Below is a great flyer about the Annual Wellness Exam now covered under Medicare.
Medicare Coverage of a CPAP
Original Medicare will cover an initial three-month trial of your CPAP device if you have been diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea. At the end of the trial, Medicare will continue to pay for the device if your doctor certifies that you have benefited from the device and used it properly.
Before the three-month trial, your physician and supplier must submit paperwork to Medicare to justify your need for a CPAP device. Although it is their job to know these requirements, familiarizing yourself with them can help to avoid errors and navigate any challenges that arise.
To qualify for coverage of a three-month CPAP trial, Original Medicare requires certain steps:
- Your doctor must diagnose you with obstructive sleep apnea based on an examination and subsequent sleep test. This test can be performed in your home or at an approved facility.
- Your doctor must certify that you had a face-to-face exam with him/her or another health professional within the six-month period before the CPAP was ordered.
- You must use a Medicare-approved supplier who provides you and/or your caregiver with instructions about proper use and care for the CPAP device. Many areas including Chesapeake, Virginia are called competitive bidding regions, which means Medicare will usually only pay for most durable medical equipment (DME) from a select group of suppliers, known as contract suppliers.
- Lastly, for continued coverage of your CPAP device following the three-month trial, your provider must re-evaluate you during those initial three months. He or she must certify that the CPAP device is helping you and that you are using it as recommended.
If these conditions are met, Medicare will cover 80 percent of the rental fees for a CPAP device for 13 months, once the Part B deductible is met. After that you will own the device. Note that these 13 months include the three-month trial. Medicare will also pay 80 percent of the cost of CPAP supplies, such as masks and tubing.
Parkinson’s Disease Resources
I received a letter in the mail from the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation with some available resources. They are:
CEU Opportunities: They host six webinars a year on topics such as medication management, physical therapy and advanced PD. Their next series kicks off in September. To learn more, you can visit www.pdf.org/parkinsononline
Free Educational Materials: Booklets including PD Resource List, Parkinson’s Disease Q & A and more than 40 fact sheets. To order go to support.pdf.org/publications
National HelpLine: (800) 457-6676 or email info@pdf.org (available Monday – Friday, 9 am – 5 pm Eastern Time).
Detroit News article on recent local Medicare fraud indictments
http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/16-charged-in-detroitarea-as-part-of-nationwide-health-care-fraud-sweep/33652072
MI Health Link
Below is a link to the MI Health Link Webinar for Wayne and Macomb County.
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/recording/1681337263344110082
April Newsletter
Attached is the April 2015 Newsletter.
Mental Illness and Older Adults
Below is the link to the Mental Illness and Older Adults Professional Development:
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/recording/3943945276043372290
Alcoholism and Substance Use/Abuse
Below is the link for the Professional Development on Alcoholism and Substance Use/Abuse:
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/recording/8754854005331720193
Suicide Prevention and Older Adults
Below is the link to the Suicide Prevention Professional Development:
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/recording/3201070140342845185
Resources lacking for older victims of sexual violence
Take Back the Night Event – Hannan Scoop Article
By Vanessa Rorai
On Wednesday April 8th, 2015, I had the privilege of attending a Take Back the Night event. This event was created to raise awareness of sexual violence and empower men and women to stand up against it. This was my first time going to such event and it was very engaging, educational, and empowering. The guest speaker was Wayne County Prosecutor Kim Worthy. She spoke about the terrible situation Wayne County was in regarding discovering thousands of untested rape kits, and the progress that has been made since. Many community agencies and organizations attended the event to hand out information about available services and resources for victims and survivors of sexual violence and/or domestic violence.
After looking over the services, there are unsurprisingly little resources, if any, directed to older adults. Most services are specific to children or generally directed to adult victims of domestic violence. Services offered to adults have no age limits. However, news reports prove that sexual violence is just as pertinent of an issue with older adults as other age groups.
An incident occurred in 2012 when a man suffering from dementia was reported to have killed his wife in Winsford, England (BBC, 2013). Also, a very recently reported incident occurred in early April of a man suffering from dementia killed his wife in New Jersey (Konstantinides, 2015). Both of these couple’s relationships had a history of domestic violence. Sexual violence among older adults is occurring, but there are unique characteristics among this population, such as health concerns, longer relationship histories, and generational differences. Clearly, there is a need of focus towards the older adult population exclusively for treatment and programs for victims/survivors of sexual and domestic violence.
References
BBC (2013, October 29). Hazel Bailey death: Husband jailed for walking stick killing.
BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england
merseyside-24728165
Konstantinides, A. (2015, April 6). 100-year-old dementia sufferer ‘murdered his sleeping
wife, 88, with an ax, then committed suicide with a knife’. DailyMail.com
News. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article
3028326/100-year-old-New-Jersey-man-allegedly-killed-sleeping-wife-ax
committed-suicide.html