Federal Grants Restricted To Fighting Opioids Miss The Mark, States Say
Drug agents last fall worked with a Minneapolis police SWAT team to seize just under 171 pounds of methamphetamine. Many U.S. states say they face an escalating problem with meth and drugs other than opioids.
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Cannon River Drug and Violent Task Force/AP
In his 40 years of working with people who struggle with addiction, David Crowe has seen various drugs fade in and out of popularity in Pennsylvania’s Crawford County.
Methamphetamine use and distribution is a major challenge for the rural area, says Crowe, the executive director of Crawford County Drug and Alcohol Executive Commission. And opioid-related overdoses have killed at least 83 people in the county since 2015, he says.
Crowe says his organization has received just over $327,300 from key federal grants designed to curb the opioid epidemic. While the money was a godsend for his county, he says methamphetamine remains a major problem.
And here’s the hitch: Crawford County, which lies south of Lake Erie, on the Ohio state line, can’t use the federal opioid grants to treat meth addiction.
“Now I’m looking for something different,” Crowe says. “I don’t need more opiate money. I need money that will not be used exclusively for opioids.”
The federal government has doled out at least $2.4 billion in state grants since 2017, in hopes of stemming an opioid epidemic that killed 47,600 people in the U.S. in that year alone.
But state officials note that drug abuse problems seldom involve only one substance. And while local officials are grateful for the funding, the grants can be spent only on creating solutions to combat opioids, such as prescription OxyContin, heroin and fentanyl.
According to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 11 states — including California, Pennsylvania and Texas — have reported that opioids were involved in fewer than half of their total drug overdose deaths in 2017.
Also, the federal cash infusion is guaranteed for only a few years, which throws the sustainability of the states’ efforts into question. Drug policy specialists say the money may not be adequate to improve the mental health care system. And more focus is needed on answering the underlying question of why so many Americans struggle with drug addiction, they say.
“Even just the moniker — ‘the opioid epidemic’ — out of the gate, is problematic and incorrect,” says Leo Beletsky, an associate professor of law and health sciences at Northeastern University in Boston. “This was never just about opioids.”
States have received the federal funds for opioids primarily through two grants: State Targeted Response to the Opioid Crisis and State Opioid Response. The first grant, authorized by the 21st Century Cures Act, totaled $1 billion. The second pot of money, $1.4 billion (approved as part of last year’s omnibus spending bill), sets aside a portion of the funding for states with the most drug poisoning deaths.
For Ohio and Pennsylvania, the need was great. Nearly 4,300 and 2,550 residents, respectively, died from opioid-related overdoses in the two states in 2017. Ohio was awarded $137 million in grants; Pennsylvania, $138.1 million.
State officials say the federal money enabled them to invest significantly in programs like training medical providers on addiction, offering more points of access for treatment and providing interventions for special populations, such as pregnant women.
The grants also stipulate a minimum amount of money for every state, so even areas with reportedly low opioid-related overdose death rates now have considerable funds to combat the crisis. Arkansas, for example, reported 188 opioid-related deaths in 2017 and received $15.7 million from the federal government.
Statistics show 2,199 people in California died from opioid-related causes in 2017, though its opioid death rate was one of the 10 lowest in the country. The Golden State received $195.8 million in funding — more than any other state.
“This funding is dedicated to opioids,” said Marlies Perez, a division chief at the California Department of Health Care Services, “but we’re not blindly just building a system dedicated just to opioids.”
Mounting evidence points to a worrisome rise in methamphetamine use nationally. The presence of cheap, purer forms of meth in the drug market coupled with a decline in opioid availability has fueled the stimulant’s popularity.
The number of drug overdose deaths involving meth tripled from 2011 to 2016, the CDC reports.
And hospitalizations involving amphetamines — the class of stimulants that includes methamphetamine — are spiking.
The problem of meth addiction is hard to address, doctors say. Treatment options for this addiction are narrower than the array available for opioids. In light of the increase in deaths related to other substances, are these restricted grants the best way to fund states’ response to opioids?
Bertha Madras, a professor of psychobiology at Harvard Medical School and a former member of the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, says the federal government has responded well by tailoring its response to opioids because those drugs continue to kill tens of thousands of Americans per year.
