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When the money is flowing you don't always look closely at what you spend," admits Mary Haynor, president and chief executive officer of Horizon Home Care & Hospice in Brown Deer, WI, an agency that cut $1.3 million out of the annual budget in early 2010. "It is hard, time-consuming work to evaluate all of your costs but when you do, you see how the little things add up," she admits.
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For patients with severe heart failure, an implanted mechanical pump known as a Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) can be a life-sustaining treatment.
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The goal of hospice care is to help terminally ill beneficiaries continue life with minimal disruption and to support beneficiaries' families and caregivers throughout the entire process.
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Researchers say there need to be more clinical trials examining the safety and effectiveness of pain medications used with children, which are too often administered based on information from adult trials.
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But this is how we've always done it." Whenever you hear this phrase, take a close look at the process to which it refers. The staff at Visiting Nurse Association of Greater Philadelphia did and the close look resulted in a process change that resulted in a $400,000 savings over an 8-month period.
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A new study from the Dartmouth Atlas Project seems to indicate the "report card" for Medicare patients at the end of their lives is a mixed bag of pluses and minuses.
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Medicare spending on hospice care for nursing facility residents has grown nearly 70% since 2005. Additionally, hundreds of hospices had a high percentage of their patients residing in nursing facilities, and most of these hospices were for-profit.
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This is the second of a two-part series that looks at communicating with patients who have difficulty communicating. Last month, we looked at innovative and proven strategies to communicate with patients who have dementia. This month, tips and strategies for communicating with pediatric patients, and their families, are offered.
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Hospices serving people with Medicare will see a 2.5% increase in their Medicare payments for fiscal year (FY) 2012, according to a final regulation released July 29, 2011, by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Hospices also are called upon to begin reporting on the quality of care received by Medicare patients as a result of this final regulation.
