Background: Before the COVID-19 pandemic, telemedicine for healthcare delivery was uncommon. Medicare restricted routine fee-for-service reimbursements for rural patients, with payments made under restricted circumstances. In response to the pandemic, the Department of HHS amended the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental…

Background: Prevention has been identified as a primary strategy for reducing health care costs, with potential Medicare savings up to $142.8 billion annually. Falls alone resulted in $28.2 billion in direct care costs. A growing body of research documents significant benefits of tai chi (TC) for balance and prevention and management of chronic…

Purpose: To examine how local health care resources impact travel patterns of patients age 65 and older across the rural urban continuum. Methods: Information on inpatient hospital discharges was drawn from complete 2004 hospital discharge files from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) State Inpatient Databases (SID) for New York,…

Objective: This study examines the relationship between increasing certified nursing assistants (CNAs) and licensed nurse staffing ratios and deficiencies in Florida nursing homes over a 4-year period. Methods: Data from Florida staffing reports and the Online Survey Certification and Reporting database examine the relationship among staffing…

Health Information Technology (Health IT) is designed to store patients' records safely and clearly, to reduce input errors and missing records, and to make communications more efficiently. Concerned with the relatively lower adoption rate among the US hospitals compared to most developed countries, the Bush Administration set up the Office of…

Purpose: This study describes Florida's model of Medicaid nursing home (NH) reimbursement to compensate NHs for disaster-related expenses incurred as a result of 8 hurricanes within a 2-year period. This Florida model can serve as a demonstration for a national model for disaster-related reimbursement. Design and Methods: Florida reimburses NHs…

This document contains witness testimonies and prepared statements from the Congressional hearing called to examine problems in the partnership of Medicare and Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO's). Opening statements are included from committee chairman Claude Pepper and from Representative Lawrence J. Smith. Two panels of witnesses address…

Context: Rural elderly patients are faced with numerous challenges in accessing care. Additional strains to access may be occurring given recent market pressures, which would have significant impact on this vulnerable population. Purpose: This study focused on the practice patterns and future plans of rural Florida physicians who routinely see…

This paper addresses issues related to Medicaid-reimbursable nursing services covered under the Florida Medicaid Certified School Match Program and the federal Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act in coordination with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Following a brief section providing background information, 23 questions and answers…

The problem of senior citizens in Florida who need to work are chronicled in this third part of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, Work after 65 hearings, conducted in Orlando, Florida, in July, 1980. During the Florida hearing, representatives of various government programs for senior citizens, professors of education and economics and…

Purpose: We explore how nursing home characteristics affect the number of lawsuits filed against the facilities in Florida during the period from 1997 to 2001. Design and Methods: We examined data from 478 nursing homes in 30 Florida counties from 1997 to 2001. We obtained the data from Westlaw's Adverse Filings: Lawsuits database, the Online…

Upon finding that more than 10% of the county's population of 215,000 (1966) were retirees and other senior citizens who had educational needs which were not being met by any single educational agency, members of the Polk Junior College staff developed and implemented a project under the Higher Education Act of 1965 for the purpose of fulfilling…