As the weather warms and farms and gardens are planted, the opportunities to eat healthier grow too – thanks to Hartford HealthCare’s Rx for Health program.

The program, run by Backus and Windham hospitals’ community health teams, allows doctors to write prescriptions – but for farmer’s markets instead of pharmacies.

They partner with eastern Connecticut social service organizations to ensure that local families can enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables.

 

The RX for Health program began in Norwich in 2010 and expanded to Windham in 2021. The program provides vouchers to low income people for free fresh fruits and vegetables.

The vouchers are redeemable at area farmers markets and grocery stores. Priority is given to those with children who are currently obese or malnourished, or at risk for either.

Participants are also provided recipes for the different produce available at the markets as well as nutrition handouts to address common nutrition struggles and concerns. Special themed events are planned this season and individual nutrition counseling is available as needed and by request.

“As a program, the Rx for Health’s fresh produce, registered dietitians, and health screenings empower families to make important dietary and lifestyle changes,” says Shannon Haynes, a registered dietician at Backus Hospital who oversees the program for the region. “The program enables families to try produce that they would not have been able and/or willing to purchase.”

The Backus Hospital Rx for Health program vouchers are given out by HHC community partners:

United Family Community Services (UCFS)

Norwich primary care providers

Norwich pediatricians

St. Vincent de Paul Place food pantry

The Windham Hospital Rx for Health program vouchers are given out by HHC community partners:

Generations Family Health Center in Willimantic

Covenant Soup Kitchen in Willimantic

Vouchers are redeemable at:

