Nurses, administrators and long-term care professionals that need CEUs can get them for free right from their desktop pc. McKnight’s Long-Term Care News is holding an “Online Expo” on March 24th and 25th. They will offer 5 learning sessions:

1. Quality: Getting from satisfied to very satisfied residents
2. Wound Care: Becoming a provider of excellence
3. Capital: The prognosis for lending
4. Payment: Are you ready for changes in the MDS and RUGs?
5. Technology: Ways to capitalize on new technologies

Register online – click here.

(What is Medicaid? How do I apply?)

Medicaid recipients, their caregivers, and people that think they may need Medicaid to cover long-term care expenses in the near future should be aware of Medicaid’s “look back” period if they plan to transfer assets to loved ones. The easiest way to explain the look back period is to provide an example:

Mary needs long-term, nursing home care that she can’t afford. She applies for Medicaid and when she does, Medicaid “looks back” to see if she transferred any assets (house, real estate, etc.) to someone within the past 5 years (the look back period).

Three years ago Mary signed a plot of land worth $100,000 over to her daughter as a gift. The monthly cost of nursing home care in Mary’s state is $5,000 a month. If Mary had not given the $100,000 property to her daughter, the sale of the land would have covered 20 months of care ($100,000 / $5000 = 20 months).

Medicaid now employs the “ineligibility period.” Because Mary gave the land away, land that could have covered her care for 20 months, she is not eligible for Medicaid until 20 months from the date she applied.

This becomes very problematic for families that don’t learn about the look-back period prior to transferring assets and applying for Medicaid to cover long-term care costs. In the above example, had Mary transferred the land to her daughter more than 5 years ago, the look-back period would not apply, Medicaid would cover her long-term care costs the day she applied (assuming she’s eligible otherwise). This may not feel fair when a family is confronted with the unexpected reality, but long-term care costs are exceptionally expensive, and it is an attempt by the government to limit tax payer funded coverage for people that may be trying to game the system by shielding assets. The above example would have been treated differently if Mary had sold the land to her daughter for its true value.

People that think they may need Medicaid coverage for long-term care needs in the coming years should speak with an elder law attorney about these rules, the specifics of which differ from state to state. The research could begin with a call to your State Medicaid Office, found through the Resources by State page.

The Brown University Center for Gerontology and Healthcare Research has launched a new nursing home comparison website designed for professional nursing home researches, but which is readily accessible to consumers, advocates and administrators. Whereas the Medicare Nursing Home Comparison site compares survey data collected from each state, Brown University’s new site, LTCfocus.org, supported in part by the National Institute on Aging, crunches data from a variety of sources:

• State Policy Data – Brown University research team survey
• Online Survey Certification and Reporting system (OSCAR) – administrative data collected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
• Minimum Data Set (MDS) – resident level data related to clinical and functional status
• Area Resource File (ARF) – a national county level health resources database maintained by the Health Resources and Services Administration
• Residential History File – a data resources developed at Brown University that tracks individuals as they move across the long-term care system

It’s an interactive database that lets the user create tables and charts to compare information about individual nursing homes, counties, states, etc. There is a wide range of variables accessible for comparison allowing greater research capabilities. Those variables include:

• for-profit versus non-profit organizational structure
• bed capacity
• percentage of Medicare and Medicaid approved beds
• Alzheimer’s specific units
• occupancy rates
• age ranges
• resident gender and race statistics
• staffing levels
• MDS quality measures
• resident admission sources (home or hospital)
• 30-day re-hospitalization rates

According to the LTCfocus.org site:

These data will allow researchers to examine the relationship between state policies and local market forces and the quality of long-term care. Researchers can use this website to examine care processes and resident outcomes within the context of their local markets and regulatory practices. Policymakers can use the information to shape state and local guidelines, policies, and regulations that promote high-quality, cost-effective, equitable care to older Americans.

They have plans to add additional information about other sectors of the long-term care industry at a future date.

