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- Health insurance claim denial - The Power of Music
- Hospital shift change - Too Ugly to Die Here - The most frequent medical error - The Meaning of Palliative Care - Senior fraud schemes - HCAHPS/ A Powerful Consumer Tool
- "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
Issue #19
Innovation and Aging
End of Life Planning
Home Care Workers
Hospital Hand-offs
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It is not uncommon that individuals and families postpone, sometimes indefinitely, conversations about end of life care. The consequences of that avoidance however can be devastating to those families when the time comes to implement Advanced Care Directives. Advanced Care Directive is an umbrella term that encompasses living wills, health care power of attorney, do not resuscitate and intubate directives, and MOST and Five Wishes forms. To help inform and spur such conversations, Duke has created several new Advanced Care Planning videos. Visit those tools at the first link below. To get an idea of how important family communication is when creating ACP documents, take a look at the second link below. To view a living will and healthcare surrogate document, go the the third link below. 
Ever wonder how much you are actually paying for a medical procedure? For those with insurance its a question has been easy to ignore. The consequences of the rapid rise in health care costs (out of reach insurance premiums, the viability of Medicare, the decline of employee health benefits) has begun to force us to ask the same sort of questions about health care costs as we would any other consumer product. Below are links to some tools that will help you to do just that. These tools will help you to find the average "fair" price of common medical procedures, make local price comparisons, and translate insurance jargon into "plain speak". 
During the last week of April, 2012, the Raleigh News and Observer and the Charlotte Observer jointly published a week long series on statewide hospital practices called Prognosis: Profits. Included are investigative reports on the political clout of hospitals, aggressive bill collection practices, and the tax status of "not for profit" hospitals. Included is an interactive map that shows the revenues, margins, and charity care percentages of all North Carolina Hospitals.