ShopRite

A&S Asian market

Norwich Farmers Market

Backus Hospital Farm Stand

Willimantic Farmers Market

Windham Hospital Farm Stand

Willimantic Food Co-op

“Being able to bring together these organizations to improve the health of the community is what we are all about,” says Joseph Zuzel, director of Hartford HealthCare’s Community Health for eastern Connecticut.
If you are interested in receiving vouchers you can speak to your primary care provider in the Norwich or Windham area, or visit one of the social service agencies participating in the program.
OLATHE, Kansas — It’s a typical Thursday evening in the Hoffman house.
The family hangs out in the living room for a small dance party. Then one of the kids reads a book to 18-month-old Miles.
Neil and Abby Hoffman make sure Miles, who has chronic lung disease and cerebral palsy, joins in with his three siblings while sitting in his positioning chair.
“He has some vision problems,” Neil Hoffman said. “He eats through a G tube (a gastrostomy tube used to deliver food and medication directly to the stomach), has a tracheostomy tube in his throat. (He’s) ventilator dependent. So he’s basically on life support. But he’s doing really well. He’s fighting through it all.”
The coat closet in the front hallway is filled with Miles’ medical supplies. He sleeps in the dining room.
“It’s just too hard to take him up and down the stairs,” Abby Hoffman said.
What their son really needs now is a standing frame to learn how to stand and build leg muscle. With that, Miles might walk one day.
But insurance won’t pay. Miles is covered by overlapping plans — his parents’ Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City policy and a second one managed by Aetna from the Kansas Medicare program, KanCare.
Blue Cross says it doesn’t cover standing frames. That passes the buck to Aetna.
Aetna might pay the $5-6,000 cost for a standing frame. But only after Blue Cross puts its denial in writing. Blue Cross won’t. And that leaves Miles in limbo.
“It’d be nice if they just talk to each other and say, ‘Hey, we’re not going to cover this, so will you?’”
Families across Kansas find themselves in similar bureaucratic dead zones, unable to get critical medical devices. The denials can spoil chances to develop at home, at school and into productive adults. And in some cases, like Miles, that first step.
Doctors, therapists and advocacy groups say the denials of prescriptions for medical equipment come too often and appear to violate at least the spirit of federal law.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment did not respond to questions about chronic delays and denials for physician-prescribed devices by KanCare insurance companies.
Instead, in an emailed statement, KDHE said it is working to get lawmakers to address low Medicaid reimbursement rates.
“The Medicaid program needs the Legislature’s approval to increase rates to the levels our providers are asking for,” the agency said.
Wait Times
Carlos Moreno
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KCUR 89.3
The Hoffmans’ entryway coat closet has been repurposed to hold Mile’s medical supplies.
Carrie Grosdidier, an early childhood intervention occupational therapist who works with the Hoffmans, said the absence of that standing frame could have profound consequences for Miles.
“That’s impacting his ability to move forward with his outcomes, his goals, and his independence,” she said.
Cases like his can prove complicated and mean navigating through red tape. The barriers cost families life-changing equipment. Elizabeth Edwards, an attorney with the health care rights group National Health Law Program, said bureaucracy too often gets in the way of care.
“People should not be waiting … an extremely long time to get these medically necessary devices,” she said.
The federal Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic and Treatment law, or EPSDT, mandates children on Medicaid receive access to comprehensive equipment and services they need.
“One of the things that comes up often is whether or not the state sets the definition of medical necessity, or whether or not managed care plans have more wiggle room to define what medical necessity means,” Edwards said. “That can really inhibit whether or not something is covered by a plan.”
The insurers
Carlos Moreno
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KCUR 89.3
Dan and Kacy Seitz get their daughter, Hudsyn, ready for the day.
Kacy and Dan Seitz have learned to navigate the system over the years while taking care of their 12-year-old daughter, Hudsyn. She suffered a brain injury at birth. The Shawnee, Kansas, family has had to get a wheelchair, a bathing chair and a stairlift.
“We’ve been on this road for about 12 years, that process is more familiar to us,” Kacy Seitz said. “For new families, that’s pretty intimidating.”
Each month, Dan Seitz talks with insurers about what the family needs for Hudson. But insurance does not cover everything each month. Sometimes it depends on how much their claims add up to in a given month and whether KanCare, the state’s Medicaid program, will cover something or the family needs to pay for things on its own.
“These are not devices that are optional for our daughter,” Kacy Seitz said. “We have to have them.”
Knowing the lengthy wait times and potential denials that can routinely come with durable medical equipment means trying to prepare well in advance.
“You almost have to think about it a year ahead of time in order to follow the existing process and get equipment on time,” Kacy Seitz said.
And sometimes they just make something themselves. They’ve placed a La-Z-Boy recliner on a wooden platform with wheels and fashioned a paper towel holder to station one of her pumps by her bed.
“Kacy’s first thought is how do we get something paid for,” Dan Seitz said. “My first thought is, ‘How can I just make it, because I already know it’s probably not gonna get paid for.’”