However, Madras adds, as more people living with addiction are identified and other drugs rise in popularity, the nation’s focus will need to change.
Beletsky emphasizes that the grants are insufficient to support fixes to the mental health care system, which must respond to patients living with an addiction of any kind.
People addicted to a particular substance typically use other drugs as well. Controlling addiction throughout a person’s life can be akin to playing whack-a-mole, says Dr. Paul Earley, president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, because they may stop using one substance only to abuse another.
But specific addictions may also require specific treatments that cannot be addressed with tools molded for opioids, addiction specialists say, and the appropriate treatment may not be as available.
“I think we have to really begin to self-examine why this country has so much substance use to begin with,” Madras says.
Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit, editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, and is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
6 Suspects Detained In Shooting Of Former Baseball Star David Ortiz
Eddy Vladimir Feliz Garcia, the alleged getaway driver in the shooting of ex-Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz, is escorted to court in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
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Roberto Guzman/AP
Authorities in the Dominican Republic say they have detained six suspects, including the alleged gunman, in the shooting of former Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz.
Four other suspects are still at large, according to the Dominican Republic’s chief prosecutor, Jean Alain Rodríguez.
The alleged assailants had been paid 400,000 Dominican pesos, or just under $8,000, to kill Ortiz, according to Police Maj. Gen. Ney Aldrin Bautista Almonte. Neither he nor Rodríguez has offered a motive for the attack on the popular ex-baseball star.
Ortiz was shot in the back at close range on Sunday while sitting at an outdoor bar in Santo Domingo, the Caribbean nation’s capital city.
The alleged gunman was identified as Rolfy Ferreyra, aka Sandy, according to authorities cited by The Associated Press.
Security camera footage outside the bar before the shooting shows two men on a motorcycle talking with other people in two different Hyundai cars. One of the men on the motorcycle has been identified as 25-year-old Eddy Vladimir Feliz Garcia, who is accused of driving the alleged gunman to the scene of the shooting.
According to court documents obtained by the AP, Feliz Garcia botched the getaway by losing control of his motorcycle. He was beaten bloody by enraged fans of Ortiz before they turned him over to the police.
In a statement, Ortiz’s wife, Tiffany, said the former star is slowly recovering in the intensive care unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he was flown after surgery in the Dominican Republic.
“Yesterday and this morning, David was able to sit up as well as take some steps,” she said. “His condition is guarded and he will remain in the ICU for the coming days, but he is making good progress towards recovery.”
Spain’s Soccer League Fined For Using App To Spy On Fans In Fight To Curb Piracy
La Liga, Spain’s premier soccer league, was fined 250,000 euros on Tuesday for failing to adequately notify Android app users that it was recording what was going on near their phones. The app was developed to combat piracy, according to the league.
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SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
On Tuesday, Spain’s premier soccer league, La Liga, was hit with a 250,000-euro fine — about $280,000 — for using its mobile phone app to spy on millions of fans as part of a ploy to catch venues showing unlicensed broadcasts of professional matches.
The country’s data protection agency said the league’s app, which was marketed as a tool to track game scores, schedules, player rankings and other news, was also systematically accessing the phone’s microphone and geolocation data to listen in on people’s surroundings during matches. When it detected users were in bars the app would record audio — much like Shazam — to determine if a game was being illegally shown at the venue.
The league only used the technology on Android phones. According to El Diario the app has been downloaded more than 10 million times.
The Spanish newspaper reported, the agency found La Liga did not adequately notify users about the surveillance components of the app and therefore violated the basic principle of transparency under Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation.
La Liga countered by saying it did offer two opportunities at the time of installation to block the spy-like functions. But the watchdog said the soccer league should alert users every time the microphone is remotely activated, including adding an icon to the screen when the phone is recording.
Some other apps try to use the same features to gather information, if they’re not blocked by users.
The surreptitious functionality was met with outrage from fans when it was first discovered a couple of weeks after the EU’s data protection regulations went into effect a year ago. The rules require app makers to expressly convey to users what they are doing with the data they’re gathering. At the time, El Pais reported it became a trending topic on social media and it sent Android reviews of the app plummeting.
The soccer league responded by telling fans the snooping elements of the app were designed to combat piracy. “These fraudulent activities represent an estimated loss of 150 million euros annually for Spanish football, which translates into direct damage for clubs, operators and fans, among others,” La Liga said.
