Letters to the Editor is a periodic function. We welcome all feedback and can publish a range. We edit for size and readability and require full names.
Regarding Kin of Lonely Dementia Sufferers
I used to be despatched the article by Judith Graham on older adults with dementia residing alone (“Going It Alone: Hundreds of thousands of Growing older Individuals Are Dealing with Dementia by Themselves,” Oct. 15). I respect this text. My mother lives alone with dementia. My son lives subsequent door and checks on her, and my daughter comes when she is ready to vacuum flooring and to clean the kitchen and loo. I deal with the payments, clear and alter her garments, wash her garments, seek for mail, and usher in groceries. She refused to permit the house well being aide in, which complicates the care schedule. Neighbors be careful for her, together with police on the station throughout the road. It’s complicated and sophisticated for caregivers. Making use of for Medicaid is a nightmare, as is trying to find reminiscence care services. The considered really transferring her is heartbreaking and so hectic. Once more: Thanks for sharing that others with dementia live on their very own.
— Gail Daniels, Washington, D.C.
On the social platform X, a reader drew on her personal expertise:
Having cared for my mother towards the top of her journey with dementia, that is terrifying.For a lot of elders, there isn’t a household to cushion the insults of dementia and cognitive decline.https://t.co/LTZ76Ojgwg
— Shava Nerad – @shava23@bluesky 🌻 (@shava23) October 19, 2024
— Shava Nerad, Arlington, Massachusetts
Bonding — To the Letter
Thanks one million! I learn your article “Going It Alone: Historic Numbers of Individuals Dwell by Themselves as They Age” (Sept. 17) within the Las Vegas Overview-Journal and associated to it on a serious degree. As a senior residing alone, I’m experiencing among the identical “social isolation” expressed by your interviewees. Since I like to put in writing, I believed it could be fascinating to contain among the individuals talked about in a nationwide pen pal affiliation. This could place little or no demand on their finances (aside from postage and stationery), on their time, and with little or no journey concerned.
It’s breathtakingly exhilarating to obtain a letter from a buddy or relative, a package deal from wherever, and expertise the reward of sitting down and studying excellent news from afar.
I respect our advances in expertise and I take advantage of it somewhat sparingly. Nevertheless, I come from a technology that writes in cursive, is aware of the 5 components of letter writing, and understands what a return tackle is and the place it’s positioned on an envelope.
— Gloria Rankin, Las Vegas
A specialist in well being economics and coverage tweeted reward:
Historic Numbers of Individuals Dwell by Themselves as They Agehttps://t.co/lwpfrhJauWEssential, impactful story by very good @judith_graham
— Paul Hughes-Cromwick (Pooge) (@cromwick) September 17, 2024
— Paul Hughes-Cromwick (Pooge), Ann Arbor, Michigan
On X, a gaggle of interdisciplinary school representing Johns Hopkins College shared KFF Well being Information’ protection about racial bias within the growth and use of pulse oximeters:
In a @KFFHealthNews article, BDP @iwashyna explains how we transfer ahead from the racial bias of our present pulse oximeters.https://t.co/dmhqzoAfmK
— Bloomberg Distinguished Professors (@JHU_BDPs) October 23, 2024
A Slap on the Wrist for Pulse Oximeters
Between 1983 and 1988, I had 4 sons at Stanford Hospital. I used to be buddies with Eben Kermit, who was a bioengineer. He was creating the unique pulse oximeter on infants within the neonatal intensive care unit (“Systemic Illness: FDA’s Promised Steerage on Pulse Oximeters Unlikely To Finish Many years of Racial Bias,” Oct. 7). He examined solely white infants. That’s as a result of white dad and mom may come to the NICU within the daytime, which is when Eben was at work within the NICU. Black dad and mom may come solely at night time as a result of their work wouldn’t give them day off to look after a really sick child. Since nobody was there to signal consent kinds, at night time, with the Black dad and mom, no Black kids had been included. Discrimination in opposition to Black dad and mom by their employers is continuous to cascade by way of the Black neighborhood by way of the exclusion of Black individuals from the event of medical expertise.
— Zoe Joyner Danielson, a toxicology biologist, Woodland, California
This X publish got here from a consulting and coaching agency that focuses on well being fairness points:
Reforms are wanted ASAP—these gadgets have harmed so many #Black sufferers.FDA’s Promised Steerage on Pulse Oximeters Unlikely To Finish Many years of Racial Bias https://t.co/5R9LH5XyTI by @ArthurAllen202 @kffhealthnews CC: @NohaAboelataMD @mlipnick @iculung @djcantillonmd @iwashyna pic.twitter.com/yliCxMdRvG
— HealthBegins (@HealthBegins) October 10, 2024
What’s All This Fuss About Fluoride?
