Admit to Observation Patients: Access, Cost, and Quality Concerns

The Academy's Acute & Critical Care and Aging Expert Panels will co-host a webinar, Admit to Observation Patients, to address the implications "observation status" has on access, cost and quality of care for Medicare recipients.
The speaker, Toby Edelman, Esq., is the senior policy attorney at the Center for Medicare Advocacy, Inc. Ms. Edelman works extensively advocating on behalf of Medicare patients negatively affected by the "observation status" classification. We look forward to your participation.
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About the Speaker
Toby S. Edelman has been representing older people in long-term care facilities since 1977. As a senior policy attorney with the Center for Medicare Advocacy since January 2000, Ms. Edelman provides training, research, policy analysis, consultation, and litigation support relating to nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.
Under two grants from the Commonwealth Fund, she evaluated the federal nursing home survey and enforcement system and its impact on state activities and provided technical assistance to states on effective enforcement practices. In cooperation with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, she recently completed a Commonwealth Fund project to evaluate seven states' deficiency citations for misuse of antipsychotic drugs. Since September 1999, she has written a monthly newsletter on nursing home enforcement issues.
Ms. Edelman was the lead attorney for a statewide class of nursing facility residents who successfully challenged the state of California's refusal to implement the federal Nursing Home Reform Law (Valdivia v. California Department of Health Services, Civ. No. S-90-1226 EJG (E.D. Calif. 1993). As a beneficiary representative, Ms. Edelman has testified before Congress and served on federal task forces, technical expert panels, and working groups on nursing home issues.