In a statement on Wednesday, La Liga said it “disagrees deeply” with the data protection agency’s decision and accused it of not making “the necessary effort to understand how the technology works.”
La Liga plans to challenge the resolution, insisting it has followed all existing regulations. League officials sought to clarify that the software protects individual users’ rights because it doesn’t record, store or listen to conversations.
“All this technology was implemented to achieve a legitimate goal,” La Liga said, adding that it has a responsibility to use all technological advances at its disposal to “fight against piracy.”
La Liga also said it will not be applying the data protection agency’s recommendations. It called the app “experimental,” because the league was already planning to turn off those functions at the end of the season, which falls on June 30.
Dani Matias contributed to this story.
The Bruins And Blues Have Just One Game To Decide Who Lifts Lord Stanley’s Cup
Boston Bruins winger Brad Marchand celebrates after his Game 6 goal on the road against the St. Louis Blues. That game, a Bruins blowout, sent the Stanley Cup Final to a rubber match Wednesday in Boston.
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Jeff Roberson/AP
In retrospect, we all probably should have seen it coming.
After a tumultuous NHL postseason, one that saw all four No. 1 seeds fall in the first round — including the defending Stanley Cup champion and a history-making regular season juggernaut — maybe it was obvious that the Stanley Cup Final would need all seven games to decide a winner. Neither the St. Louis Blues nor the Boston Bruins, the sides still standing at the end of this battle royal, were about to go down easily.
And what a slobberknocker it’s been.
Praying for a win? A young Boston Bruins fan (left) awaits the start of action in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final between the Bruins and the St. Louis Blues in Boston, while this Blues fan grits it out during Game 6 in St. Louis.
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Michael Dwyer/AP; Jeff Roberson/AP
The Bruins entered the series as the favorite, a seasonlong member of the Eastern Conference elite with a veteran core that won the cup so recently, the feel of its cold silver alloy likely still lingers in sense memory. The Blues, on the other hand, came in as the storybook darlings — a team that was dead last in the NHL just months ago and now has a shot at seizing its first Stanley Cup in the franchise’s 52-year history.
By the way, the last time the Blues were in the final, nearly half a century ago, they were also playing the Bruins — and got posterized by that Bobby Orr goal. You know the one.
But if there was disparity in the franchises’ paths to the Stanley Cup Final, there was little to be found in their play on the ice. They traded heavy body blows, neither team managing to open more than a one-game lead, and the momentum of the series swung back and forth with them.
You’d be forgiven, for instance, for having figured the Bruins had it in the bag after their Game 3 drubbing of the Blues. And after a clutch Game 5 win gave the Blues a chance to clinch the cup on home ice, few expected them to follow it with such a breathtaking dud.
Both goalies, the Blues’ rookie netminder Jordan Binnington and the Bruins’ Tuukka Rask, rode hot hands into the final, but they too have been fairly up and down — especially Binnington, who has played like two different players at times. He has alternated stinkers — including getting benched for the first time in his young career, in Game 3 — with some moments of eye-popping dominance.
As these things are wont to go, the play has also gotten rather chippy.
The Bruins’ 42-year-old captain, Zdeno Chara, reportedly broke his jaw when he took a point-blank shot to the mouth in Game 4, only to make it back out on the ice three days later for Game 5, new protective face mask and all. Later that game, deep into the third period, the Blues scored the game-winning goal moments after a controversial noncall by the referees — which the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, in a magnificent bit of trolling, was only too happy to allude to in its headline: “What a trip!“
In fact, that little phrase is a pretty fitting summary of a postseason that has had as many twists as the tape on a hockey stick — and an up-and-down final that has just about lived up to the chaos that came before it. What a long, strange trip it’s been.
Now time to bring it all home.
Trump Will Play Ball With MLB On Cuban Players If League Helps With Venezuela
Alexis Rivero of Cuba’s Los Leñeros de Las Tunas pitches during a Caribbean Series match against Venezuela’s Cardenales de Lara in Panama City on Feb. 6. Major League Baseball had made a deal with Cuba’s baseball federation to allow Cuban athletes to play in the U.S. without defecting, only to see the Trump administration subsequently block the rule.
