Seniors and Retirement Security

Problems caused by a Medicare rule that forces hospitals to label certain patients under "observation" status rather than as inpatients have only worsened in the four years since U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney first introduced legislation to fix it. That's the assessment of case managers at the region's two hospitals, who both applaud the third bill Courtney and other lawmakers have introduced since 2010 to change Medicare rules so that patients could be covered for skilled nursing care after a hospitalization, regardless of whether they were "observation" patients or inpatients. Under the current rules, Medicare patients discharged to skilled nursing care facilities must pay out of pocket for those services, unless they were labeled as hospital "inpatients" for three consecutive days. Increasingly strict limits on who can be classified as an inpatient - with penalties for hospitals that mislabel patients - have meant hospitals are categorizing more patients as "observation."

U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney says his office helped to return more than $1.5 million last year to eastern Connecticut constituents who were owed everything from Social Security checks to overdue veterans' benefits.