National Health Law Program senior policy analyst David Machledt said few people appeal their denials. It’s even more difficult for those that do not have extra support systems to help.
“(It) exacerbates some of the health disparities and access that we are seeing for people with disabilities, for people from different cultural backgrounds,” he said.
A Strained System
Carlos Moreno
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KCUR 89.3
The Hoffmans’ formal dining room has been converted to a bedroom for Miles.
Federal law promises children on Medicaid the equipment they need to thrive. Critics say routine delays and denials of medical equipment suggest KanCare does not live up to the law’s intent.
Disability Rights Center of Kansas executive director Rocky Nichols said the issue got worse when Kansas privatized Medicaid 10 years ago and handed over management to insurance companies.
“There’s been a lot more problems,” he said. “It’s a lot more difficult for people with disabilities or parents of kids with disabilities, to frankly get what they need under Medicaid.”
Kansas has three managed care organizations, known as MCOs, that operate KanCare.
Aetna, UnitedHealth and the Centene subsidiary Sunflower all received contracts with the state starting in 2019. Those contracts were automatically renewed last year for two years and won’t expire until the end of 2024.
“The managed care company gets paid upfront,” Nichols said. “So it creates a real problem.”
He said that cuts into incentives to insurers to cover more expenses.
Sheila Simmons operates a sort of stop-gap library of medical equipment in Parsons, Kansas. It checks out items including wheelchairs, crutches and beds.
Samantha Horton
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KCUR 89.3
Some standing frames sit in the lobby area at the Assistive Technology for Kansas facility in Parsons. The location includes a variety of medical equipment able to borrowed as needed.
“The process is almost designed to be disheartening in some ways, if you ask a parent,” she said.
State negotiations
Advocates for those families want to make Medicaid work with fewer delays and denials.
Simmons, for instance, said more training for insurance companies on federal rules like EPSDT could help children access care they need.
“Kansas Medicaid needs to reassert that EPSDT is how they’re supposed to be operating,” she said. “And reminding (insurers) that if you’re able to document the child’s need — medically, physically — that equipment should be purchased.”
Alliance Rehab owner Scott Lopez finds himself regularly lobbying to get KanCare payments for equipment that doctors have prescribed.
“I’ve been trying to get a kid a bath chair since July,” Lopez said. “And we still don’t have that with them.”
That bath chair was finally delivered six months later. He said he has seen some progress.
“We’ve had some wins, we’ve had some kids get equipment that I didn’t think they’d get, it took a long time, we’re getting better at it, the state’s getting better at it,” he said. “But we just got to keep working to make it better.”
Carlos Moreno
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KCUR 89.3
Dan and Kacy Seitz with their 12-year-old daughter, Hudsyn.
But the reimbursement through KanCare is still too little. If that doesn’t change, Lopez said, he is going to have to stop accepting Medicaid patients from Kansas.
With the current contracts to run KanCare ending next year, Nichols with the Disability Rights Center of Kansas, said the state can force insurance companies to deny less and pay for medical equipment more quickly.
“We don’t have the right incentives in the contract that the state controls to ensure that things are provided promptly,” said Nichols. “And the state needs to fix that.”
Other states, including Iowa, publish quarterly performance reports showing the rate of denials for each of the MCOs and what is being appealed the most by each insurer.
Frustrations
Dana Peterson is mom to a 20-year-old son, Charlie, with a chromosome abnormality. A few years back, she had to work to get a toilet adapter and wheelchair for him. They were custom-made, but the wrong sizes. So the family faces another long wait for the custom-made gear to be manufactured.
“It’s like starting all over again,” Peterson said. “If I have to pay out of pocket, I’m going to, because he needs something that works for him and that fits him.”
A temporary standing frame sits in the corner of Miles Hoffman’s room. His therapist, Grosdidier, has been able to loan it to the family until Miles gets his own personalized one. Neil Hoffman is grateful to have one, but he fears there will come a day when they lose it.
“I’m already pretty frustrated about it,” he said. “But I’d be pretty furious if we didn’t have one already.”
Samantha Horton reports on health for the Kansas News Service. You can follow her on Twitter @SamHorton5.
The Kansas News Service is a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW, and High Plains Public Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and their connection to public policy.
Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished by news media at no cost with proper attribution and a link to ksnewsservice.org.
ALBERTVILLE, Minn. — Future to toys and books, there are drugs and care charts for newborn Elin Anderson who burst onto the scene early.
“She was only 13.1 ounces, 10 inches extensive. You could keep her in your hand,” stated Jill Anderson. “She’s had 12 surgeries, thousands of blood attracts, blood transfusions. She was on a breathing tube for lots of months just before she received this trach. She’s just been by so significantly, but she’s come so significantly.”
But the journey to get Elin dwelling took 411 times — in the beginning due to the fact she needed NICU care, but sooner or later because Jill and Kyle couldn’t come across a dwelling health care nurse.
