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Facility in Oakland, CA, launches initiative to raise LGBT eldercare awareness
From Chancing Aginge.com: An Eden Alternative registered facility in Oakland, Calif., has launched a research-based cultural sensitivity initiative targeting the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) elders receiving skilled nursing and long-term care, the Bay Area Reporter reportered this week. Raising awareness of LGBT eldercare-related issues is an important challenge in the culture change movement. Recent surveys have found that a majority of LGBT older adults fear being openly gay in long-term care settings and as a result are among the most invisible and underserved aging populations in the nation. Eden Alternative registered Salem Lutheran Home partnered with Lavender Seniors of the East Bay and the Center for Elders’ Independence to develop a needs assessment and cultural sensitivity training program to improve services and care for LGBT elders. The project — Growing an LGBT Senior Service Community — was launched in February at Salem Lutheran Home.]]>
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SF's East Bay senior facilities now training on LGBT issues
LGBT seniors are benefitting from training that’s now being give in San Francisco’s East Bay senior facilities.
From the Bay Area Reporter:
LGBT senior citizens are already benefiting from a cultural sensitivity initiative currently under way in the East Bay that specifically targets their needs.
Lavender Seniors of the East Bay has partnered with the Center for Elders’ Independence and Salem Lutheran Home to develop a needs assessment and training program to improve services and care for LGBT seniors in Alameda County.
“Studies have noted that LGBT seniors are among the most invisible and underserved populations in the country,” said Lavender Seniors Executive Director Dan Ashbrook. “They often don’t have the financial and familial support networks that others have. And then you add a deep-seated distrust of service providers that stems from a lifelong experience of discrimination.”
The project, Growing an LGBT Senior Service Community, began in February with a needs assessment developed by Lavender Seniors in partnership with San Francisco consulting firm Gil Gerald and Associates. ]]> -
VA issues directive on care for transgender veterans
This is good news. The Veterans Administration has issued a new directive on providing care for transgender veterans.
From On the Issues Magazine:
The Veterans Administration released a new directive on transgender veterans in June 2011, “Providing Health Care For Transgender And Intersex Veterans.” This directive recognizes the reality of many service members’ lives: the intersection of trans women’s and women veterans’ experience, and the specific needs that they encounter. It’s no surprise that women’s experiences intersect with multiple personal identities and that they are not confined to the traditional sex and gender binary of western society. Earlier in 2011, the National Center for Transgender Equality, a national social justice organization in Washington, D.C., released a 221-page report that created a demographic portrait of transgender people in the U.S., based on an extensive study sample of 7,000 and a rigorous survey review. Released in conjunction with the D.C.-based National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, one of the findings of the report, Injustice At Every Turn was that 20 percent of the adult, transgender people in the United States are military veterans, as compared to 10 percent of the adult population of the United States who are military veterans. The “Injustice” report had other significant findings, as well. For example, 30 percent of the transgender adult respondents reported having a physical disability or mental health condition that substantially affected a major life activity. By contrast, the overall U.S. population reports a disability at a rate of 20 percent.]]> -
One-third of workers have access to partner benefits
dropping their domestic partnership coverage. From the New York Times: WASHINGTON — In the first comprehensive count of domestic partner benefits by a federal government agency, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that about one-third of all workers had access to health care benefits for same-sex partners. Bureau officials added two questions about domestic partner benefits for same-sex couples to the National Compensation Survey, a sample of 17,000 businesses and local governments, as a response to growing public interest in the topic, said Philip Doyle, assistant commissioner at the agency. The results were made public on Tuesday. Thirty-three percent of state and local government employees had access to domestic partner health benefits for same-sex couples, the survey found, slightly higher than the 29 percent of employees in private companies.
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Lifestyle choices play significant role in Alzheimer’s
My father died a year and a half ago from pneumonia, something that is often a blessing for people with Alzheimer’s. Watching him deteriorate over the course of several years was distressing, and something I would avoid at all costs for myself and my partner (and anyone else I love). A new study outlines several important behavioral choices we can make to significantly reduce the risks.
From AOL Health Living:
PARIS — Taking care of your body just might save your mind. Millions of cases of Alzheimer’s disease worldwide could be prevented by curbing risk factors such as high blood pressure, smoking, obesity and lack of exercise, new research suggests. The study offers more than the usual pep talk about healthy living. Seven conditions or behaviors account for up to half of the 35 million cases of Alzheimer’s around the world, it found. With no cure or treatment to reverse the mind-robbing disease, preventing new cases is crucial. The study was presented Tuesday at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in France, where sessions on prevention have been drawing standing-room-only crowds for several days. “Prevention is a particularly attractive option given the state of therapy. That’s why there’s so much interest in it,” said William Thies, the association’s chief scientific officer. The study was led by Deborah Barnes, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. Results also were published online by the British journal Lancet Neurology. The researchers have grants from the Alzheimer’s Association and the U.S. National Institutes on Aging. The study used a mathematical model to estimate the impact of top modifiable risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease: smoking, depression, low education, diabetes, too little exercise, and obesity and high blood pressure in mid-life. How much of an impact each one has on total Alzheimer’s cases depends on how common it is and how strongly it affects dementia risk. Researchers calculated the impact globally and just for the United States. Continue reading]]> -
U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner says GOP program cuts a tax hike on seniors
I saw a little bit of Secretary Geithner on ‘Face the Nation’ Sunday morning but missed this bit.
