, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Timothy Jost Tags: Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage Source Type: blogs
Administration Finalizes Regulations Implementing ACA Insurance Reforms
Implementing Health Reform. The Affordable Care Act, adopted in March of 2010, contained a number of insurance reforms that were to be effective six months after the date of its enactment. During May, June, and July of 2010, the departments that share responsibilities to oversee the group health plans and insurers subject to the reforms—Labor, Health and Human Services, and Treasury—issued interim final (Labor and HHS) or temporary and proposed (Treasury) rules to implement the six months reform. These interim rules governed
grandfathered plans,
preexisting condition exclusions,
internal and external appeals,
resciss...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - November 14, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Timothy Jost Tags: Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage Source Type: blogs
Implementing Health Reform: HHS Proposes Rule Implementing Anti-Discrimination ACA Provisions (Contraceptive Coverage Litigation Update)
September 6 Update
Decision Upholding Religious Accommodation On Contraceptive Coverage Prompts Vigorous Dissent
On September 4, 2015, the Seventh Circuit federal court of appeals rejected another challenge to the accommodation offered by the federal government to religious nonprofit organizations that object to the coverage of contraceptives under the Affordable Care Act’s preventive services mandate. The two-to-one decision in Grace Schools v. Burwell reverses a district court decision which had granted the plaintiff religious organizations a preliminary injunction under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).
Th...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - September 4, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Timothy Jost Tags: Equity and Disparities Featured Following the ACA Source Type: blogs
Recent Research on Exercise and Aging
In this study we extend our understanding of the different and overlapping roles of CRF and PA in brain resting state function in healthy but low-active older adults. Depending on brain region and task, greater CRF is associated with either increased or decreased change in blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) signal, a proxy for neural activity. As a result, it is unclear whether high or low amplitudes of BOLD signal reflect optimal functional brain health. Here we employed a more general measure of neural function: moment-to-moment variability in the BOLD signal during spontaneous brain activity. Moment-to-moment vari...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 6, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Implementing Health Reform: 2016 Benefit And Payment Final Rule, Consumer & Provider Provisions
On February 20, 2015, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) of the Department of Health and Human Services published its massive Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters (BPP rule) for 2016 Final Rule, accompanied by a fact sheet. This rule addresses a host of issues involving the continuing implementation of the Affordable Care Act for 2016. A few provisions, however, affect the 2015 year as well and a number of provisions will not be implemented until 2017.
The BPP rule amends and updates existing rules; thus, it must be read in tandem with rules that have been promulgated earlier, which are catalogue...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - February 22, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Timothy Jost Tags: Access All Categories Consumers Disparities Health Reform Insurance Pharma Policy States Source Type: blogs
Living in the Grey Space
Each time you stay present with fear and uncertainty, you’re letting go of a habitual way of finding security and comfort.
~ Pema Chodron
I can’t exactly pinpoint where this is from, but I do remember recently reading that, sometimes, we have to learn to live in the “grey space.” Those words resonated very deeply and transcended into one of those ‘aha’ moments that crystallized a particular truth.
Life is composed of changes and unknowns through and through; we can’t ever truly predict what will come our way in the years ahead.
And now, zoom in on a transitional period (such as graduating from college, bein...
Source: World of Psychology - August 1, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: Lauren Suval Tags: Brain and Behavior Friends General Habits Happiness Mental Health and Wellness Mindfulness Self-Esteem Self-Help Stress Catalyst College Jobs Crossroads Emptiness Fear Limbo Living At Home Panic Attacks Pema Chodron P Source Type: blogs
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Anne Weiss on reducing hospital readmissions (transcript)
This study is not designed to tell us about the practice patterns in these areas. We looked strictly at admissions and post-acute care. We do know that there are a lot of different reasons behind this kind of variation. You could see differences in the underlying health status of the patients. You can see differences in the quality of hospital care including discharge planning. You can see best and worst practices in care coordination. And this is really important; you can see a lot of differences in the availability of primary care locally and the availability of hospital beds.
We know that the Dartmouth Atlas has already...
Source: Health Business Blog - February 28, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: David E. Williams of the Health business blog Tags: Hospitals Patients Podcast Research Source Type: blogs
Minimal Reporting Guidelines for the Treatment of Cancer Patients
Minimal Reporting Guidelines for the Treatment of Cancer Patients As laboratory physicians, our contribution to patient care is knowledge: this is the starting point from which all informed therapeutic intervention proceeds. How that knowledge is obtained and communicated is the art and science of our profession. These minimal diagnostic guidelines are designed to be used as an aid, not a constraint, in that process. The guidelines are presented in a specific format out of necessity, but any format that effectively communicates the necessary information in a given patho...
Source: Oncopathology - September 5, 2011 Category: Cancer & Oncology Source Type: blogs
