Alzheimer's panel calls for privacy change

A government dementia panel says nothing about private long-term care insurance (LTCI) in its latest batch of recommendations.

The group — a subgroup for the public members who sit on the federal Advisory Council on Alzheimer’s Research, Care and Services — ignored private LTCI in a set of 2014 recommendations posted on the council’s website.

The website, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is supposed to try to help HHS meet a statutory obligation to figure out how to cure or prevent Alzheimer’s disease and other conditions that cause dementia by 2015.

In a section on long-term services and support, the public members do say that government payment reform programs should look at ways the programs affect people with dementia, and that an HHS agency should develop payment and care delivery reform programs aimed at people with dementia.

The public members also ask for clarification of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy rules.