Nobody appears to handle the truth that not everybody drinks water from public water techniques (“Does Fluoride Trigger Most cancers, IQ Loss, and Extra? Reality-Checking Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Claims,” Nov. 18). I see many individuals shopping for bottled water by the trunkful, or have a water fountain at dwelling with 5-gallon bottles of purified ingesting water, or have reverse osmosis water filtration techniques put in at their sink.
So even when RFK Jr. removes fluoride from public water techniques, I can’t see that there can be a drastic enhance in dental points. Additionally, if you get your enamel cleaned on the dentist, they offer you a fluoride therapy (until you decide out). So on this concern of eradicating fluoride, would this be a drastic concern understanding that many now aren’t getting fluoridated water?
— Suzann Lebda, Solar Lakes, Arizona
Hitting the Paywall
Why does your e-newsletter hyperlink to articles with paywalls? For instance:
The Oct. 18 aggregation “Former Medicare Chief Warns About Medicare Benefit Pay Charges” hyperlinks to Stat Information, the place the article can’t be learn and not using a subscription. In case you are doing this as a way to supply subscribers to them, too unhealthy.
In any case, this observe doesn’t symbolize your group effectively because it helps the pattern that solely those that can afford it get to be told. I hope you rethink this observe.
The monetary boundaries to accessing essential data are hurting us as people and as a society. It’s costly for most individuals to have entry to a mainstream publication, nevertheless it will get cost-prohibitive to have entry to a number of factors of view, to be taught, cause, and make up our personal minds. Typically, the one various obtainable is to get “bites of knowledge” from the “free” social media. The outcomes are as one would anticipate: We turn into much less conscious of what’s actually happening as we’re guided into silos of ignorance.
Thanks.
— Carl Loben, Bellevue, Washington
On X, a expertise journalist in Spain shared the article about pregnant individuals being requested by their suppliers to pay out-of-pocket charges sooner than anticipated:
Pay first, ship later: Some pregnant individuals are being requested to prepay for his or her child https://t.co/NLWTeawgnk
— José María López (@gilead1984) November 16, 2024
— José María López, Badalona, Spain
A New Technology of Well being Plans Overdue
The current article “Pay First, Ship Later: Some Ladies Are Being Requested To Prepay for Their Child” (Nov. 15) successfully highlights the emotional and monetary uncertainty dealing with suppliers and sufferers. I commend the writer for capturing how this uncertainty, rooted in empathy and equity, should be higher understood and addressed.
I write to attract consideration to market traits and federal laws geared toward assuaging this concern. Till not too long ago, well being plans thought of the out-of-pocket expertise as definitionally out-of-scope, leaving sufferers, and suppliers, to handle this rising uncertainty on their very own.
The proof exhibits that it’s potential to construct a extra pragmatic and empathic out-of-pocket expertise right into a well being plan, enhancing care accessibility and affordability with out eradicating affected person duty. This method has been confirmed, throughout hundreds of employer well being plans, to really feel higher and financially profit everybody — sufferers, suppliers, and plans (employers/insurers).
On Oct. 15, 2024, the Medicare Prescription Fee Plan launched, providing almost 54 million Individuals the choice to have their insurer pay their out-of-pocket bills upfront on the level of service giving members time to evaluate and repay the stability — with out curiosity or charges. If the affected person within the article had a well being plan with this functionality, her OB-GYN would have been paid, on her behalf, by her insurer. She would have obtained a easy month-to-month assertion to repay in full or over time from the consolation of her dwelling. Everybody advantages and it’s a higher member expertise.
This new, bipartisan, commonsense enchancment to considered one of well being care’s most acute ache factors is quickly increasing as employers and insurers understand there’s important actuarial worth, supplier financial savings, and member habits change attributable to enhancing an individual’s skill to pay for care.
Brian Whorley, Columbia, Missouri
An affiliate professor within the well being care management program at Rockhurst College’s Helzberg College of Administration additionally shared the article on X:
Pay First, Ship Later: Some Ladies Are Being Requested To Prepay for Their Child https://t.co/QEnX8GA3Ih through @kffhealthnews
— Prof. Jim Dockins (@DrDockins) November 15, 2024
— Jim Dockins, Kansas Metropolis, Missouri
On Hospital Gatekeepers and Tolls
Regarding the article “Pay First, Ship Later: Some Ladies Are Being Requested To Prepay for Their Child” (Nov. 15): Again in 1992, the hospital the place my son was going to be delivered required that the projected copay be paid to them one month earlier than the supply date or my spouse wouldn’t be admitted (a Catholic hospital, very charitable).
