Medicare Guides

Care of the Patient with Severe Chronic Illness-An Online Report on the Medicare Program is a key critical report completed in 2006 by the Dartmouth Atlas Project. It reports that: “Almost one-third of Medicare spending for chronically ill is unnecessary… A fundamental problem, and one that contributes to both overspending and worse outcomes, is that most acute care hospitals have become first-line providers of services to chronically ill elderly people, whose care would be better managed, safer and less expensive outside the hospital setting. . . . Staggering variations in how hospitals care for chronically ill elderly patients indicate serious problems with quality of care and point toward unnecessary spending by Medicare. Lower utilization of acute care hospitals and physician visits could actually lead to better results for patients and prolong the solvency of the Medicare program.” The study calls for overhauling how the nation manages chronic illness, and proposes that hospitals take leadership in redesigning how they care for the chronically ill.

The National Alliance for Caregiving was created to conduct research, do policy analysis, develop national programs and increase public awareness of family caregiving issues. The Alliance’s mission is to be the objective national resource on family caregiving with the goal of improving the quality of life for families and care recipients. Established in 1996, NCA is a non-profit coalition of national organizations focusing on issues of family caregiving. Alliance members include grassroots organizations, professional associations, service organizations, disease-specific organizations, a government agency, and corporations.