Individuals looking to use the database to compare local nursing homes for purposes of long-term care decision making will find the site a bit cumbersome to navigate, but the savvy user should have no problem. The more likely impact for consumer-level decision making will be the downstream effects improved information sharing made available to policy makers and elder advocates. Consumers will likely still find Medicare’s Nursing Home Comparison site to be the most useful and straightforward. Contacting their Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program (contact information available through the Resources by State page) is an even consumer-friendlier method to gather information on area nursing homes.

Sooner after learning about a new documentary focusing on LGBT discrimination in long-term care and health care settings, I heard about Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of a Department of Health and Human Services, announcing the award of a new, 3-year $900,000 grant to Services and Advocacy for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Elders (SAGE) for the creation of the first national resource center on LGBT aging.

SAGE began advocacy work in 1978 when it was incorporated as the Senior Action in a Gay Environment. SAGE bills itself as the largest and oldest non-profit agency serving the needs of this population group. They are forming a partnership to administer the grant with 10 organizations having different areas of expertise on aging issues. Those organizations include:

1. PHI – an elder care training resource
2. National Association of Area Agencies on Aging
3. National Institute of Senior Centers
4. American Society on Aging
5. Brookdale Center for Health Aging and Longevity
6. Centerlink (the national association of LGBT community centers)
7. GRIOT Circle
8. FORGE Transgender Aging Network
9. Third Sector New England/The LGBT Aging Project
10. Openhouse

The creation of The National Technical Assistance Resource Center for LGBT Elders is intended to help create services and supports for aging LGBT people. The Center will offer trainings and educational tools to agencies across all 50 states. One such tool will be a comprehensive, web-based resource for web-based trainings and information. From the press release:

Assistant Secretary for Aging Kathy Greenlee explained: “AoA frequently turns to national organizations to support the Aging Network in their efforts to work with specific minority populations that are traditionally underserved.  In the past, AoA has funded national organizations to provide technical assistance on providing supports and services to African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian and Pacific Islander Americans and Native Americans.  With the full support of the current Administration, we now recognize that LGBT older adults also represent a community with unique needs that must be addressed.”

The Older Americans Act will be considered for Congressional re-authorization and amendments in 2011. This is the Act considered the major legislative vehicle for the delivery of social, nutritional and caregiver services to older adults. The Administration on Aging (AoA) is seeking input from individuals and agencies on the Act’s re-authorization.

You can view the current Older Americans Act right here.

Individuals can submit your thoughts directly online through the AoA’s online survey.

Alternatively, you can mail your thoughts in on this AoA prepared form. Write as much as you’d like.

Agencies interested in holding a re-authorization “event” can use this online submission form to submit participants’ opinions.

This is democracy in action. If you care about aging services, make your voice heard.

Seniors confronting the dating scene have unique advantages and disadvantages when compared to younger generations. The advantages include experience and self-confidence found lacking in many young relationships. The disadvantages are that for some seniors, they haven’t been single in many years and are learning again what it’s like to date.

For the elder interested in meeting a new friend, there are sites specifically designed for single seniors.

Those sites include:

Dating for Seniors

Senior Friend Finder

Senior Match

Silver Singles

Senior Date Finder

Executive Senior Dating

Of course, more general dating sites, like Plenty of Fish, include listings for people of all ages.

Opportunities outside the internet are also becoming more available. For those familiar with speed dating, an event where numerous singles meet in a specific location to spend several minutes with each person to determine compatibility and future date potential, some venues are catering speed dating events to elders. One such event was held recently in Central City, Colorado.

Life is short, so if you’re a single senior looking for a friend – just do it.

Well this is interesting, a documentary will soon be released that addresses the fear and discrimination six lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people experience in health care and long-term care settings. Gen Silent discusses how the oppression leaves the individuals feeling alone and in fear. Stu Maddux, a filmmaker whose work includes Trip to Hell and Back, is shedding light on the subject.

Watch the trailer:

According to a recent survey from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Association, a division within the United States Department of Health and Human Services, the number of older adults using marijuana for medicinal or recreational purposes is on the rise.

“Pass the bong, George! My back hurts.”

