Health
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- Written by: Lake County News Reports
Clinical team members are contacting patients with immediate treatment needs first to discuss various alternatives for care. They will contact patients with non-immediate treatment needs soon thereafter.
“This is a very fluid situation, as the Mendocino Complex fires continue to be unpredictable,” said Dan Peterson, chief administrative officer for Sutter Lakeside Hospital. “We are working very hard to connect with patients and are committed to providing them the latest information.”
Sutter Lakeside Hospital has been threatened by the Mendocino Complex fires since Saturday afternoon.
The hospital evacuated twice in two days. As a result, hospital staff has canceled patient appointments, including the community clinic, imaging and other services through this week.
While the hospital is closed, a small administrative and security team remains onsite to monitor the campus.
The Sutter Care at Home staff in Lakeport, Calif. continues to reach out to patients to assess their healthcare needs and to ensure each patient has the medical supplies they need.
The health and safety of patients, staff, clinicians and community are the highest priority. Sutter Health continues to coordinate efforts with local emergency officials and is closely monitoring this situation as it unfolds.
Sutter is actively supporting employees and physicians in this time of need with financial aid and other emergency assistance, but also recognizes the importance of supporting the greater community.
The not-for-profit health network made a $100,000 donation to the American Red Cross California Wildfires Fund, which will help bring food, water and emergency shelter to families in need.
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- Written by: Commonwealth Fund/Urban Institute
These mandates would replace the Affordable Care Act’s penalty for not having health insurance, a fee that Congress eliminated, effective 2019.
That’s according to a new Commonwealth Fund/Urban Institute report by the Urban Institute’s Linda Blumberg, Matthew Buettgens, and John Holahan examining what would happen if all states adopted their own individual insurance mandates.
The ACA requires most Americans to enroll in an insurance plan or pay a financial penalty – a move intended to stabilize insurance markets by encouraging healthy people to purchase and stay enrolled in a health plan.
Now that the mandate penalty will be eliminated as of January 2019, the Congressional Budget Office predicts that premiums will increase and more people will lose their insurance coverage.
But if states acted on their own to replace the federal mandate, the new report finds that, compared with having no mandate:
– Millions more people would gain health insurance. Implementing state individual mandates across the country in 2019, when the federal penalties are lifted, would reduce the number of uninsured by 3.9 million – a decrease of 11.4 percent. In 2022, there would be 7.5 million fewer uninsured Americans.
– Premiums would drop by an average of nearly 12 percent. If all states adopted an individual mandate, marketplace premiums would fall by an average of 11.8 percent. The impact would vary across states, depending on how many healthy people reenroll in the marketplaces. The larger the share of healthy enrollees in individually purchased plans today, the greater the impact on premium rates. In New Mexico, premiums would decrease by more than 20 percent, and they would drop by 15 percent or more in Colorado, the District of Columbia, Kentucky, Nevada, North Dakota, Washington, and West Virginia.
– Montana, West Virginia, North Dakota, and Kentucky would see the largest uptakes, percentage-wise, in coverage. Mandates in these states would reduce the number of uninsured residents by more than 20 percent, as more people enroll in individually purchased plans, Medicaid, or the Children’s Health Insurance Program. In California, 389,000 people would gain coverage under a state mandate.
– Uncompensated care costs would decline dramatically. When patients are uninsured and can't pay their medical bills, state and federal governments, as well as physicians, hospitals, and community health centers, absorb the costs of this uncompensated care. As more people gain coverage under state mandates, demand for uncompensated care would fall by $11.4 billion nationally, the new report finds. In Texas, uncompensated care costs would fall by $1.2 billion; in California, by $892 million; in Florida, by $747 million; and, in Georgia, by $548 million.
“Although the repeal of the individual mandate penalty will have negative effects across our health care system, states can act to keep their health insurance markets stable and affordable by offsetting the expected coverage losses and premium increases beginning in 2019,” said Linda Blumberg, an author of the study and Institute Fellow in the Health Policy Center at the Urban Institute.
“Because of the ACA, more people have health insurance than ever before, and people with health problems can’t be denied coverage or charged more because of their condition,” said David Blumenthal, M.D., Commonwealth Fund president. “With the repeal of the individual mandate penalty, this report shows how states can exercise their own authorities to reduce the number of uninsured and make insurance more affordable for their residents.”
The report outlines the additional benefits of individual mandates for state economies. These include:
– Increased flow of federal dollars: With the passage of state-level mandates, the flow of federal dollars would increase to 27 states plus the District of Columbia, as more people enroll in Medicaid or take advantage of marketplace premium tax credits. In 21 states, federal spending would decline slightly under a mandate as a result of lower marketplace premiums and the consequent decrease in average premium subsidies.