From UPI.com:
WASHINGTON, July 10 (UPI) — U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Sunday Republican demands for spending cuts would act as a tax increase on senior citizens and middle class.
Geithner said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that addressing the budget deficit solely through spending reductions would result in higher out-of-pocket costs for Medicare that would have to be born by fixed-income seniors.
“The average cost of Medicare for the average beneficiary when fully phased in would go up by $6,500 a year,” Geithner said. “That’s like a $6,500 tax increase on elderly Americans.”
The secretary said President Obama and the Democrats were sticking to their guns on spending cuts and tax increases because they saw Medicare and Social Security as “basic commitments” to retirees.]]> -
Doctors see rise in number of transgender youth
Photograph by: Pierre Obendrauf, Postmedia News, Postmedia News The reality of being transgender wasn’t something that ever occurred to me growing up. I was dealing with being a self-aware gay child and the stresses of being openly gay as a teenager, so the fact there were kids going through something even more challenging wasn’t in my consciousness. I think it’s only been in the last decade or so that transgender and gender identity issues have come into the broader public consciousness, and we still have a long way to go. From the Vancouver Sun: At age five, Shamai was a boy in a little girl’s body. He remembers demanding a short haircut and when a lady on the street “mistook” him for a boy, turning to his mother and saying: “This lady knows better than you. She knows I’m a boy.” In her first recollection that something was wrong, Samantha had this vague sense it didn’t feel right to be in a boy’s body. “I didn’t know what it was. I prayed for a while for things to work out.” She was four years old. James was three years old -and a girl on the outside -when he blurted out to his family: “I was a boy before. What happened?” For years it was a family joke. They are transgender youth, all in their 20s now, from different backgrounds but with stories that are similar: moments of childhood clarity when they realized they weren’t who they appeared to be. [SNIP] National statistics are impossible to find, but counsellors and doctors say they’ve been seeing a steady increase over the last five years in the number of young people seeking advocacy groups, hormone therapy and finally surgery for maleto-female (MTF) or female-tomale (FTM) changes. That increase is attributed in part to greater awareness and support within the community, and better access to sex reassignment surgery. B.C., Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec and Newfoundland cover costs of the procedure, which is most often performed in Montreal at the Centre Metropolitain de Chirurgie Plastique. While some professionals continue to see gender identity issues as psychological, ongoing research is moving toward the hypothesis of biological changes that take place in the womb rather than environmental influences.
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Kaiser Permanente gets high marks for LGBT healthcare
When my partner Jim was going through his losing struggle with HIV/AIDS in the late 1980s (he died in 1991) we often went to Kaiser Permanente in Hollywood. They were excellent there and treated me as his partner, and I’ll never forget that. Now Kaiser Permanente in Vallejo and 22 other Bay Area hospitals are being praised for their treatment of lgbt people and our health needs.
From the Times Herald: The country’s largest gay rights group has rated a local hospital a leader in LGBT healthcare equality. In a report released Thursday, the Human Rights Campaign noted Kaiser Permanente Vallejo Medical Center and 22 other Bay Area hospitals received perfect ratings in the Washington, D.C., -based group’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Healthcare Equality Index. “The biggest thing is, at Kaiser Permanente, we equate good health and thriving with getting your care at a place that you’re comfortable and is supportive of your needs, whatever they may be — cultural, sexual orientation, language. The recognition from the Human Rights Campaign of that conviction is just very much appreciated,” said Ellen Leonard, vice president of health plan and hospital operations. The Human Rights Campaign surveyed 87 health care providers across the country, representing about 375 facilities, including 25 in the Bay Area.
“We’ve actually experienced twice as many (respondents) this year as opposed to last year,” said Tom Sullivan, deputy director for the Human Rights Campaign Family Project. The survey, now in its fifth year, is a voluntary one and rates health care providers on four criteria: patient non-discrimination policies, LGBT visitation policies, cultural training and employee non-discrimination policies.
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Saving on medical bills through daily deal sites – smart money or taking a gamble?
I haven’t used a discount, daily deal or coupon site yet (although I see them in a fix-income future) and I’m not sure I’d use them for any sort of medical procedure, but it seems to be getting more common.
From Smart Money:
Daily deal sites, home of the half-off, limited-time-only, pre-paid coupon craze, are no longer content to sell low-cost dinners and dye jobs. Now on the discount table: laser eye surgery, dental checkups, and other medical services.
