Life After 50 Expo

Medicare Reminder !

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Between October 15 and December 7, beneficiaries can make changes to their Medicare prescription drug plan coverage. Medicare’s drug benefit (Part D) is outpatient prescription drug coverage for anyone with Medicare. It is available only through private companies.

If you want to get this coverage, you have to choose and enroll in a private prescription drug plan. Enrollment is optional and only allowed during certain enrollment periods, includingbetween October 15 and December 7. Whether you should sign up for a Medicare private drug plan depends on your circumstances. Some people already enrolled in certain low-income assistance programs may be automatically enrolled in a Medicare drug plan and get financial assistance with premiums and cost-sharing.

Kaiser Family Foundation Report Compares Quality of Medicare Advantage with Traditional Medicare

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readingtoelderly-300x300Last week the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) released a comprehensive review of research literature comparing health care access and quality in Medicare Advantage with the traditional Medicare program. Today, 30 percent of all people with Medicare are currently enrolled in a Medicare Advantage (MA) plan, private plans that contract with the federal government to provide Medicare benefits. The literature review analyzes 45 studies that compare MA and traditional Medicare, published between 2000 and 2014.

The report reviews studies that examine a variety of topics, including beneficiary reports on quality and access, potentially avoidable hospital admissions, readmission rates, health outcomes, resource utilization and more. While highlighting some methodological criticisms of the studies, the report finds that the cumulative evidence shows that MA plans tend to perform better than traditional Medicare in providing preventive services and conserving their resources, at least through 2009. At the same time, according to the report, people with Medicare consistently rate traditional Medicare as being better than MA in terms of quality and access, though one study suggests that this gap may be closing for some groups of beneficiaries. Across studies, sicker beneficiaries overwhelmingly favor traditional Medicare.

Ultimately, the report expresses disappointment in the lack of information comparing MA with traditional Medicare. KFF calls for more study of the differences between MA and the traditional Medicare program, particularly in light of increasing MA enrollment.

Read the KFF report.

Yoga and Meditation – Healthy Options !

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Yoga is developing as a part of life. It is a way that you can integrate body poses and breathing exercises with added meditation to give a peace of mind to have peace with the world.

Meditation comes from intense concentration, where the individual focuses so thoroughly on a single object that he or she thinks of nothing besides his or her awareness of that object (Some religions may find that their idea of prayer could fall under this definition). Yoga will take things a little bit further by making meditation the highest point of the Eight Limbs of Yoga.

These “eight limbs” define Yoga as a lifestyle: your attitude to the world around you is followed by your attitudes towards yourself, physical posturing, breathing exercises, withdrawing the senses, concentrating, contemplating, and finally enlightenment. You will go into an state of bliss that will result in the use and development of the other seven. Meditation combines withdrawing the senses, concentrating, and contemplating to be the final state that can be accomplished before bliss.

At any rate, meditation calms the mind and offers a number of health benefits even before enlightenment. With regular mediation will help reduce all the stress and anxiety. It will also lower your blood pressure and it will decrease your risk of a heart attack. It can improve concentration, clarity of thought, and release your creative side.

With some research, mediation with yoga will increase the matter of the brain’s cortex, and it will help with cognitive, emotional, and sensory date of the brain. Meditation may also slow natural shrinkage of the frontal cortex due to aging. The 20 participants on average meditated for 40 minutes a day. Actually, most change happens in the brain’s right half.

Meditation really isn’t easy though. Clearing the mind of extraneous thought is difficult, and all thought even more so. Learning how to do meditation will take some time and hard work.

You will want to sit somewhere with your back and head straight, to start out. You will find that you will want to learn some basic breathing exercises first to help you. You will then want to close your eyes, breathe in through your noses and exhale through your mouth. You will want to focus on your breath. You will be able to get cool air to enter through and the warm air leaves. You will want to make sure that you focus on the way that you breathe. You will want to redirect all of your wondering thoughts and then just focus on the warm air leaving. You should start off with some short meditations that last a few minutes. Most beginners will start off counting their breaths so that they can focus on the breathing, but you will only want to count to four and then start over again.</div>
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SERVING VETERANS ON VETERANS DAY AND ALWAYS

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Every day—but particularly on Veterans Day—Social Security salutes those who have put their lives on the line for our freedom.

Members of the United States armed forces receive expedited processing of their Social Security disability applications. The expedited process is available for any military service member who alleges he or she became disabled during active duty on or after October 1, 2001, regardless of where the disability occurred—at home or in the line of duty. Expedited processing is also available to veterans who have a compensation rating of 100% Permanent and Total (P&T) disability, regardless of when the disability occurred. Some dependent children and spouses of military personnel may also be eligible to receive benefits.

 

Visit our website designed specifically for our wounded veterans, www.socialsecurity.gov/woundedwarriors, where you will find answers to a number of commonly asked questions, as well as other useful information about disability benefits available under the Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs. Our website includes a fact sheet on the subject:  Disability Benefits For Wounded Warriors.

You’ll also find a webinar, “Social Security for Wounded Warriors,” that explains the expedited disability process available to wounded warriors. The one-hour video is an introduction to disability benefits for veterans and active duty military personnel.  If you would like more detailed information about the disability process, you can watch our seven-part video series “Social Security Disability Claims Process” at www.socialsecurity.gov/socialmedia/webinars.

On the Wounded Warriors webpage, you’ll find links to the Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Defense websites. Please keep in mind that the requirements for disability benefits available through Social Security are different from those of the Department of Veterans Affairs and require a separate application.

Military service members are covered for the same Social Security survivors, disability, and retirement benefits as everyone else. Although the expedited service is relatively new, military personnel have been covered under Social Security since 1957, and people who were in the service prior to that may be able to get special credit for some of their service.

Read our publication, Military Service And Social Security, to learn more. It’s available at www.socialsecurity.gov/pubs. Also, navigate to www.socialsecurity.gov/woundedwarriors.

Thank you to our nation’s brave veterans. We salute you on Veterans Day and every day.

 

 

Health Tip – Muscle Strenthening

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Recent research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that less than one quarter of adults over the age of 45 meets the muscle-strengthening recommendations from the Department of Health and Human Services. Using data from a 2011 telephone health survey conducted by the CDC, a group of researchers asked participants about the types of physical activities they complete and how often. They also asked whether the participants exercise specifically to strengthen their muscles.

Only 24 percent of the respondents reported that they met the government recommendations for muscle exercises. The researchers found that women, widows, people aged 65 and older, and people who are obese were less likely than others to meet the guidelines. Muscle strengthening is an important part of promoting health and staying independent, and the researchers recommend ways to target these high-risk groups to promote exercise.

Click here to read more about the findings in HealthDay News. Click here to review physical activity guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Need to Know
Fall Open Enrollment is here!

During Fall Open Enrollment (October 15-December 7), you may make changes to your Medicare health and drug coverage. If you need help deciding your Medicare coverage for 2015, call the Medicare Rights Center’s free, national consumer helpline at 800-333-4114.