GET YOUR Flu Shot !

About National Influenza Vaccination Week

CDC established National Influenza Vaccination Week (NIVW) in 2005 to highlight the importance of continuing flu vaccination through the holiday season and beyond.

NIVW 2019 was observed from December 1-7

NIVW Timing

Previous flu vaccination coverage data have shown that few people get vaccinated against influenza- after the end of November.

• CDC and its partners choose December for NIVW to remind people that even though the holiday season has begun, it is not too late to get a flu vaccine.
• As long as flu viruses are spreading and causing illness, vaccination should continue throughout flu season in order to protect as many people as possible against flu.
• Vaccination efforts should continue through the holiday season and beyond. It’s not too late to vaccinate.
• While vaccination is recommended before the end of October, getting vaccinated later can still be beneficial during most seasons for people who have put it off.
• Even if have already gotten sick with flu, you can still benefit from vaccination since many different flu viruses spread during flu season and most flu vaccine protects against four different flu viruses.

The burden of flu

Flu isn’t a “bad cold” and can result in serious health complications, such as pneumonia, bacterial infections, and can lead to hospitalization. Flu can sometimes even lead to death.

• Most people who get flu will recover in several days to less than two weeks, but some people will develop serious flu complications
• All people are at risk of developing serious flu complications and certain groups are at higher risk. For people at higher risk, flu is more likely to lead to serious flu complications that can result in hospitalization or even death.
• People at high risk of serious flu complications include young children, pregnant women, people with certain chronic health conditions like asthma, diabetes, heart disease or lung disease, and people 65 years and older.
• Anyone who gets flu can pass it to someone at high risk of severe illness, including children younger than 6 months who are too young to get a flu vaccine.

The Many Benefits of Flu Vaccination

There are many reasons to get an influenza (flu) vaccine each year. Below is a summary of the benefits of flu vaccination, and selected scientific studies that support these benefits.

• Flu vaccination can keep you from getting sick with flu.
  • Flu vaccine prevents millions of illnesses and flu-related doctor’s visits each year. For example, during 2017-2018, flu vaccination prevented an estimated 6.2 million influenza illnesses, 3.2 million influenza-associated medical visits, 91,000 influenza-associated hospitalizations, and 5,700 influenza-associated deaths.
  • During seasons when the flu vaccine viruses are similar to circulating flu viruses, flu vaccine has been shown to reduce the risk of having to go to the doctor with flu by 40 percent to 60 percent.
• Flu vaccination can reduce the risk of flu-associated hospitalization for children, working age adults, and older adults.
  • Flu vaccine prevents tens of thousands of hospitalizations each year. For example, during 2017-2018, flu vaccination prevented an estimated 91,000 flu-related hospitalizations.
  • A 2014 studyexternal icon showed that flu vaccine reduced children’s risk of flu-related pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) admission by 74% during flu seasons from 2010-2012.
  • In recent years, flu vaccines have reduced the risk of flu-associated hospitalizations among older adultsexternal icon on average by about 40%.
  • A 2018 study showed that from 2012 to 2015, flu vaccination among adults reduced the risk of being admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) with flu by 82 percent.
• Flu vaccination is an important preventive tool for people with chronic health conditions.
  • Flu vaccination has been associated with lower rates of some cardiac eventsexternal icon among people with heart disease, especially among those who had had a cardiac event in the past year.
  • Flu vaccination can reduce worsening and hospitalization for flu-related chronic lung disease, such as in persons with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
  • Flu vaccination also has been shown in separate studies to be associated with reduced hospitalizations among people with diabetesexternal icon and chronic lung diseaseexternal icon.
• Flu vaccination helps protect women during and after pregnancy.
  • Vaccination reduces the risk of flu-associated acute respiratory infection in pregnant women by about one-half.
  • A 2018 studyexternal icon that included influenza seasons from 2010-2016 showed that getting a flu shot reduced a pregnant woman’s risk of being hospitalized with flu by an average of 40 percent.
  • A number of studies have shown that in addition to helping to protect pregnant women, a flu vaccine given during pregnancy helps protect the baby from flu for several months after birth, when he or she is not old enough to be vaccinated.
• Flu vaccine can be life-saving in children.
  • A 2017 study was the first of its kind to show that flu vaccination can significantly reduce a child’s risk of dying from flu.
• Flu vaccination has been shown in several studies to reduce severity of illness in people who get vaccinated but still get sick.
  • A 2017 study showed that flu vaccination reduced deaths, intensive care unit (ICU) admissions, ICU length of stay, and overall duration of hospitalization among hospitalized flu patients.
  • A 2018 studyexternal icon showed that among adults hospitalized with flu, vaccinated patients were 59 percent less likely to be admitted to the ICU than those who had not been vaccinated. Among adults in the ICU with flu, vaccinated patients on average spent 4 fewer days in the hospital than those who were not vaccinated.
• Getting vaccinated yourself may also protect people around you, including those who are more vulnerable to serious flu illness, like babies and young children, older people, and people with certain chronic health conditions.

Important to know: Observation or Admitted ?

Even if you understand the observation status rules, you need to know how to act on that knowledge.

By Margie Barrie | December 09, 2019 at 12:22 AM

(Credit: Thinkstock)

This information could be the best holiday gift you can give your clients.
Here’s why: If your clients are on Medicare, this advice could save them thousands of dollars.

