Getting the best insurance for Medicare will require in-depth research to obtain a better idea of the best options available. After you educate yourself on insurance plans and learn what to look for, you can get started on your insurance hunt with confidence and ease. Coupling a supplement health insurance plan with your Medicare program can help you save some money. There are several things to consider when you choose your plan, which can then be shaped to your exact needs. This can include the choice of hospital, doctors, prescription drugs, out-of-pocket costs, and quality of care.
Best Supplement Insurance Companies of 2021
The US government has only 10 standardized Medicare supplement plans that customers can enroll in. The truth is, there is no top supplement company as there is no one plan that can fit every person. The best plan is the one that would best suit your individual needs.
Go By Ratings
Research a company well before you enroll and base your choice on their past performance. If you pay attention to the rate increase histories and financial ratings, you’ll be better equipped to understand how this insurance company can help you. If the company has a high level of rate increase over the past years, you know that they won’t have the ability to provide you the cheapest cost in comparison to competitors. The financial ratings of the company are also important, this can save you money if there are low fees associated with the insurance plan. Find a company with low rate increase and great ratings.
An occupational therapist is someone who cares for those who struggle to care for themselves, including tasks like cooking, transportation and companionship. The job requires plenty of empathy and compassion and is a calling for many people.
If you feel that occupational therapy might be a career you want to pursue, it makes sense to investigate the steps to getting there and learning as much about the profession as possible. This guide should help you decide if getting started is your next big step.
Earn Your Associate’s Degree
The first step you’ll take in the journey to becoming an occupational therapist is to earn your associate’s degree. While you may need to pursue an advanced degree at some point, an associate’s degree allows you to get started as an occupational therapy assistant while you pursue your higher education. You’ll take courses in biology, pediatrics, anatomy, physiology, geriatrics and physical health theory. These will prepare you for the work you’ll eventually be doing.
Sit for the Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant Exam
Once you complete your degree, you’ll need to take the Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant (COTA) exam. The test consists of 200 multiple choice questions and a passing grade must be obtained to earn your certificate. Once you pass the exam, you’ll get your certificate and a card for your wallet declaring that you are certified to be an occupational therapy assistant.
The emergence of coronavirus created a sudden requirement for more and better nurse practitioners worldwide. The healthcare professionals’ willingness to fearlessly accept challenges has turned them into forefront fighters against a pandemic.
A nursing career can be both thrilling and exhausting. But it takes buckets of courage and loads of determination to advance in this profession. Here are ten methods for boosting your expertise in the medical field and strive for growth:
Acquire a specialty:
You can find numerous areas of specialization in the nursing profession. Pursuing a specialty boosts your chances to excel in the medical field. Nursing students select any subject they’re interested in to gain excellence as a nursing practitioner. These areas include holistic, orthopedic, neuroscience, gastroenterology, and other niches. You don’t just acquire in-depth knowledge regarding that specific area of care, but it also contributes to professional advancement. With a specialization, you can expect to achieve lucrative positions in the medical industry. The aftermaths of the pandemic have enhanced the importance of mental-health specialty modern nurses can pursue.
Get some experience:
You won’t get a decent employment opportunity out of the blue after completing your education. High-paying jobs require individuals with some level of expertise, and this expertise comes with experience. So, make up your mind to seek internships during your academic journey. Also, you can leverage this tenure in the future for lucrative job offers. Remember that experience cultivates more knowledge, better job skills, and greater communication efficiency. An experienced nurse can tolerate the patient workload more effectively than an amateur nurse. If you dislike internships, you can always shadow a nurse practitioner to gain insights into this profession.
Continue your education:
Nursing is – similar to almost every other profession – a constantly-evolving vocation. That’s why nurses must remain updated about the most recent developments in the healthcare field. Continued education helps nurse practitioners improve their knowledge and deliver the best patient care services. Acquiring a terminal degree in nursing can build your career and help you advance in the medical industry. DNP programs offer alternatives to research-focused doctorates. You can also try taking online medical courses and get a certification in PALS, which will be a great addition to your set of skills. The lowest acceptable level of nursing education to land a good job will continue to rise. Therefore, continued education has become essential for the survival of nurse practitioners in the future.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the medical sector to its core over the last 12 months and one of the major takeaways from the situation is that hospitals across the world need more ventilators.
Thankfully, there have been significant increases in ventilator technology in recent years many of which centre around the use of proportional solenoid valves that can help control air injection.
The concept of a solenoid valve is quite simple at its core and they have been utilised in various industrial applications for over a hundred years. Solenoid valves work by employing an electromagnetic coil to either open or close the valve. With the coil is energised the valve is open and when it is not the valve is closed. A simple and elegant solution that has been perfected over the last 50 years. But why are they increasingly being used in the medical industry?
Solenoid valves and the medical industry
Portability – There has been a significant increase in the need for portable medical devices such as ventilators, particularly in the wake of the pandemic. Solenoid valves are ideal for these applications as they allow for precise flow control options and are very small and lightweight
Reliable – They are also incredibly reliable, which is of paramount importance when you’re talking about equipment that is, in some cases, literally keeping people alive.
Efficient – Not only are the valves whisper-quiet (which works wonders when it comes to easing patient comfort) but they are very energy efficient too.
Future proof – Drivers and proportional current controls that can be controlled by sophisticated software mean that solenoid valves can be controlled directly and precisely by computer. This makes them an obvious fit for all current and future hospitals.
Response by Richard Boyd, CEO and Co-founder, Tanjo.