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President Trump has resumed talks with Major League Baseball owners after his administration blocked a historic agreement that would have allowed Cuban baseball players to join MLB teams without having to defect.
But the White House made clear that in exchange for revisiting that decision, it wants MLB, like other groups with ties to the island, to urge Cuba to reduce its long-standing cooperation with Venezuela’s socialist government.
Trump met Monday with MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred to discuss the league’s concerns that Cuban ballplayers risk their lives hiring human smugglers to get them to the United States to play. The White House told NPR on Tuesday that it was willing to continue to talk with MLB about the issue, but administration officials also sought MLB’s assistance with the crisis in Venezuela.
“The administration will continue to hold the Cuban regime accountable for its direct role in the trafficking of its citizens from the island,” a White House official told NPR. “The administration looks forward to finding productive ways to work with MLB to help the people of Venezuela, a country that has a rich history with MLB but has been destabilized by Cuba’s interference.”
The Trump administration blames Cuba for propping up Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and demanded that Cuban security forces leave Venezuela.
MLB had reached an agreement in December with the Cuban Baseball Federation that would have allowed Cuban baseball players to sign contracts directly with professional U.S. baseball clubs.
Four months later, the Treasury Department told MLB that it was reversing an Obama-era decision that would have allowed payments to the Cuban Baseball Federation, accusing the Cuban government of using baseball players as “pawns.” The Trump administration argued the agreement was prohibited because payments can’t be made to the Cuban government owing to long-standing U.S. sanctions.
The fact that Trump later accepted a high-profile meeting with the baseball commissioner appeared to be an easing of the stance and raised hopes of a reversal.
“The president taking a meeting with the commissioner of MLB to discuss a topic that the administration recently made a ruling shows that the president is open to seriously considering changing the administration ruling that was recently made,” said Fernando Cutz, a former acting senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council in the Trump administration. “That shows the president is willing to at least consider overruling whoever made that ultimate decision underneath him.”
The agreement is intended to give Cuban baseball players a chance to play baseball in the United States without having to make the dangerous journey overseas or contract with dangerous smuggling operations.
Some Cuban baseball players report being harassed by smugglers for years after making the journey.
Earlier this spring, MLB hired a lobbying firm with close ties to the Trump administration for help finding a solution.
John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, said the meeting is particularly significant from the Cuban perspective. It marks a “meaningful change from 60 days ago” when the Trump administration was in lockstep with some of the Cuban government’s harshest critics, such as Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who vowed to fight the plan.
But Kavulich and other experts said Cuba would not turn on its longtime ally Venezuela for the MLB deal — and the expectation could make the challenge even greater.
“They’ve added elements to the resolution process, and the elements they’ve added are incredibly difficult for MLB or governments to resolve in the short to medium term,” Kavulich said. “Anytime that an issue gets linked to what is happening to Venezuela or how Cuba is connected to Venezuela, turn off the lights, and read a good book.”
Benjamin Gedan, who was responsible for Venezuela policy on the National Security Council during the Obama administration, said it is unclear whether Obama’s strategy of rapprochement with Cuba would have led Havana to distance itself from Venezuela, but he questioned how isolating Cuba and its ballplayers would do that either.
“By attacking the MLB for its Cuba engagement, the Trump administration further alienates Havana, which could be a far more helpful player on Venezuela than baseball executives,” Gedan said.
Ric Herrero, executive director of the Cuba Study Group, said any effort to address human smuggling in the region is a positive one, but he questioned what the administration is “actually going to do here other than make pronouncements” to end human trafficking.
“It seems if they’re serious [about] wanting to end the trafficking of Cuban baseball players, it seems that canceling a relationship between Major League Baseball and Federación Cubana de Béisbol isn’t the way to go about it.”
The Thistle & Shamrock: Raise Your Voice
Rural Health: Financial Insecurity Plagues Many Who Live With Disability
Kim Ryu for NPR
Carol Burgos is worried her neighbors think she is bringing the neighborhood down.
She lives in a mobile home park in a woodsy part of Columbia County, N.Y, just off a two-lane highway. The homes have neat yards and American flags. On a spring Saturday, some neighbors are out holding yard sales, with knickknacks spread out on folding tables. Others are out doing yardwork.
Burgos’ lawn is unruly and overgrown.
