How To Defuse The Tax Bomb In Your Retirement Plans

By Jerome Golden; Forbes ~ Oct 05, 2016

In the retirement plans and other savings of every unsuspecting investor resides a surprise package from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that could blow up your retirement planning process. I call it a “tax bomb.”




We Can Make Medicine Affordable

Jonathan Fielding ; US News & World Report ~ Oct 05, 2016

Whenever I am outside, I carry two EpiPens. If a bee stings me, the pens could save my life. I was recently stung, but not by a bee. The sting came from Mylan pharmaceuticals when it raised the retail price of a two pack of EpiPens from about $100 to more than $600 dollars over nine years. According to Money magazine, each EpiPen costs about $30 to produce.




Study: Good heart attack care could add a year to your life

By Marilynn Marchione; The Associated Press ~ Oct 05, 2016

Going to the right hospital for heart attack care could add a year to your life, a new study suggests.

Using Medicare records, researchers found that roughly 17 years after a heart attack, average life expectancy was 9 to 14 months longer for patients who had been treated at hospitals that do best on widely used quality measures than for those treated at low-rated ones.




Social Security timing can affect Medicare premiums

By Mary Beth Franklin; InvestmentNews ~ Sep 26, 2016

Social Security benefits are expected to increase slightly next year, and most retirees who have their Medicare premiums deducted directly from their Social Security benefits will be protected from a net decline in monthly benefits.




4 ways to protect yourself from inflation in retirement

By Kerry Hannon; MarketWatch ~ Sep 22, 2016

This article is reprinted by permission from NextAvenue.org.

One problem with being a retiree on a fixed income — it’s a fixed income. But living costs rise with inflation, so you’ll want your investment income to do so, too.

How can you? I’ve talked with a few smart financial advisers and will share four of their suggestions.

I realize inflation, overall, isn’t much to worry about at the moment.




More Doctors To Retire As MACRA And Value-Based Pay Hit

From Bruce Japsen; Forbes ~ Sep 21, 2016

The nation’s doctors, facing a tsunami of changes in how they are paid, plan to retire in droves as value-based pay replaces fee-for-service medicine and they are forced to implement more new regulations, according to a new report.




The Top Scams Targeting Seniors And What To Do About Them

By Anthony Cirillo ; The Huffington Post ~ Sep 19, 2016

Our senior citizens are often the most vulnerable to identity theft, which can damage reputations and wipe out life savings in an instant. A Met Life Mature Market Institute review of Senior Identity Theft estimates that elderly victims lose $2.9 billion annually to fraud. And those numbers will rise as the senior population grows.




New rules to help public learn results of medical research

The Associated Press ~ Sep 19, 2016

The Obama administration is publishing new rules that promise to help doctors and patients learn if clinical trials of treatments worked or not.

At issue is how to help people find medical studies that may be appropriate for them – and then to make the results public so that successes can reach patients more quickly and what fails isn’t duplicated.




CMS: Bundled Payments Are Driving More Care to Home Health

By Amy Baxter; Home Health Care News ~ Sep 19, 2016

As the health care industry braces for more bundled payments, there is good news for home health agencies. As part of initiatives to reduce costs across episodes of care, home health agencies are increasingly being relied on within bundled payment models, a recently released evaluation revealed.




U.S. inflation stirring as healthcare, housing costs surge

By Lucia Mutikani; Reuters ~ Sep 17, 2016

WASHINGTON – U.S. consumer prices rose more than expected in August as healthcare costs recorded their biggest gain in 32-1/2 years, pointing to a steady build-up of inflation that could allow the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates this year.










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