Contemporary Long Term Care articles from May 1999

Contemporary Long Term Care archives from May 1999

Unsung heroes.(nursing aides)
May 1, 1999... A FEW MONTHS AGO, CONTRIBUTING writer Wendy Bonifazi and I got to talking about nursing assistants. I was sentimentalizing about the job: how important it is and how much patience and empathy are required to do it well. Good nursing...

No relief?(nursing home patient abuse)
May 1, 1999... GAO report adds fuel to enforcement fire NURSING HOMES AND THE FEDERAL AND state agencies that regulate them came under heavy fire in a report by the General Accounting Office that complaints of abusive treatment of residents often are...

Rest easy.(insomnia treatment)
May 1, 1999... Late-life insomnia can be treated COGNITIVE-BEHAVIORAL THERAPY IS THE most effective strategy for long term treatment of insomnia in older adults, according to a new study published in the March 17 Journal of the American Medical...

More money.(nursing homes)
May 1, 1999... In late March, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) won Senate approval to give additional resources to the federal agency that handles nursing homes appeals of fines. The proposal was offered as an amendment to an emergency spending measure being...

A longer life.(Medicare fund)
May 1, 1999... Medicare Trustees reported April i that Medicare's Hospital Insurance trust fond would remain solvent until 2015, seven years longer than they projected last year. A good economy and spending restraint had contributed to the life expectancy...

Strength in numbers.
May 1, 1999... The Assisted Living Federation of America and American Council of Life Insurance are among the member organizations of the Americans for Long-Term Care Security, a new group that seeks to promote the need for long term care options.

Sending in reinforcements.(nursing employment)
May 1, 1999... Province set to increase frontline nurses LONG TERM CARE FACILITIES IN ONTARIO, Canada, have been promised an annual $20 million shot in the arm to increase their numbers of registered nurses. Ontario's Long Term Care Minister Cam...

Satisfied customers.(long term care insurance claims)
May 1, 1999... People who have filed long term care insurance claims are generally satisfied with the service they are receiving, suggests data reported by Marc Cohen of LifePlans during the 13th Private Long-Term Care Insurance Conference held in Florida...

Slow down.(Alzheimer's prevention)
May 1, 1999... New research may delay Alzbeimer's SEVERAL STUDIES--ONE JUST PUBLISHED, the others now recruiting subjects--may provide the keys to preventing or at least slowing down the progression of Alzheimer's disease. A Mayo Clinic study...

In their defense.(nursing home patients)
May 1, 1999... Clinton signs the resident protection act LONG TERM CARE FACILITIES VOLUNTARILY decertifying from Medicaid cannot transfer or evict Medicaid residents to make room for residents with other payment sources, says a new law signed by...

What's next?(nursing home law)
May 1, 1999... Officials wrestle with tomorrow's Medicare, PPS WHILE GOOD ECONOMIC NEWS AND THE DEMISE of the Medicare commission may slow the debate over how to ensure Medicare's future, quicker fixes to Medicare's prospective payment system for SNFs...

Policy changes.(long term care insurance)
May 1, 1999... Future benefits may include LTC insurance FEDERAL EMPLOYEES MAY SEE LONG TERM care insurance added to their menu of benefits under proposed legislation, but the government won't be picking up the tab for the optional coverage. The push to...

Fine tuning.(increased fines for patient abuse)
May 1, 1999... HCFA ups fines for serious incidents A MOVE BY HCFA TO IMPOSE TOUGHER FINES on nursing homes with problems has drawn retorts from provider organizations and a reminder from a consumer group that penalties are effective only if they are...

A work in progress.(ergonomics standards)
May 1, 1999... OSHA releases draft ergonomics standard OSHA HAS PUBLISHED A "WORKING DRAFT" OF ITS proposed Ergonomics Program Standard. The draft will be reviewed and public hearings held before a formal proposal is issued in September. These are...

