Top Small Business - LHC Group

Forbes Magazine has a new list of the 200 Best Small Businesses (November 2, 2009). Ranked 4th is LHC Group. This company acquires home health care companies and has expanded to 18 states from Louisiana. The company provides nursing, hospice and long-term care.

I visited LHC's website after reading about them in Forbes and found the company to be very people-oriented. And it contained an interesting factoid - 3.7 million people in the U.S. over 65 require intermittent care. This care helps keep individuals from being hospitalized, re-hospitalized or institutionalized.

Take a look for yourself.
http://www.lhcgroup.com/Default.asp

Going Home From a Nursing Home

Did you know that in more and more states that Medicaid will help fund home health aides so that you can leave a nursing home and get help at home? This is really welcome news, which was featured in an article in the New York Times on September 19, 2009.

I took my mother out of a nursing home and enabled her to live in an apartment with home health aides caring for her for a good five years. Those years were a blessing to her. In Connecticut, we now have laws that enable the Medicaid money to follow the patient. This is very helpful to families and individuals, while being fiscally prudent. Aging at home tends to be much more cost-efficient than aging in a nursing home.

Here is the link to the article and a synopsis:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/19/health/policy/19aging.html

Health / Health Care Policy

Helping Elderly Leave Nursing Homes for a Home

By JOHN LELAND

Published: September 19, 2009

More states are aiming to disprove the notion that once people have settled into a nursing home, they will stay.