CMS Offers Fix to Medicare Advantage Denials

An issue that has been tied to AI (artificial intelligence) and specifically, to Medicare Advantage plans, involves coverage denials. I wrote about this in a post earlier this year at https://rhislop3.com/2023/05/01/medicare-advantage-part-d-final-rule/ Coverage denials have been a fairly hot topic around Medicare Advantage plans. The core of the issue is that Medicare Advantage plans are required … Read more

National Signing Day!

Today is national signing day for 2024 athletes and my firm’s partner, Theracore Management Group has a celebration. Of the two Theracore original principals, the co-owner and COO, Dean Freeland, had his daughter announce her commitment to Illinois State University. Saveea Freeland (Dean’s daughter) is a multi-sport phenom and a top of her class student. … Read more

Wednesday Feature: A Bit of Economic Nostalgia

Happy Hump Day! I was going back through some historic stuff and I landed in 2010. The year 2010 was, after further review, eerily similar to right now, economically speaking. Sadly, not much has changed in terms of health policy and the economic state of healthcare. In 2010, the economy was choppy, recovering or trying … Read more

3rd Quarter Senior Housing Update

Senior Housing has had a long, slow grind toward recovery, post-pandemic. Fitch classified the Life Plan component as “deteriorating”. Among the many challenges the industry sectors (Independent, Assisted, Life Plan) faced, access to capital and access and maintenance of dependable and qualified labor are the two most challenging. COVID shaved occupancies rather substantially. Pre-pandemic, as … Read more

Rising Health Care Costs – A Serious Issue, Election Implications?

Long time readers/followers know that I from time to time, address health care costs. I follow economics generally and write about the same, especially when there are intersectional issues to address. As we are heading into a presidential election cycle (we are in the early innings) and, issues like health care costs in this country … Read more

Friday Feature: Senior Living Investment Outlook

TGIF! On a calendar year basis, we are into the home stretch for 2023. It’s generally about now that I start looking at how 2024 is shaping up. What trends are there to watch? What do markets look like now, socially and economically? What does policy and politics tell us about the year to come? … Read more

SNF Staffing, Mandates, and More

Seema Verma, former CMS head, spoke out yesterday regarding the proposed staffing mandate (hours and type of staff, per resident per day) proposed rule, indicating her opinion that the approach was flawed. A recap article on her comments is here: https://www.mcknights.com/news/former-cms-chief-verma-regulators-over-their-skis-with-staffing-mandate/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NWLTR_MLT_DAILYUPDATE_110223&hmEmail=IjP1GPaY%2BJ2uvsLxTJ79bVeRWY7ycbnr&sha256email=aa4cb7c695037c31a216b9562788596b6fcd012145d566f31440b6fcd139c8a9 Regular readers know that I have covered various topics on healthcare staffing, particularly as … Read more

Wednesday Feature: The Power of Positive Thinking

Happy Hump Day and Happy All Saints Day or All Hallows Day! For many in Latin American countries, this day is far bigger than Halloween. It is a day to celebrate Christian martyrs and saints known and unknown, celebrating the connection between the living and the deceased. In Catholicism, it is a day of reverence … Read more

MedPAC and Medicare Advantage

In yesterday’s post, Mish-Mash Monday, in the section about the House Budget Committee’s Health Care Task Force, I offered some commentary regarding MedPAC (Medicare Payment Advisory Commission) and Medicare Advantage plans. I also included a letter from the senior living trade association LeadingAge to the Congressional task force that references MedPAC’s concerns regarding Medicare Advantage … Read more

Mish-Mash Monday

A new week and lots of data/info. coming on a variety of fronts. Today’s post is less about one thing and more about a few things, a bit of smorgasbord to start the week. State by State SNF Data/CLA: Back at the start of the month, I wrote a post on the state of the SNF … Read more