Elin Anderson was only 13.1 ounces when she was born.
Anderson loved ones
In the stop, they invested four further months in the healthcare facility just mainly because they could not discover care.
That is till Marie entered the photo and produced this family’s dream occur real.
“Every person is working really challenging and she’s just succeeding our expectations,” explained Jill Anderson.
Darla Thompson is with Aveanna Health care and she’s energetic on the board of the Minnesota Household Treatment Association. She claims there are dozens of Minnesota kids prepared to leave hospitals these days if they could discover property nurses.
Related: Lack of property care nurses retaining toddlers from heading household with their parents
“Paying out a nurse which is ICU stage vent trach educated for these toddlers is challenging mainly because they can make substantially additional in a facility,” said Thompson.
Thompson states elevating Minnesota’s reimbursement fee for this kind of treatment would translate to increased wages for home healthcare nurses, producing it a more appealing job.
Some states nearby do fork out much more — she says the reimbursement amount in South Dakota is $32 higher than it is in Minnesota. For point of view, she claims the reimbursement amount is $46 for every hour in Minnesota.
“Nurses we can employ in South Dakota get on common $15 more an hour,” said Thompson. “These kids that can be managed at property with house care and instruction, et cetra, we have to get them home.”
For Elin, her baby actions proceed at residence. And the Andersons hope it’ll happen for other people much too.
“She’s just these kinds of a fighter that we want to combat like her for these other family members,” explained Jill Anderson.
Lawmakers are taking into consideration multiple costs to raise reimbursement costs in Minnesota.
Elin Anderson
Anderson family
David Schuman
David joined the WCCO staff in April 2020, beforehand performing at CBS 58 in Milwaukee. Prior to that, he labored in Las Vegas. While there, David coated a number of tales in the countrywide highlight, which includes the October 1 mass shooting and political visits from President Barack Obama and candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
I am very pleased to be assuming the chairmanship of the US Senate’s well being, education and learning, labor and pensions committee (Assist), a committee with large jurisdiction over some of the most critical troubles experiencing the American people. As I move into that position I’m pondering about how we can most effective address some of the really serious challenges dealing with my fellow Vermonters and performing families all throughout the state.
Currently, in phrases of health, we have a dysfunctional health care process in which we expend the astronomical and unsustainable sum of nearly $13,000 for just about every man, woman and boy or girl, 2 times as substantially as most made countries and nearly 20{08cd930984ace14b54ef017cfb82c397b10f0f7d5e03e6413ad93bb8e636217f} of our GDP. However, even with that substantial expenditure, 85 million People are uninsured or underinsured and we have worse wellness outcomes and lessen lifestyle expectancy than quite a few other nations. When the insurance policy companies make large earnings, above 500,000 persons declare individual bankruptcy each individual calendar year from medically relevant financial debt, and about 68,000 die due to the fact they simply cannot afford to pay for the treatment they need. Our challenging and fragmented program is so broken that it simply cannot even deliver the quantity of medical doctors, nurses, dentists and mental well being personnel that we desperately need to have.
As a nation, we will have to emphasis on the fact that the perform of a rational healthcare technique is to present top quality treatment for all, not only huge gains for the insurance plan industry.
Today, as we pay by considerably the best selling prices in the globe for prescription medication, the pharmaceutical field is producing document-breaking revenue and much more than a several executives in drug companies are turning into billionaires. Meanwhile, in spite of billions in governing administration financial investment in prescription drug investigate and development, nearly one out of four Us citizens are not able to pay for the drugs their medical doctors prescribe and too lots of seniors are splitting their lifesaving tablets in half due to the fact they just cannot afford to pay for them. And since Medicare doesn’t include dental, hearing and eyesight, there are hundreds of thousands of seniors who are striving to survive with out these essential health care demands.
But it’s not just our health care “system” which requirements a big overhaul. In terms of instruction, we will need to get a difficult look at how we are educating our children – from childcare to graduate university.
When psychologists tell us that the first four yrs of everyday living are the most essential in phrases of human intellectual and emotional growth, it is really hard to deny that our childcare program is in disarray. The price tag is unaffordable for lots of doing work mom and dad, there are not enough slots out there, the good quality is spotty and the shell out and rewards childcare staff receive is unconscionably minimal. This is not how we should really be managing our kids, the long term of The us.
The situation in K-12 education and learning is not a great deal far better. For a assortment of good reasons – absence of respect, low shell out, the worry of Covid and the politicization of school boards – 1000’s of gifted and dedicated teachers are quitting the job, leaving students unprepared for the challenges they confront as they enter the grownup world. The foreseeable future of this country depends upon the excellent of training we provide our young ones, and there is no explanation why we simply cannot develop the very best general public academic technique in the earth.