“How bad do I feel when these little old ladies are mowing their lawn and I can’t because I’m in so much pain?” she says.
Burgos is in her early 50s. She can’t mow her lawn herself because of pain and physical limits related to her osteoarthritis, degenerative disk disease and other health issues. She was deemed disabled in 1997 and lives on payments from Social Security Disability Insurance. She gets health coverage through Medicare.
She also can’t afford to pay someone to mow the lawn for her. “I don’t want another bill,” she explains. “I don’t want to be in more debt. I’m embarrassed. I don’t know, who do you ask?”
Carol Burgos is deeply frustrated she can’t even physically mow her own lawn because of pain from her osteoarthritis, degenerative disk disease and other health issues.
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Selena Simmons-Duffin/NPR
Burgos estimates she is $30,000 in debt. That’s a lot, especially with so little coming in. “Less than $1,500 a month,” she says. “And that doesn’t include [costs of] fuel; cooking gas; electric; water usage.”
For food, she gets a bit of money in food stamps every month. Her income works out to about $18,000 a year — not too far off from what most people living on disability benefits make.
There’s no way she could pay a $1,000 expense right away, Burgos says. According to a recent poll NPR conducted with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 49% of rural Americans couldn’t afford a sudden expense of that size.
The percentage was much higher — 70% — for people who, like Burgos, have disabilities. More than half of those with disabilities said their families have had problems paying for medical or dental bills in the past few years.
Burgos says she doesn’t want to have to rely on disability benefits. She used to work — she’s had lots of jobs, including helping developmentally challenged people with life skills.
She identifies as a “working person with disabilities” even though she hasn’t worked for 10 years. She is frustrated by the copays she has to pay for doctor visits and at the pharmacy — she ends up filling only her most important prescriptions, she says.
“I want to work,” she says. “Screw the money! Give me medical coverage — full medical — so I can be an able body that is willing to work.”
Burgos feels stuck in poverty and physically stuck, because it’s so hard for her to get around.
Having good access to transportation — or not — has a huge impact on the health of people living in rural parts of the country, says Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco who studies the health of vulnerable populations.
“If you go to less populated areas — rural areas — access to a car that functions well [and] the costs for gas becomes such an essential element,” Bibbins-Domingo says. “Both to drive to seek medical care, as well as to drive to access the other resources that are necessary to pursue good health.”
Without that transportation — or ready access to other basics like healthy food or good housing — people can get into a vicious cycle, she says.
“Poor health contributes to financial instability and to poverty,” Bibbins-Domingo says, “and poverty itself we know contributes to poor health.”
That cycle of poor health and poverty hits people with disabilities particularly hard. “Their poverty levels are over two times higher, compared to those without disabilities,” says Bill Erickson of the Yang-Tan Institute on Employment and Disability at Cornell University.
The federal government does provide help to people with disabilities under two different programs. Some people, like Burgos, have a work history that entitles them to payments from Social Security Disability Insurance. Others, who never worked — perhaps because of a developmental disability — are eligible for Supplemental Security Income.
But other hurdles can arise. If you’re disabled, live in a rural area and want to work, you still have to find a job you can do.
“Since the Great Recession, rural counties really haven’t seen as much employment growth as urban counties,” Erickson says. “Also just the types of jobs that are available to those sorts of communities may be tending toward, you know, requiring people to be able to move things physically or whatever.
“And the limitations that the individual with disabilities may have,” Erickson continues, “may be preventing them from being able to do those particular types of jobs — or employers can’t provide the accommodations that may be necessary.”
Erickson’s colleague at ILR, Thomas Golden, adds that the complexity of disability benefits presents another problem for people who would like to work. It’s not clear to many people how much they are allowed to work without jeopardizing their benefits, he says, or what programs are available to help them in the job search.
For the past six years, Golden and Erickson have worked with young people receiving Supplemental Security Income as part of the New York State PROMISE initiative.
“In a lot of cases, those youth and their families weren’t ready to talk about work because they couldn’t pay their rent,” Golden says. “Or they were getting evicted. Or other basic needs needed to be met first before they could think about their own self-development, when it came to work and economic independence.”
