What can you do to minimize your sitting time? Here are a few ideas:
Take a break from sitting every 30 minutes. Get up to get a glass of water, take out the trash, or do some squats or simple stretches. These breaks are also important during long car rides and plane trips. Set an alarm if this helps you stay aware of the time. Stand during routine tasks. Take a walk while talking on the phone or stand during your favorite television show. Try a standing desk. If you use a desk at home or work, consider switching to a version that allows you to change between standing and sitting. You can also improvise with a high table or counter. Treadmill desks, which add in physical activity, are another option. Take your meetings on the go. Whether chatting with co-workers or meeting friends for a coffee date, suggest taking a walk while you talk. Invest in a fitness monitor. These devices can alert you when you've spent too much time without moving. Setting a daily step count goal can also motivate you to get up and move.
December 28, 2021 - As we get ready to turn the page to 2022, one hesitates to continue to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the fallout continues, with fresh ramifications for the long-term care industry. The industry continues to receive heightened scrutiny following the pandemic, and New York's legislative answer to the concerns are set to hit nursing home businesses in New York as of Jan. 1, 2022, with a cap on allowable profits. The impact on capital outlays and acquisitions remains to be seen.
Both legislatively and through executive action, the State of New York began introducing fresh proposals impacting nursing homes in March 2021. The goal of the legislation was to ensure nursing homes, which receive government funding, spend at least 70% of their revenues on direct resident (patient) care, 40% being utilized directly to pay staffing costs for resident-facing staffing such as registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and nursing aides, with requirements on the minimum number of hours such staff need to spend with a patient per day.
Additionally, which is the larger concern of the two items, New York decided that nursing home businesses should not be operated for profit and, effective Jan. 1, 2022, it has capped allowable profits for nursing home businesses at no more than 5%, as determined by revenue and expenses reported on Medicaid cost reports.
People with mild or moderate hearing loss could soon be able to buy hearing aids without a medical exam or special fitting, under a new rule being proposed by the Food and Drug Administration. The agency says 37.5 million American adults have difficulty hearing.
Patients are months away from not having to worry about most surprise medical bills — those extra costs that can amount to hundreds or thousands of dollars when people are unknowingly treated by an out-of-network doctor or hospital.
The No Surprises Act — which takes effect Jan. 1 — generally forbids insurers from dropping such bills on patients and, instead, requires health care providers and insurers to work out a deal between themselves.
Some observers have speculated that the law will have the unintended consequence of shifting costs and leading to higher insurance premiums.
Many policy experts told KHN that, in fact, the opposite may happen: It may slightly slow premium growth.
The reason, said Katie Keith, a research faculty member at the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University, is that a new rule released Sept. 30 by the Biden administration appears to "put a thumb on the scale" to discourage settlements at amounts higher than most insurers generally pay for in-network care.