The survey specifically indicates that people aged 50 and older reporting marijuana use went from 1.9% of the population to 2.9% from 2002 to 2008, with the rise most dramatic in the 55-59 year old age bracket. Further increased use of marijuana amongst older adults is expected in the coming years.

According to an Associated Press report on the subject, as published by cbs news blog,those ranks include people like Perry Parks, 67, of Rockingham, North Carolina, a retired Army pilot who suffers from degenerative disc disease and arthritis:

He had tried all sorts of drugs, from Vioxx to epidural steroids, but found little success.

About two years ago he turned to marijuana, which he first had tried in college, and was amazed how well it worked for the pain.

“I realized I could get by without the narcotics,” Parks said, referring to prescription painkillers. “I am essentially pain free.”

While I wouldn’t necessarily argue that we’ll soon be seeing assisted living facilities lit with black lights playing Jimi Hendrix music, I would expect the growing ranks of pot smoking elders will further advance the movement toward medicinal marijuana reform.

Maintaining this Elder Guru site has been a bit grueling over the past several weeks. My few regular visitors to the site, a group I’m guessing consists largely of writers of other aging related sites and people in related lines of work, will notice that it’s been nearly a month since my last post. The first two weeks of that were spent deliberating over a new way to approach Elder Guru.

The problem, in the nearly one year the site has been up, is that this site’s following has repeatedly received increases in numbers only to have that soon followed by a decrease. My suspicion is that readers arrive at the site primarily via a search engine that leads to a post of interest to them, so they then subscribe, only to receive a post or two later that doesn’t interest them, so they stop following.

Another problem is that the content as I’ve been writing it has not been keeping my own interest. While writing about Medicare changes, as an example, specific to a small group of people in limited circumstances might be valuable information to those individuals, it does little to fill my need to write creatively and attract an audience.

To that end I decided to bring a new approach to Elder Guru, one that will provide both relevant information for elders and those who help them, but also deliver more insightful, philosophical, and just plain fun posts to read and write. It is my hope that this new approach will peak both my writing interests, but also reader interests, for my writing interests are not satisfied unless there’s an audience to speak to. For this reason I changed the tag line for the site from “Information on Aging” to “Informed, Insightful Aging” as a means of encompassing wider, more interesting content.

After designing and uploading a new header for the site to embody this change, my site crashed – and crashed again – and again – and again. Being a person more interested and skilled in the written word than I am at writing CSS and HTML to design websites, the process of getting my site fully functioning without errors was difficult and frustrating. With the exception one remaining, minor design difference that can be seen by people using Internet Explorer (it looks fine in Firefox), the site is back up and running with an updated version of Wordpress and other updated files. As is the case with any difficulty we face in life, I learned from the experience. Perhaps next time, because these things always happen again, the process will go easier.

So to that end, for those reading, you can expect more varied and consistent writing at Elder Guru.

Effective January 1, 2010, Medicare beneficiaries will have an easier time qualifying for Extra Help Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage. Extra Help assists low income people pay the monthly premiums, deductibles and co-payments associated with the Medicare prescription drug plans. Eligibility criteria was changed in 2010 so that:

• the cash value of any life insurance policy you have is no longer counted as a resource, and
• any financial help received from others to pay for household expenses (food, mortgage, rent, heat, electricity, utilities and taxes) is no longer counted as income.

Who qualifies for Extra Help?

Any Medicare beneficiary can get Medicare Part D benefits, but those with limited income and assets may qualify for Extra Help. As of the writing of this post, to qualify for Extra Help the beneficiary must:

• live in in the United States
• your available resources (bank accounts, stock and bonds) must be no more than $12,510 for an individual or $25,010 for a married couple living together.
• your annual income must be no more than $16,245 for an individual or $21,855 for a married couple living together. The income stated above may be higher if you or your spouse support other family members living with you, have pay from work, or if you live in Alaska or Hawaii.

To apply for Extra Help visit www.socialsecurity.gov or apply at your local Social Security office.

Visit the BenefitsCheckupRx website for a thorough analysis of the full range of prescription drug benefit programs that could help you.