Burgos says she would like to find a job she is able to do, with enough hours to supplement her income but not trigger a loss of her Social Security benefits. First, though, she says, she must figure out how to deal with the overgrown lawn and a student loan bill that just arrived in the mail. And she is trying to coordinate nursing care for her elderly mother.
There are good things in her life, too, Burgos says. She has her faith — she’s a born-again Christian. Her car is a bit beat up, but it works. And she has a very sweet little dog.
And even though she has to rely on a walker for long distances — and fears she eventually will end up in a wheelchair — for now, she is still well enough to get up and down the stairs to her front door.
NPR science intern Susie Neilson contributed reporting for this story.
Reports Find Health Workers Still Aren’t Alerting Police Regarding Likely Elder Abuse
Two reports from the federal government have determined that many cases of abuse or neglect of elderly patients that are severe enough to require medical attention are not being reported to enforcement agencies by nursing homes or health workers — even though such reporting is required by law.
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Mary Smyth/Getty Images
It can be hard to quantify the problem of elder abuse. Experts believe that many cases go unreported. And Wednesday morning, their belief was confirmed by two new government studies.
The research, conducted and published by the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, finds that in many cases of abuse or neglect severe enough to require medical attention, the incidents have not been reported to enforcement agencies, though that’s required by law.
One of the studies focuses solely on the possible abuse of nursing home residents who end up in emergency rooms. The report looks at claims sent to Medicare in 2016 for treatment of head injuries, body bruises, bed sores and other diagnoses that might indicate physical abuse, sexual abuse or severe neglect.
Gloria Jarmon, deputy inspector general for audit services, says her team found that nursing homes failed to report nearly 1 in 5 of these potential cases to the state inspection agencies charged with investigating them.
“Some of the cases we saw, a person is treated in an emergency room [and] they’re sent back to the same facility where they were potentially abused and neglected,” Jarmon says.
But the failure to record and follow up on possible cases of elder abuse is not just the fault of the nursing homes. Jarmon says that in five states where nursing home inspectors did investigate and substantiate cases of abuse, “97 percent of those had not been reported to local law enforcement as required.”
State inspectors of nursing homes who participated in the study appeared to be confused about when they were required to refer cases to law enforcement, Jarmon notes. One state agency said that it only contacted the police for what it called “the most serious abuse cases.”
Elder abuse occurs in many settings — not just nursing homes. The second study looked at Medicare claims for the treatment of potential abuse or neglect of older adults, regardless of where it took place. The data was collected on incidents occurring between January of 2015 and June of 2017.
The federal auditors projected that, of more than 30,000 potential cases, health care providers failed to report nearly a third of the incidents to law enforcement or Adult Protective Services, even though the law requires them make such reports.
“It’s very important that the first person who notices this potential abuse and neglect reports it, because then they can begin the investigative process to determine if abuse or neglect occurred,” says Jarmon. “And if it’s not reported, it can’t be tracked.”
The HHS report says that Medicare could do a better job of analyzing the data it has on hand. It recommends that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees the health care program for older Americans, should periodically examine claims for treatment, looking for diagnoses that suggest possible abuse or neglect, as well as where and when those cases occur.
“You have to be able to get the data to see how bad the problem is,” says Jarmon, “so that “everybody who can take action has it.”
However, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which pays for much of the health care for seniors, and provides guidance on the reporting required of health care workers and health care facilities, has rejected most of the reports’ recommendations.
CMS declined NPR’s request for an interview, but in a written response, it argues that it can take up to a year for Medicare claims to be filed. So analyzing such claims, CMS says, would “not be [a] timely enough” way to identify and respond to cases of elder abuse and neglect.
The inspector general’s report counters that the vast majority of Medicare claims are filed within a month, not a year. And Gloria Jarmon says that just letting state agencies and health care providers know that they’re being tracked, could reduce the problem of elder abuse.
Sailing Coach Will Be First Person Sentenced In College Admissions Scandal
Federal prosecutors want a former Stanford sailing coach to get 13 months in prison, when he becomes be the first to be sentenced in the college admissions scam on Wednesday.
U.S. Defeats Thailand 13-0 To Begin Defense Of 2015 Women’s World Cup Title
The U.S. Women’s National Team began defense of its 2015 Women’s World Cup title Tuesday with a game against Thailand. It’s the first of three matches for the U.S. in the tournament’s opening round.