The American Heart Association and other authoritative bodies have long considered management programs for congestive heart failure (CHF) part of gold-standard care. Research demonstrates how chronic heart failure management programs create significant reductions in all-cause readmissions and prolong survival...

A study published earlier this year found that patients who refuse home health cost $15,233 more in one year compared to the patients who accepted their home health referral. Patients who refuse home health tend to be younger, better educated, and healthier than those who accept, but their one-year mortality rate climbs 25% higher than their sicker counterparts...

In April, The American Journal of Medicine published a study reviewing the files of 17,629 patients discharged from the Cleveland Clinic. Researchers set out to evaluate the effect of home health on healthcare resource utilization...

A less obvious consideration in geriatric education is mood and motivation. With the prevalence of subtle depression, drowsiness from medication, and/or fatigue from chronic disease, the geriatric patient’s motivation even to try to learn the new information must be assessed first...

Writing for the Mayo Clinic in an article published last year, Mary K Buss, MD, MPH made an interesting observation: “Many PCPs already engage in primary palliative care but may not recognize their actions as palliative care.” In fact, general practitioners, not hospice or specialists, provide most palliative care...

In August, Medicare added hospice to the list of provider types for which comparison data is published. As expected, Avatar Home Health Agency leads the nation in 100% of published measures...

Did you know that doctors have seven different codes they can bill to receive additional reimbursement for the work they do with Avatar’s Home Health & Hospice? At the very least, doctors should be billing for certification and recertification every time they sign a plan of care...