I wrote the first draft of this article from my mother’s hospital room in Sarasota.
My mother, who is 98, was taken by ambulance to the emergency room because she was having trouble breathing.
In a previous article, I explained how the new changes in Medicare affect long-term care, and, specifically, the situation of admitted versus observation status.
(Related: When Your Older Client, or Loved One, Goes to the Hospital)
Here’s what I wrote: If you go to a hospital emergency room, and if it is determined that you need care and if you are moved to a hospital room . . .
You must ask this question about your status: Am I admitted or am I here for observation?
If you are classified as being there for observation, and then need to go to a nursing home, Medicare will not pay.
You must be admitted to the hospital for at least three days. True story: A woman was in the hospital for 10 days but was never “admitted.”
I had no idea that I was going to personally encounter this situation so quickly.
Here is the sequence of events.
My mother, Maxine, arrives in the emergency room with congestive heart failure. She is put on oxygen.
Several hours later, we are told that she will be moved to a hospital room. I then ask, “What is her status: admitted or observation?” The nurse says she will find out.
Next, Betty, a hospital employee, arrives holding a clipboard with several papers for my mother to sign. She explains they are all routine forms.

• The first paper is about authorizing Medicare to pay the hospital bill.
• The second paper — and this is done very smoothly — states that my mother understands she will be in the hospital on observation status for 24 hours.

As my mother is handed the paper to sign, I shout, “Mom, don’t sign it!”
Betty is shocked when I tell her we refuse to sign it. “This is just routine, and she has to sign it,” she says. (My mother looks at me like I’m crazy, but she does stop signing her name.)
Betty then says she will send the social worker.
Ann Marie, the social worker, arrives to explain why the paper must be signed and hands me a brochure titled “A Patient’s Guide to Observation Status.” On the last page of the brochure, and at the bottom, Question 14 is “Does Outpatient Services care count toward my three-day hospital stay for skilled nursing care?”
The answer is: “No, your time in Outpatient Observation Services does not count toward the three-day (consecutive) hospital stay required by Medicare before it will pay for services at a skilled nursing facility. If your status changes from Outpatient with Observation Services to inpatient, your three-day hospital stay begins from the time you become an inpatient.”
We still refuse to sign the form.
Dr. B the hospitalist (floor doctor) arrives to review my mother’s condition.
I tell him we need to change her status to admitted. He says that he is not authorized to do so, and that the case manager makes that decision.
After Dr. B leaves, the case manager calls me on my cell phone and insists that we sign the form. I reply that we need the status to be changed to admitted. She says it is the responsibility of the admitting doctor. I explain that the admitting doctor said it was her responsibility. At that point, I mention that I write a column in a national newsletter that has a large circulation.
The case manager then starts telling me about the Medicare requirements for admitted status, and that my mother doesn’t meet them. She says, “If she was on oxygen, I could help you.”
I reply that she is on oxygen, and there is stunned silence from the case manager. She says, “Let me check with the floor nurse, and I will call you back.” I reply, “No, we are going to take care of this right now,” and I walk to the floor nurse and hand her my phone.
Ten minutes later the paperwork has been completed, and my mother’s status is now admitted.
When my mother is moved to a hospital room, I check with the nurse to make sure that the status is now admitted.

Here’s What I Learned

Be persistent. Know these rules so that you can challenge them if appropriate. This discussion must occur in the emergency room. The reason is that when the patient leaves the emergency room, you cannot get the status changed.

Here’s Why I Wrote This

As a long-term care planning specialist and a thought leader in this industry, I feel that I have a responsibility to keep you informed about these types of changes. My mother did go to a skilled nursing facility for physical therapy and rehab following her hospital stay and will probably be there for several weeks. If I hadn’t insisted that her status be changed, we would be charged $650 day for her care.

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What To Know About Buying Long-Term Care Insurance

Richard Eisenberg Contributor

Next Avenue Contributor Group

Getty

Here are two eye-popping facts: Someone turning 65 will have a nearly 70% chance of needing long-term care in the future. 

And the annual cost of a private room in a nursing home (national median) is over $100,000 a year, according to the recent Genworth Cost of Care Survey. 

Yet only about 10% of Americans 65 and older have long-term care insurance.

If you’re 50+, should you consider buying a long-term care insurance policy, which can often cost between $2,000 and $5,000 a year?

The new episode of the Friends Talk Money podcast, hosted by personal finance experts Terry Savage, Pam Krueger and Richard Eisenburg helps answer that thorny question.

You can listen to it below or find it on all major streaming platforms and on Friendstalkmoney.org.

Long-Term Care Costs: The Financial-Planning Topic People Hate

Paying for long-term care is the “one financial planning topic most people would love to avoid,” says Savage, author of The Savage Truth on Money, on the podcast. But, she adds, “it pays to plan ahead.”

We have available the pricing for these please.

Give us a call 877-480-health (4325) or email us at Info@MMinsuranceagency.com

CMS has Announced Changes for 2020 Medicare

CMS has Announced the 2020 Premiums, Deductible, and Coinsurance

Standard Part B is $144.60 Part B will go up $9.10 per month for the average earner. The Part B deductible will increase to $198 which is a $13 increase. IRMAA for Part B high earners tops out at $491.40 when an individual earns over $347.00 per year (based on AGI 2 years past). Part A deductible will be $1,408.00

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