Try, try again.(Older Americans Act)
May 1, 1999... Congress weighs reauthorization of Older Americans Act THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION IS PUSHING legislation to reauthorize and reshape the Older Americans Act (OAA), which has been funded through a patchwork of last-minute appropriations...

Heading home in Wisconsin.(long term care funding)
May 1, 1999... A plan that would ultimately change the way long term care is provided in Wisconsin has been scaled back. The proposal, which would channel millions in public long term care funding through a single point of entry, is being considered in its...

Assisted Living Regulations.(Review)
May 1, 1999... A State By State Profile (Assisted Living Federation of America). This regulatory overview includes state requirements on issues such as eviction, limitation of services, assessments, and medication administration. It features a summary of...

Healthy Aging.(Review)
May 1, 1999... Challenges and Solutions by Ken Dychtwald (Aspen Publishers). This book combines contributions from researchers, analysts, and educators on health and aging policies. Topics includes the science of healthy aging, gerontological care, and...

Y2K Help line.
May 1, 1999... HCFA now has a toll-free telephone line to offer as health care providers, laboratories, HMOs and others prepare their computer systems for the Year 2000. Call 800-958-4232.

PainLink Web site.
May 1, 1999... This site, devoted to improving pain management in hospitals and nursing homes, has expanded to include a resource exchange list and innovations and best practices. Visit at [less than]www.edc.org/PainLink/[greater than].

Big trouble in Texas.(nursing home violations)
May 1, 1999... Fort Worth-based Sensitive Care, a once thriving chain of 13 nursing homes, was ordered into bankruptcy in late March at the request of creditors who claim the defunct chain's owners owe them about $12 million. Big troubles are also brewing...

It's the money, honey.(nursing assistants' wages)
May 1, 1999... The public policy coordinator for the South Carolina chapters of the Alzheimer's Association, William Painter is a long term care consultant. He spent 12 years working in long term care, mostly as an activity director in nursing homes. ...

Are high rehab RUG scores really for you?(resource utilization group)
May 1, 1999... Judy Smith, GNP, RN, is the owner of Clinical/Operational Innovations, a Denver, Colorado-based consulting firm specializing in nontraditional care delivery models in long term care. Scott Jolley, CPA. is the owner of Pinnacle Healthcare...

The selling never stops.
May 1, 1999... A contributing writer to Contemporary Long Term Care, Jim Moore is president of Moore Diversified Services, a Fort Worth-based senior housing and health care consulting firm, and author of Assisted Living 2000. It takes a systematic game...

Rewriting the rules.(prospective payment system)
May 1, 1999... Prospective payment has hammered some and helped others, but nearly everyone's glad to be through the first tough year Officially, PPS refers to the prospective payment system for Medicare. But some skilled nursing facility operators say...

How low can they go?
May 1, 1999... How low can they go? Most publicly traded long term care companies that did a lot of Medicare business saw their stock prices plummet in 1998. Some bounced back a little in Q1 of this year, but...

Hennis Healthcare.
May 1, 1999... "We've more than doubled our annual expenditures on staff education" There's no substitute for preparation, and PPS is no exception. The groundwork for coping with the new system was laid as far back as 1997 at Hennis Healthcare, a...

Vetter Healthcare.
May 1, 1999... "We started looking for a therapy provider that could give us some economies of scale" Vetter Healthcare, an Omaha, Nebraska-based chain that owns and operates 31 skilled nursing facilities in six states, recently found itself in the...

Alexian Village.
May 1, 1999... "It's more important than ever for everyone to be on the same page" Coordination is the key to PPS management at Milwaukee's Alexian Village, a non-profit congregate care retirement community with 108 skilled nursing beds, sponsored by...

St. Augustine Manor.
May 1, 1999... "We've cut the annual nursing budget by about $400,000" For a textbook case of sound PPS management, it would be hard to do better than St. Augustine Manor, a Cleveland-based not-for-profit, 248-bed skilled nursing facility under the...

Jewish Home and Hospital.
May 1, 1999... "We've upgraded the technology at the nurses' stations" "Now I have a whole new appreciation of what our members used to go through," says Sheldon Goldberg, former president of the American Association of Homes and Services for the...

