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- Health insurance claim denial
- Hospital shift change - The most frequent medical error - Senior fraud schemes
- "Observation only" hospital stays
- Sleep issues in assisted living facilities
- Family mediation and senior issues
- Creativity and aging
- Sex, condoms, seniors
- Senior friendly products
- Common diagnostic tests
- Global dementia projections
- Beers list criteria
- Pre-authorization delays
- NC SHIIP
- Senior Pharmassist
- Poor nursing home pay
- The CLASS act
- Falls and Fractures
- Creative advantages
- Are we safer now? (hospital safety)
- Trauma center bias
- Nursing home practices
- Revocable Trust review
- Hospital discharge
- Home health agencies
- Geriatric MD shortage
- Bereavement counseling
- Hospital Re-admissions
- For-Profit Nursing Care Homes
- Reverse Mortgage Councilors
- Home Safety Checklist
- Health Care Literacy
- National Patient Advocacy Foundation
- 10 Ways you Get Smarter as You Age
- Driving Errors and Aging Drivers
Issue # 10
Most Drugs Don't Work for Most Patients
Six Steps to a Successful LTC Transition
Falls and Their Prevention
The Need for "At Home" Services
Issue #11
Hospital Safety Video
The Cost of Caregiving
The Hospital to Nursing Home Revolving Door
VA vs. Medicare Drug Price Comparison
Issue #12
Criminal Records in Nursing Homes
Consistent Assignment in LTC
The High Cost of Poor Nursing Care
The Culture Change Movement in LTC
Issue #13
What Are Old People for?
Hospital Comparisons
Medicare Enrollment
End of Life Discussion
Issue # 14
The Cost of Getting Old
$42 Million Gift
Discharge Planning
Thriving and Aging
Issue # 15
Friends of Residents Gala
Hospital Satisfaction Evaluations
The Green House Movement
Where Are the Geriatricians?
Issue #16
Overuse of Anti-Psychotic Drugs
Hospital Disability Syndrome
Nursing Homes and End of Life
News in Dementia Care
Issue #17
Aging and Happiness
ER for Seniors
Old Brain/Young Brain
Gene Cohen/Creativity
Issue #18
Caretaking from a Distance
For-profit Nursing Home Quality
Geriatric Nursing Care
"Affordable" Assisted Living and Medicaid
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Not only is the financial cost of dying enormous, the emotional costs can be hefty as well. End of life planning is critical but as this article shows, even well prepared families sometimes can not avoid difficult choices. Unfortunately its difficult to assess costs and benefits during a crisis. The lesson from the author: its easy to access world class medical treatment but its much more difficult to walk away from it. 
Most people want to remain in their homes as long as possible as they age. Even if they need significant help. And who might that help be? Probably one of the twenty thousand home health care workers in America. As other health care costs continue to rapidly increase, it is estimated that about 40% of these workers need some government assistance such as food stamps or Medicaid. They are exempt from minimum wage laws and very few ever receive overtime pay. The Home Health Care industry says it can't afford to pay overtime despite revenues estimated to be 84 billion in 2009. If you would like to find out more about the people likely to be caring for you or your loved one should they ever need significant care at home, read these articles. 
The Joint Commission, the organization that accredits hospitals, has been collaborating with participating hospitals to study and fix some of the most serious problems in patient care. Handwashing, surgical site infection, and wrong site surgery are among them. Last fall however, the Joint Commission released an update on a project to improve hand off communication. Hand offs can happen any time a medical practitioner enters or leaves a patient's presence but it is most often connected with shift change when nurses or doctors communicate to incoming replacements. The joint commission estimates that there are 4000 hand offs per day in a typical teaching hospital.