Richard Boyd
One question healthcare technology professionals should be asking right now: How can I use AI and machine learning to create better communicate with patients to create better health outcomes?
Whether it’s a biological virus or a mind virus — the thing that makes it a pandemic or an insurrection crisis situation — is human behavior. The rapidly evolving nature of a crisis, and complex black swan events that are likely to come in the future, requires more than judgment calls by leaders with incomplete information.
We can absolutely train a synthetic model of a human being to predict how that person would behave in a given situation.
With the dramatic rise of telehealth as a result of COVID-19, AI is being used to create a data-driven patient-centered platform that benefits patients and caregivers in their quest for better health. 3DBioMe is a machine-learning and AI data analysis system that brings this interactive 3-D model of the major physiological systems of the body to the fight against COVID and other health issues.
Using AI a healthcare architect can quickly and dramatically explain the environmental and social choice determinants of all health interventions and outcomes showing the effect of those choices over time to a patient in a meaningful and persuasive way.
Target enrichment is an essential process for multiple types of DNA or genetic sequencing techniques, and depending on which technique is in question, the actual process will vary quite a bit in both degree and process. Let’s get into the discussion with a general definition of what target enrichment is.
What is Target Enrichment?
Target enrichment may involve different methods, depending on the particular type of sequencing, the exact sample, as well as the expected results (reason). It can still be defined in a more general sense as they all work towards selectively isolating the precise, genomic sections necessary for the sequencing.
Target enrichment is a preparatory step which amplifies both the speed and accuracy of the results derived from DNA sequencing. For finding and identifying nucleic acids and the variations between them with speed and supreme sensitivity, target enrichment is a time-tested and highly efficient step. It should be a standard procedure before the sequencing procedure can begin.
In instances of Targeted Next Generation Sequencing (TNGS), target enrichment has been found to be of crucial importance for reducing the time which would be necessary for previous generation of targeted sequencing to be completed. Next, we will focus more on TNGS and how target enrichment works towards making the modern sequencing process more accurate, cost effective and quicker.
More than a year after scientists identified the first cases of COVID-19, infection rates continue to rise in regions across the United States.
The virus has been particularly devastating for those who can afford it least: the elderly, underserved communities, low-income families, and people of all ages with chronic conditions.
COVID-19 infection, hospitalization, and death rates for these groups are dramatically higher than for other populations.
According to the CDC, eight out of ten reported COVID-19 deaths in the US are among individuals 65 or older. And data from the COVID Tracking Project reveals that Black or African American individuals are up to 1.5 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than white patients.
Patients with multiple chronic diseases are also at elevated risk. The CDC cites chronic kidney disease, COPD, obesity, and heart conditions as known contributors to poor outcomes from COVID-19, while Medicare statistics show extremely high rates of hypertension and hyperlipidemia, diabetes, and chronic kidney disease among hospitalized beneficiaries.
All these groups have another major risk factor in common. They are the populations that most often struggle to cope with the social determinants of health (SDOH), such as food security, social isolation, and access to healthcare, living wage employment, and transportation.
In the current economic environment, many of these individuals are even facing the hard choice of prioritizing food and shelter over the expenses of necessary healthcare and medications, despite the knowledge that avoiding care may increase their vulnerability to their preexisting conditions – and subsequently raise their chances of experiencing a worse outcome if they contract COVID-19.
Even with the prospect of mass vaccination on the horizon, it’s more important than ever for healthcare providers and health plans to understand and address the social determinants of health, starting with ensuring pharmacy access and medication adherence.
The role of medication adherence in population health management
Population health management focuses on staying one step ahead of the clinical and non-clinical factors that may lead to poor outcomes in targeted patient groups. For the six in ten Americans with at least one chronic disease, medication adherence is a critical component of maintaining good health.
Suboptimal medication adherence has significant impacts on chronic disease management and overall wellbeing. Incorrect use of medications contributes to tens of thousands of preventable deaths and half a trillion dollars in healthcare waste every year.
The reasons behind medication adherence issues are varied and challenging. Some patients experience undesirable side effects and change their doses without consulting their physicians, while others struggle to understand the importance of their prescriptions or fit their medications into their daily routines.
For patients with socioeconomic difficulties, the problem gets even more complex. Out-of-pocket drug costs are skyrocketing, leading large percentages of patients to abandon their medications unwillingly.
By Devin Partida, technology writer and the editor-in-chief, ReHack.com.
Devin Partida
Medical billing records may help create a fuller picture of how the COVID-19 virus has impacted the country.
Researchers have started taking to repositories of claim and billing code data to learn more about patients — who they are, what challenges they faced and how they had to navigate the health care system during a pandemic.
Combined with other data on the financial impact of COVID, this research offers a much clearer view of how the pandemic has impacted patients and strained the American medical system.
1. Chronic Kidney Disease May Be the Most Common COVID-19 Comorbidity
In July, FAIR Health, a provider of health care solutions, released a report on how billing records could reveal more about COVID patients’ stories. Most prior case studies found that type 2 diabetes and hypertension were the most common comorbidities. Respiratory conditions, like asthma, COPD and sleep apnea, along with heart conditions, typically made up the rest of the top 10.
The billing data was mostly in line with these previous findings — but had one key difference. The No. 1 comorbidity was chronic kidney disease and failure, rather than hypertension or diabetes.
The FAIR Health report also diverged from other case studies in finding that anxiety was one of the top 10 comorbidities, coming in at ninth place.