A balancing act.
May 1, 1999... Jade Gong, RN, MBA, is a health care consultant based in Arlington, Virginia. Tim Webster, PharmD, is executive director of the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists in Alexandria, Virginia. How to juggle pharmacy costs and quality...

The art of the MDS.
May 1, 1999... Every provider knows how critical it is to fill out the MDS properly, but few may have realized--until they were smack in the middle of the process--just how much oversight and coordination that involves. Contemporary Long Term Care recently...

When bad things happen to good providers.
May 1, 1999... Wendy L. Bonifazi, RN, is a contributing writer to Contemporary Long Term Care. EVEN IF YOU'VE HAD YEARS OF ZERO-DEFICIENCY SURVEYS, you are not immune from heightened stringency and the specter of financial penalties. And whether you're...

High acuity can mean high risk of pressure ulcers.
May 1, 1999... Freelance writer Katherine J. Paul is a frequent contributor to Contemporary Long Term Care. She is based In Hiram, Ohio. PRESSURE ULCERS MAY BE CLOSELY LINKED IN MOST PEOPLE'S minds to traditional nursing homes, where incontinence and...

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF CNA.(certified nursing assistants)
May 1, 1999... Wendy L. Bonifazi, RN, is a contributing writer to Contemporary Long Term Care. The paint is peeling on her stairs and shed, but if it weren't for the warning letter from the manager, Maria Vasquez wouldn't know. When she rises before 4...

The voice of experience.(nurses' aides)
May 1, 1999... Between them, these five veteran nursing assistants have nearly 250 years of experience: 46 years for Ivory Allen, 51 each for Betty Brewer and Elsie Davis, 52 for Margaret Fletcher, and 47 for Roberto Taloria. They recently talked to...

Walk this way.(rehabilitation)
May 1, 1999... Alice Daniel is a freelance writer based in Knoxville, Tennessee. Getting residents out of wheelchairs and back on their own two feet WHEN RITA DONATH SUFFERED A STROKE LAST September, she thought she would never walk again. "I didn't...

Fiduciary duties 101.
May 1, 1999... Anne M. Murphy is a partner in the health care group of Chicago-based Vedder, Price, Kaufman & Kammholz. Directors and officers have never been at greater risk THANKS TO INCREASINGLY AGGRESSIVE ENFORCEMENT OF ANTIFRAUD laws and the...

Building a network of stayers.
May 1, 1999... Genevieve Gipson, RN, MEd, RNC, is director of the Career Nurse Assistants' Programs and the National Network of Career Nursing Assistants in Norton, Ohio. Fix your staffing woes by giving good CNAs reason to slay PEOPLE OFTEN TALK...

Balanced Care scales back development plans.
May 1, 1999... When Balanced Care Corporation went public in February 1998, the Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania-based operator and developer of assisted living-based senior care continuums in non-urban, secondary markets, had aggressive growth plans. No longer....

CORPORATE LADDER.
May 1, 1999... Marie Pugliese has been named community outreach director for Bridges at the Green, a new assisted living retirement community in Rocky Hill, Connecticut. Walker Methodist Inc., a Minneapolis-based, not-for-profit senior housing and...

Sun struggles to regain Wall Street's faith.(Sun Healthcare Group)
May 1, 1999... At press time in early April, Sun Healthcare Group's stock was trading at less than a $1 a share. According to analysts, that's Wall Street's way of telling the nursing home chain--whose stock has traded as high as $23.50--that it has serious...

Phanstiel resigns as ARV chairman and CEO.(ARV Assisted Living Inc.)
May 1, 1999... Costa Mesa, California-based ARV Assisted Living Inc. announced that Howard Phanstiel, chairman and chief executive officer, has resigned from the company and the board of directors to pursue other business opportunities. Douglas...