– Increased state revenue: If every state implemented mandates effective in 2019, 8.8 million families would pay financial penalties to their state department of revenue for not complying with the law, amounting to $7.4 billion. Average penalties per family would range from a low of $630 in West Virginia to a high of $1,270 in Delaware.
By legislating comparable mandate penalties, states can mitigate the negative coverage and premium effects caused by eliminating the ACA’s individual mandate in 2019.
Massachusetts, for example, legislated its own individual mandate in 2006 and New Jersey did so this year. Legislation has also been considered, but did not pass, in Maryland, Hawaii, and Connecticut.
In the District of Columbia, an individual mandate passed as part of a larger budget bill and is expected to be signed by the mayor. However, there are riders to the D.C. budget in the U.S. House of Representatives intended to inhibit implementation, although it is not clear they would be successful.
The study’s authors note that state-level mandates face significant challenges.
Some states, for example, do not have state income taxes, and new financial structures would have to be developed to collect individual mandate penalties.
Other state political environments are not conducive to enacting individual mandate legislation, even in states where governors and state policymakers generally support the ACA.
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- Written by: MindMate
There’s no way around it – aging is hard. One of the biggest concerns of aging? Memory loss.
One in every 10 people over the age of 65 lives with Alzheimer’s, the sixth leading cause of death in America.
It is estimated that by 2050, these numbers triple, to ca. 15 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s.
MindMate, a company based in Santa Monica, Calif., is participating in the fight against Alzheimer’s and is working to change these dramatic statistics.The company was founded in 2015 by Susanne Mitschke, Patrick Renner and Roger Arellano, and provides an app aimed at supporting the cognitive function in Baby Boomers and seniors to help its users stay themselves for as long as possible.
The app contains physical exercises, games, nutritional advice and educational entertainment and aims to stave off the mental signs of aging, simply by allowing seniors to play on their phone, stimulating the brain. The core of the app is a Daily Activities Plan that contains a good daily mix of aerobic exercises - to get your heart rate up, a mix of different brain games, healthy recipes for you to cook at home and educational content around healthy aging.
MindMate was inspired by the care experience of co-founder Roger Arellano, who cared for seven years for his grandfather with Alzheimer’s disease.
Susanne Mitschke, the company’s CEO, said: “Many people think that dementia is caused by genes. In fact, only a small portion of dementia-related conditions are traced back to genes. There are obviously many different factors that contribute to dementia, and some of them are in your control! This is where MindMate plays its role. Recent studies, such as the FINGER study, show that cognitive stimulation paired with physical activity and a healthy nutrition reduces the risk of Dementia and Alzheimer’s, and improves cognitive function in those already suffering from the disease(s). Specifically the physical activity part is often overlooked.”
A recent study published in Neurology supports this theory, which has shown that women who have higher fitness levels are 88% less likely to develop dementia, compared to women with average fitness.
The app aims to help baby boomers make a lifestyle change that reduces the risk of developing conditions like Alzheimer’s.
Patrick Renner, the company’s COO added: “It is never too late to adopt a healthy routine. Our Daily Activities Program helps our users through exercises for body and mind and suggests healthy and delicious recipes for the user. With MindMate, we not only created an app, but a community that also brings users together with research and industry players that can make a lasting difference to how we manage these conditions in the years ahead.”
The app is free to download and use and can be found in Apple’s App Store.
- Details
- Written by: Adventist Health Clear Lake
The free, hour-long group classes are offered Monday afternoons from July 23 to Aug. 27 at 1 p.m.
The classes are offered through the medical office’s Live Well Program, though participants do not need to be patients to attend.
The class is facilitated by Jean McNally, LCSW at the medical office.
Each of the six, one-hour sessions focuses on a different topic related to making healthy lifestyle changes and helping you build a life that you love.
Participants may attend one class or the entire series:
– July 23: Getting Started with Hydration.
– July 30: Let’s Get Moving.
– Aug. 6: Let’s Get Nutritious.
– Aug. 13: Got Stress?
– Aug. 20: Weight Management.
– Aug. 27: Overcoming Obstacles.
The Wellness Rx program was developed in partnership with North Coast Opportunities and funded by a Partnerships to Improve Community Health grant.
The program is designed to support patients who can benefit from diet, exercise, and other lifestyle modifications, including those with diabetes, arthritis and hypertension. Attendance is free, open to all and healthy snacks will be provided.
Interested individuals can RSVP for the Wellness Rx Sessions by calling the Live Well Program at 707-995-4584.
The Adventist Health Clear Lake Medical Office – Clearlake is located at 15230 Lakeshore Drive in Clearlake. Check in is located at the Main Clinic.
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