Medicaid Planning Strategies

The federal government has released data on the quality of care delivered at the 17,000 nursing homes around the nation that care for Medicare or Medicaid patients. But a report terms the data "inacurate" and calls its release "premature."...

The nursing home ombudsman program is generally failing to do its job of protecting residents from abuse and neglect, according to an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, part of the paper's weeklong investigative series on preventable deaths in nursing...

A major new study from Canada concludes that care provided in a home setting is significantly less expensive than long-term residential care--sometimes less than half the cost. More . . .

Medicare officials have issued guidelines allowing homebound beneficiaries to leave their homes for special occasions--such as family reunions, graduations or funerals--without losing their home health care benefits. More . . .

A Seattle woman asks a New York Times advice columnist whether it is ethical to divorce a husband who suffers from Alzheimer's so that she can retain her assets while he qualifies for Medicaid. More . . .

Around the country, a handful of new approaches are being tried to do away with the hospital model for nursing homes and replace it with care that gives meaning to residents' lives, according to an article in the Washington Post.

'Nursing Home Compare,' the government Web site that disseminates information about conditions in individual nursing homes, has major flaws that can mislead families seeking a safe facility, according to a Congressional report. More . . .

A draft federal report showing that nine out of 10 U.S. nursing homes are understaffed is now available for download from the Web. More . . .

The Court of Appeals of Iowa has ruled that a trust that terminates if it causes a Medicaid applicant to be denied benefits should still be counted among the applicant's assets. More . . .