My spouse was born on the identical hospital in 1963; at the moment, my father-in-law was knowledgeable by the hospital that he couldn’t take her dwelling till the invoice was paid in full. He contacted a buddy who was an legal professional who instructed him to let the hospital know that might be thought of kidnapping and that he can be calling the police in the event that they didn’t launch her.
— Andrew McGovern, Nice River, New York
Taken Benefit Of?
I belong to a Blue Cross Blue Defend Medicare Benefit plan and, for the previous a number of years, it has supplied a house evaluation with a reward of $25. I’ve participated in this system up to now however declined this yr since I didn’t assume there was a lot worth to this system. I’m a retired registered nurse, and I felt that the nurse who did my evaluation didn’t do an particularly thorough job, and any questions I requested of her, she couldn’t reply. The nurse was additionally from out of state.
After studying your article on “The Medicare Benefit Affect Machine” (Sept. 30), the explanations for the evaluation appear to be greater than enhancing the beneficiary’s well being and well-being, which is what I believed. I’m comparatively wholesome and energetic, so it could not seem that BCBS discovered any new diagnoses that it may invoice Medicare for, however I assume that that isn’t the case with different seniors.
— Bruce Gilman, Millis, Massachusetts
An economist in Florida had this to say on social media:
Thanks @KFFHealthNews for declaring the failed forms @CMS I’ve been speaking about for years. You possibly can’t learn this and never conclude DC bureaucrats are “captured” and coverage makers are beholden to Medicare Benefit foyer cash. #WhoWillCarehttps://t.co/rDGg8juoop
— Luke Neumann (@pglukeneumann) September 30, 2024
— Luke Neumann, St. Petersburg, Florida
In Protection of Deloitte
On March 12, 2024, in good religion and with respect for KFF Well being Information, Deloitte’s well being and human companies observe chief offered a 90-minute interview with two reporters for a narrative they mentioned was about “issues with Deloitte’s eligibility techniques throughout the nation.”
We agreed to the interview as a result of we had heard from a number of of our state purchasers that they, too, had been contacted, and that the questions being raised confirmed a misunderstanding of built-in eligibility techniques, the expertise that sustains them, and the complexity of the well being and human companies packages they assist.
The eligibility techniques are owned by the states, not Deloitte; they’re uniquely constructed for every state (in some circumstances, by different distributors a long time in the past); and we work on the course of our purchasers to keep up and improve these techniques to adjust to state-specific insurance policies, guidelines, and processes, and evolving federal laws.
Two tales subsequently ran: “Medicaid for Hundreds of thousands in America Hinges on Deloitte-Run Programs Suffering from Errors” (June 24) and “Errors in Deloitte-Run Medicaid Programs Can Price Hundreds of thousands and Take Years To Repair” (Sept. 5).
Most of the points reported as “widespread” are remoted to particular conditions or contain delicate information that can’t be refuted by Deloitte as a consequence of consumer confidentiality obligations. That mentioned, there are lots of the explanation why somebody could lose protection or now not be eligible for a profit they as soon as obtained.
Not each “concern” a constituent faces is the results of a system “error,” and challenges with particular person circumstances in particular person techniques aren’t as a consequence of some elementary drawback in the best way Deloitte helps state Medicaid packages.
On the difficulty of contract adjustments, Deloitte rejected the declare in March that our state purchasers ship us a “change request … when a repair is required.” We mentioned that was inaccurate and defined that when there are coverage or rule adjustments — or a world pandemic — that require modifications to a state’s expertise, change orders aren’t solely mandatory however applicable.
They don’t symbolize errors in a system that have to be mounted.
All through the unwinding of the covid-19 public well being emergency — as applied sciences developed and insurance policies modified — Deloitte labored carefully with states to attenuate challenges for these going by way of the Medicaid redetermination course of. The improvements and human-centered design processes we helped our purchasers implement enhanced the digital expertise for his or her constituents and made it simpler for caseworkers, employees, and neighborhood companions to assist the 34 million individuals of their care.
Our purchasers perceive that giant system implementations are difficult because of the complexity of the packages they assist, and that each one IT techniques require ongoing upkeep, periodic enhancements and upgrades to software program and {hardware}, and database administration.