In the first quarter of 2011, there were more than 2,500 medical, health and dental offers published on daily deal sites in the U.S. — an eight-fold jump over the 300 offered during the same period a year ago, according to Dan Hess, CEO and co-founder of Local Offer Network, a daily deal aggregator. That’s a startling increase, even compared to the rapid growth of the sites themselves, which had a five-fold increase total deal volume over the first quarter. And, says Jack Vonder Heide, president of Technology Briefing Centers, “We’re seeing more of them coming onto the market every week.”
[SNIP]
But medical organizations say this is the wrong way to sell medical services. Consumers may pay too much attention to the low prices and not enough to the quality of care or the provider’s track record, says Greg Sterling, a San-Francisco-based Internet analyst with Opus Research. And the “limited-time only” nature of daily deal sites doesn’t encourage measured, thoughtful decision making, adds Malcolm Z. Roth, president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. “You shouldn’t be doing procedures on a whim,” he says.
Unlike a half-off dinner coupon, where the biggest risk is a wasted meal, the consequences of poorly-performed procedures are more severe, says Carolyn Jacob, an Illinois-based board-certified dermatologist. Any time anyone has an invasive procedure involving needles, there’s a risk of infection, she says. Laser and other skin treatments designed to zap blemishes or hair can burn a patient’s skin; Botox and other chemical lifts can cause lumps or droops, Jacob adds.
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Conservative seniors organization defends Paul Ryan Medicare plan
A group calling itself the ’60 Plus Association’ is launching a TV ad in June that defends Rep. Paul Ryan’s plans to turn Medicare into a voucher system – though avoiding any of that language in a disarming 30-second spot. When I watched the ad I noticed at the end the voiceover saying future seniors will have a healthcare plan choice “just like members of Congress.” Color me skeptical. From ABC News: ABC News’ Huma Khan reports: The 60 Plus Association, a conservative seniors’ advocacy group, today launched a national television ad campaign today touting Rep. Paul Ryan’s controversial Medicare plan. “The Democrats and Obama are destroying Medicare,” said Jim Martin, chairman of the group that dubs itself as the conservative alternative to the more mainstream seniors’ lobbying group, AARP. “It’s time to put an end to their ‘mediscare’ tactics. The reality is that Medicare in its current form is going to bankrupt our nation.” The 30-second ad heavily features House Budget Committee chairman Ryan and the group will spend $1.4 billion to run the ad on national cable television and local markets in Florida and Ohio.
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Portland, OR, approves transgender health benefits
I was in Portland once, when I was living briefly in Washington state. I saw a revival there of ‘The Boys in the Band’ over 30 years ago. Now the city has become the third local government in the nation to offer transgender health benefits to its employees. Good for Portland.
From Bay Windows:
The city of Portland has become the third local government in the nation to offer transgender health care benefits for its employees with a unanimous vote Wednesday, June 8 by city commissioners.
The vote also makes Oregon the only state with two jurisdictions offering the benefits. Portland is the seat of Multnomah County, which also provides similar benefits to its employees. San Francisco was the first and has been offering them for a decade, according to Jeana Frazzini, executive director of Basic Rights Oregon.
“The work of educating the community here in Oregon for more than two decades about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people makes a difference,” Frazzini said Wednesday. “I think that’s significant.”]]> -
Seniors would pay twice as much for healthcare under Republican plan
A Democratic website (that has to be pointed out, although I believe their numbers) has a graphic out showing that seniors currently paying $6,308 under Medicare would pay $12,826 under the Republican plan.
From Democrats.org:
This new online tool shows the real cost to seniors under the Republican plan – a plan that will end the Medicare benefits seniors rely on. In nearly every state, seniors would pay almost twice the out-of-pocket expenses they currently pay.
Take a minute to see the average cost to seniors in your state and how it compares to the national average. Then, please share this tool with friends, family, and folks in your community.]]> -
Seniors do best where doctors in higher supply
A new study has found that older adults who live in areas where they have access to a lot of primary care physicians are less likely to be hospitalized for illnesses that can be managed outside a hospital.
From the New York Times:
Older adults who live in areas with high concentrations of primary care doctors are less likely than those in areas with fewer such doctors to be hospitalized for illnesses that can be managed outside a hospital, like asthma and diabetes, a new study has found.
Seniors with greater access to primary care doctors also have lower death rates, the study authors reported. But the availability of these physicians did not correspond to lower medical costs, which were just as high in areas rich in primary care doctors, the study found.
Researchers at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice analyzed the medical records and hospital claims of 5.1 million beneficiaries in traditional Medicare programs in 2007. In the areas with the highest concentrations of primary care doctors working full time in outpatient clinical settings, people 65 and older had death rates 5 percent lower than in areas with fewer primary care doctors. They were almost 10 percent less likely to be hospitalized in these areas for conditions that can be treated outside a hospital.
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