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As far more and extra staff try to improve their normal of living by forming unions, they are experiencing intense and illegal union busting from these employers as Starbucks, Amazon, McDonalds and other main businesses.
There is a ton of discussion in the media about how “divided” our country is and, on quite a few challenges, that is absolutely genuine. But what we do not appreciate is that on some of the most significant problems experiencing our place the American people today – Democrats, Republicans, independents – are very united.
The American people today know we are being ripped off by the drug companies and they want reduced prescription medicine prices.
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The American folks know that schooling is critical to our lives and the upcoming of this country and they want superior excellent and affordable education and learning from childcare to graduate college.
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The American persons know that personnel have a constitutional appropriate to type unions and that organizations that have interaction in illegal union busting things to do will have to be held accountable.
And these are just a few of the challengesin the jurisdiction of the Enable committee that a potent greater part of the American people today want us to deal with.
At a time when too a lot of People in america are supplying up on democracy, now is the time to try to restore religion in our authorities. Now is the time for Congress to have the courage to acquire on the lobbyists and potent special passions and display the American people today that our government can get the job done for them, and not just the 1{08cd930984ace14b54ef017cfb82c397b10f0f7d5e03e6413ad93bb8e636217f}. Let us do it.
Bernie Sanders is a US senator, and the ranking member of the Senate spending plan committee. He signifies the condition of Vermont, and is the longest-serving independent in the background of Congress
The Residence handed a monthly bill on Thursday that seeks to address mental overall health worries among pupils, people and educators aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which lawmakers say had a “severe impact” on those people three teams.
The laws, if handed by the Senate and signed into legislation, would offer grants to set up a pipeline for faculty-centered mental wellbeing support pros. Moreover, it would develop the amount of psychological wellbeing specialists at elementary and secondary educational facilities that are dependent in substantial-require places.
The evaluate would immediate the Section of Schooling to allocate people grants.
The Division of Education and learning would also be ordered to administer grants to state academic businesses to go in direction of recruiting and sustaining college-centered mental well being assistance suppliers at public elementary and secondary colleges that are regarded as superior need to have.
Passage of the bill arrives around two-and-a-fifty percent decades into the COVID-19 pandemic, which has built mental health and fitness circumstances a lot more prevalent.
The Planet Well being Firm disclosed in March that, in the 1st 12 months of the pandemic, the prevalence of anxiousness and despair around the world grew by about 25 {08cd930984ace14b54ef017cfb82c397b10f0f7d5e03e6413ad93bb8e636217f}.
The 2022 Young ones Depend Knowledge Ebook, which was released in August, disclosed that about 1.5 million kids in the U.S. expert depression or stress and anxiety all through the very first yr of the pandemic.
Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Calif.), the sponsor of the monthly bill, claimed his laws is needed to handle the ripple impact college student that mental health problems are having on educational facilities and educators.
“Educators have been compelled to play an outsized function in supporting and responding to students’ mental well being requires, foremost to greater melancholy and trauma amid educators, their college students, and the people and the neighborhood. Even so, our faculties do not have the specialized workers required to react to the elevated prevalence and complexity of students’ psychological overall health desires,” he explained.
“Simply place, the Mental Well being Matters Act delivers the methods college students, educators, and family members have to have to make improvements to their nicely-being,” DeSaulnier added.
Rep. Virginia Foxx (N.C.), the top rated Republican on the Schooling and Labor Committee, stated the “country would be much better off without” the legislation on the ground.
She specially took situation with the provision that enables the Labor Department secretary to levy civil monetary penalties on sponsors of designs and directors of team health ideas if they do not satisfy parity specifications with regards to psychological health and fitness.
“Providing [the Department of Labor] with the authority to level civil financial penalties against programs and maximize their risk of litigation will only force plans to drop mental health coverage,” Foxx argued.
“This money would be superior invested on compliance aid in its place of focusing on companies dependent on ambiguous benchmarks,” she included.
The laws also mandates that incapacity accommodations be offered to incoming college students at better education and learning institutions if they have paperwork outlining their incapacity, and it establishes a grant program to bolster entry for learners to evidence-based mostly trauma assist and psychological well being companies through assignments that join schools and community instruction businesses with trauma-knowledgeable support and psychological well being methods.