That’s the reason so many states proceed to pick Deloitte to assist them preserve their mission-critical techniques, and why trade analysts like Forrester and Gartner constantly rank Deloitte as a pacesetter in system integration and enterprise transformation.
— Karen L. Walsh, Authorities & Public Companies, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
[Editor’s note: KFF Health News stands by its reporting on Deloitte and the state eligibility determination systems that Deloitte supports.]
An assistant professor at Harvard voiced her opinion on X:
That is such a grim abstract of the state of Medicaid eligibility and enrollment techniques https://t.co/3hpVnJdPOm pic.twitter.com/Gdi2AF1pyr
— Adrianna McIntyre (@adrianna.bsky.social) (@onceuponA) September 5, 2024
— Adrianna McIntyre, Boston
Far Much less Than Meets the Eye
I learn your article concerning the new $2,000 restrict for out-of-pocket funds for Medicare Half D (“Medicare Drug Plans Are Getting Higher Subsequent 12 months. Some Will Additionally Price Extra,” Oct. 21). As somebody with very excessive drug prices, I used to be very enthusiastic about this alteration. Nevertheless, as soon as I researched the totally different drug plans obtainable for me and my husband, I noticed that the cash we spend on medicine which might be prescribed by a physician however not lined by our plan is not going to rely towards the $2,000 restrict. Subsequently, our price for mandatory medicine will proceed to be exorbitant.
I believe that there are lots of seniors who might be very dissatisfied as soon as they understand this.
— Pia Stampe, Eureka, California
In sharing the article on X, a Florida legal professional merely shared their contact data:
“Medicare Drug Plans Are Getting Higher Subsequent 12 months. Some Will Additionally Price Extra:”https://t.co/9uEjVxTSGb Grady H. Williams, Jr., LL.M., Attorneys at Regulation P.A. 1543 Kingsley Avenue, Constructing 5 Orange Park, FL 32073 Tel: 904-264-8800 • Fax: 904-264-0155
— Grady H. Williams (@floridaelder) November 9, 2024
— Grady H. Williams, Orange Park, Florida
Shedding Mild on Fluorescence in Dental Care
Congratulations on a extremely impactful publication (“Dentists Are Pulling ‘Wholesome’ and Treatable Tooth To Revenue From Implants, Specialists Warn,” Nov. 1). The info offered are harrowing for a retired practitioner with a number of specialties who tried a lifetime to protect enamel and promote human well being.
As you may know, oral biofilm is the most important enemy of oral well being and even common well being. Dental clinicians haven’t been in a position to visualize and determine the presence of pathogenic oral microbiome till not too long ago. Pathogenic oral micro organism are among the many important mills of arduous and comfortable tissue deterioration, akin to tooth decay, gum illnesses, and even an infection of dental implants. Probably the most trusted and used prognosis process continues to be the X-ray.
X-rays can determine solely established illnesses. Sadly, radiologic prognosis continues to be essentially the most trusted diagnostic device used and taught in dental training.
Microbiology, the microbiome science, makes use of fluorescence as its main identification process. Among the most aggressive oral micro organism, mills of caries, gum illnesses, and so forth., generate so-called porphyrins, which, as soon as excited by a selected wavelength, emit gentle at a special wavelength. Extremely dependable and simple-to-use applied sciences have been created not too long ago to assist direct visualization and point-of-care identification of this pathogenic micro organism by way of the above-described process. These gadgets assist the diagnostic course of and assist the dental clinician by guiding the therapy execution and figuring out when the therapy aim has been achieved. Dental therapy protocols using “Fluorescence-Enhanced Theragnosis” have turn into dependable and fewer invasive.
The excessive lack of human lives within the ICUs in the course of the pandemic as a consequence of ventilator-associated pneumonia may have been dramatically lowered utilizing the above protocol.
Wound-care science has already applied fluorescence and is present process an amazing protocol change. Tumor surgical procedure celebrates fluorescence-guided surgical procedure as a milestone in its growth.
Tutorial dental training is due for an pressing renewal. We should open the doorways and facilitate science translation to profit humankind!
— Liviu Steier, Needham, Massachusetts
A reader who manages a web site predicting the collapse of the American well being care system commented on X:
https://t.co/JTFn1h12rc 🙄😠👎Technically, American dentistry was as soon as ranked as the most effective on the planet. Sadly, It has a historical past of mismanagement and negligence. It’s a “reputational good” that’s been flooded with scams. Now it’s payback time. It’s demonstrating the…
— Francis Anthony Toto (@francisatoto) November 2, 2024
— Francis Anthony Toto, San Diego