NHC opens new home care program.(National HealthCare Corp.)
May 1, 1999... Other nursing home chains may be exiting the home care business. But National HealthCare Corporation is expanding its program. The Murfreesboro, Tennessee-based company just opened NHC HomeCare in Merritt Island, Florida. The program provides...

Vencor addresses capital structure issues.
May 1, 1999... Fighting to stay afloat, Vencor Inc. has received an extension on its bank credit waiver, is in discussions with Ventas, its real estate arm, to obtain rent concessions, and has delayed filing of its 1998 annual report. The Louisville,...

Arizona-based provider revamps operations.
May 1, 1999... In January, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Phoenix approved the reorganization of Scottsdale, Arizona-based Unison HealthCare Corp. under Chapter 11. The result is a new company with a new name: RainTree Healthcare Corporation. The company is...

HSA forms senior living division.(Hiffman Shaffer Associates Inc.)
May 1, 1999... Chicago-based Hiffman Shaffer Associates Inc., a broker, manager, and developer of office, industrial, and retail properties, is diversifying to acquire, develop, and own senior living facilities. The firm recently retained Stephen Tinsley...

Harborside Healthcare predicts bad first quarter.
May 1, 1999... Boston-based Harborside Healthcare Corporation expects first-quarter revenues and earnings (before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization, and facility rent) to be substantially lower than anticipated. The company cited the impact of its...

Brookdale leases Boston-area congregate facility.
May 1, 1999... Chicago-based Brookdale Living Communities Inc. closed on the lease of River Bay Club, a congregate community in the Boston suburb of Quincy, Massachusetts. "This acquisition furthers our strategy of acquiring purpose-built, well-located...

HealthEast completes purchase of four SNFs.(senior care facilities)
May 1, 1999... St. Paul, Minnesota-based HealthEast Care System has assumed ownership of the Marian Center, a St. Paul-based senior care facility formerly owned by Catholic Services for the Elderly, and of three senior care facilities formerly owned by the...

Grand Court Lifestyles sells eight properties.
May 1, 1999... Grand Court Lifestyles Inc., a provider of independent and assisted living services, announced the first sale of controlling interests in eight multifamily properties. As a result of the sale of interests in these properties, the Boca Raton,...

Active Services enters Midwest market.
May 1, 1999... Birmingham, Alabama-based Active Services Corporation, a provider of adult day services, has acquired two facilities in Cincinnati. The move represents an expansion into a new state and new region. The company acquired the Bethesda Day Break...

ARC partners with Omnicare, LifeTrust.
May 1, 1999... Nashville, Tennessee-based American Retirement Corporation will become a one-third equity partner in LifeMed LLC, a Nashville-based joint venture currently owned by Omnicare Inc. of Covington, Kentucky, and LifeTrust America Inc. of...

ALFs and Alzheimer's: perfect together.(assisted living facilities)
May 1, 1999... A new report concludes that assisted living is the best-equipped sector to deal with the burgeoning problem of Alzheimer's disease. Andrew MacPherson, senior analyst at San Francisco's Volpe Brown Whelan & Co., which issued the report, said...

Presbyterian Retirement to manage three Florida SNFs.
May 1, 1999... Presbyterian Retirement Communities and Orlando Regional Healthcare System have embarked on a long-term partnership involving the Veranda Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, Barrington Terrace Nursing Home, and Lake Highlands Retirement and...

Leaders and Laggards.
May 1, 1999... How industry stocks fared from 3/1/99 through 3/31/99 March was an uneven month for the long term care sector as a good earnings report from Sunrise contrasted markedly with the dire straits of the nursing home group. The Raymond James...

Frames and mattresses.
May 1, 1999... The frames and mattresses your residents rest on can have an enormous impact on the quality of their lives. Ideally, a frame should be able to go, from a high to a low position with the help of a crank or the push of a button. There are also...

Novel funding for ALFs.(assisted living facilities)
May 1, 1999... Robert W Gillette is vice president of American House Senior Living Residences, a chain of 17 unlicensed assisted living facilities in metropolitan Detroit. Since May 1997, the firm has participated in a waiver program that provides Medicaid...