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Underused Medicare Savings Programs Can Help Many More Older Adults Afford Health Care

Medicare Savings Programs – under which state Medicaid agencies help older adults with limited resources pay Medicare premiums, deductibles, copayments, and other out-of-pocket costs – remain underused. A new report delves into causes of under-enrollment and solutions for addressing it.

Ten Things You Can Do to Support Nurses

Learn what nurses do. Be an ally. Ask questions. Vote to remove barriers to safe, quality care delivery. These are just a few of the ways to support a workforce of nurses still feeling the exhaustion, discouragement, and stress of the pandemic. Here, two leaders in the nursing field offer a list of 10 ways consumers can support nurses.

Learning from Nurse Leaders and Top-Performing Nursing Homes to Combat COVID

Of the more than 15,000 nursing homes in the United States, only 150 have achieved a COVID-19 vaccination rate of 95 percent among residents and staff and a 75 percent rate for residents and staff being fully boosted, according to a review of data dating back to 2020 from the AARP Nursing Home COVID-19 Dashboard. The work and insights of nurse leaders at these facilities reveal best practices that could be replicated at a time when COVID-19 remains a threat to older adults living in nursing homes.

Medication Literacy Series: Generic Drugs

An estimate of Medicare Part D utilization in 2016 showed that beneficiaries could have saved over $600 million in out-of-pocket costs if they had chosen a generic-drug option. A few steps to address medication literacy could ensure more older adults realize the financial benefit of opting for less-expensive generic drugs over the higher-priced brand name, a new report says.

Dashboard: COVID-19 Deaths in Nursing Homes Rise in January as Winter Wave Peaks

COVID-19 deaths among nursing home residents increased 23 percent for the four weeks ended Jan. 22 compared to the previous four weeks, according to the latest AARP Nursing Home COVID-19 Dashboard update. With more than 1,300 deaths, the rate is the highest since last winter. But this latest winter wave appears to have peaked in early January with the highest weekly rates of deaths and cases occurring the first week of that month. Meanwhile, uptake in bivalent boosters remains low among nursing home residents and staff.

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Editor-in-Chief: Susan C. Reinhard, RN, PhD, FAAN
Senior Writer/Editor: Carl Levesque

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