Terre Pruitt's Blog

In the realm of health, wellness, fitness, and the like, or whatever inspires me.

  • I teach yoga, Nia, and stretch online!

    ALL CLASSES ARE ON ZOOM AT 10:00 AM PDT

    Tuesday Gentle Yoga 

    Wednesday Nia

    Thursday Stretch

    Please see my website for details!

    I am also available for private Nia / yoga / Personal Training all virtual, of course!

  • Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

  • My Bloggey Past

  • ******

    Chose a month above to visit archives, or click below to visit a page.

Posts Tagged ‘AARP’

New Medicare Card Scam

Posted by terrepruitt on June 13, 2018

Even though I am nearing the AARP* age, I am not quite there yet, but you may have read where I am getting my dad’s mail and he was AARP age. I get the AARP Bulletin which I actually think is pretty interesting. I think it has some good information. Especially with all the scammers out there. I would be totally surprised if there is one of you (in the USA) reading this that has not received one of those “the FBI has a warrant out for your arrest and the police are on the way to your house . . . if you don’t call”. Even though the messages are either in a computer’s robotic voice or in such broken and accented English you can barely understand the message it is pretty scary. The elderly are really not all up to date on all the scammers in the world. In this day and age some believe that Microsoft got an alert that their computer had a virus. So I think it is important for ALL of us to know the scams out there so we can help protect the elderly in our lives. There is a lot of insurance fraud and scams and one of the latest ones has to do with the new Medicare Cards.

Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia in the City of San Jose, Nia classes in the South Bay, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, Gentle Yoga, Group Ex classes, YMCA, Zumba, Nia Technique, SJ City Fit, SJCityFitSo apparently Medicare is sending out new Medicare Health Insurance cards. They are replacing cards that have members Social Security Numbers on them with unique identification numbers. This started in May (2018) and will take about a year to reach all 60 million members. The cards are being sent at no charge. But guess what? There are people (cough, cough, I use that word loosely in this situation) who are calling members pretending to be Medicare representatives and they are demanding a processing fee. Or they tell the member that they are due a refund and get the members bank information in order to “process the refund”. Just to be clear, Medicare would never ask for a bank account number and no refunds are owed.  The cards are to help prevent fraud and then here we have scammers trying to be fraudulent. Sigh.

We have to be careful and we need to spread the word and let other people know so we can all thwart these scammers. The more people know the better we can stop it from happening. Will you help spread the word?

*American Association of Retired Persons

Posted in Misc | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

AARP Information Not Just For AARP Members

Posted by terrepruitt on January 24, 2018

As you may have read on my blog at one point, I get my dad’s mail and one of the things that comes in his mail is AARP stuff. I glance through it because sometimes I think it is informative. Sometimes it can help people of all ages. I took a copy/picture of this information because I thought it could be helpful to anyone that is a caregiver to someone in California.

Dance Exercise, Nia, Nia in the City of San Jose, Nia classes in the South Bay, Nia Teacher, Nia Class, San Jose Nia, Nia San Jose, Nia workout, Nia, Gentle Yoga, Group Ex classes, YMCA, Zumba, Nia Technique, SJ City Fit, SJCityFitThe first one mentioned I am not even sure I understand because I can’t imagine a patient being discharged without the caregiver being giving instructions and training on how and what to do in order to continue the care. It could be that I am primarily familiar with Kaiser and I am pretty sure that in the cases that I am familiar with there had been instructions and training. But I guess that is not always the case. So it appears to me that the first law mentioned on this flyer AARP is calling the California Hospital & Family Caregiver Law makes it a law that written instructions and training must be given when a patient is released and needs further medical care. This was signed and filed in 2015, and AARP is saying it was effective in 2016. AARP is just highlighting it so caregivers know that there is a law that requires hospitals to give caregivers what they need to continue care.

The California Paid Family Leave (PFL) “California Paid Family Leave (PFL) provides up to 6 weeks of partial pay to employees who take time off from work to care for a seriously ill family member (child, parent, parent-in-law, grandparent, grandchild, sibling, spouse, or registered domestic partner) or to bond with a new child entering the family through birth, adoption, or foster care placement.

Note: Beginning January 1, 2018, Assembly Bill 908 (Chapter 5, Statutes of 2016) increases the Disability Insurance and PFL wage replacement rate to approximately 60 to 70 percent (depending on income) and removes the 7-day waiting period for PFL. This applies to claims with a start date of January 1, 2018 or after.”

I just copied that directly from the State of California Employment Development Department site so that I didn’t inaccurately state something. So the change is the increase in the percentage of pay.

Another bill passed was the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Long-Term Care Facility Residents’ Bill of Rights. Which makes it unlawful for any long-term facility to transfer a person based wholly or in part on their actual or perceived sexual orientation (amoung other things). This is one that is best read on the site because it is long and I don’t want to leave anything out or state it incorrectly. It was approved and filed in October of 2017.

See? This information might have to do with elderly people, but it really is for the caregivers of these people. It could be that the young people – the ones providing care and the ones NOT subscribed to AARP – never get this information because they are not reading the AARP magazine. So . . . I thought I would share it.

If you do need any of this information please look it up on the actual websites as you can see this information is not complete. It is just a quick summary to help you be aware of information you might need.

Posted in Misc | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Be Careful What You Eat

Posted by terrepruitt on June 7, 2017

Whoa . . . so crazy the things you can’t eat when you are taking certain medication. If that alone isn’t motivation to try to stay healthy and off medication, I don’t know what is. I would probably end up accidentally killing myself if I had to keep track of what I couldn’t eat when taking certain medication. The worry isn’t really just causing direct harm to oneself but making the drug less effective, so causing harm in that manner. Eek. Since I have been going through my dad’s stuff, I am finding all kinds of different information. I had first experienced this type of information years ago when someone told me that their husband was having a specific symptom and I suggested eating more leafy greens. She said he couldn’t because of the medication he was taking. There is medication that is used that actually makes eating leafy greens bad for you. Some highlights I discovered regarding what you shouldn’t eat when taking certain medications are:

Avoid Fish Oil Supplements when taking blood thinners.
It is ok to eat fish because the amount of oil one gets from eating fish is not that much. It is the fish oil supplements that might be too much. They thin the blood so added to the medication it could be too much.

Avoid red wine, hard cheese, and chocolate if you take certain anti-depressants.
These foods may raise the blood pressure and the chemical used to help break it down is one that is inhibited by certain antidepressants. The ones that are monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOI).

Avoid grapefruit and grapefruit juice if you are taking certain statins for high cholesterol.
The grapefruit and grapefruit juice interfere with the way the body metabolizes some of the drugs so the dose might end up being wrong. The drugs that may be affected are Lipitor, Zocor, Altoprev, and Mevacor.

Avoid too much cinnamon if you take medicine for diabetes.
Your blood sugar could end up being too low if large amounts of cinnamon are consumed because both the cinnamon and the medication lower blood sugar. Just like with the fish, normal amounts like what you would use in cooking is fine, but it is the large amounts found in supplements that could pose a threat when taking diabetes medication.

Avoid too much calcium if you take certain heart medicines.
If the heart medication you are taking is a calcium channel blocker consuming too much may work against the medication. The information I saw said to limit the amount to 1,000 mg.

Bananas and high-potassium foods should be limited if you take certain high blood pressure medication.
If you are taking an angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor and eating too much potassium if could be harmful. The ACE inhibitor causes the body to retain potassium so you could end up with too much in your system.

You have probably heard all this before . . . especially if you are taking any of these medications, I know I have. But this is just a reminder. Also . . . do listen to your doctor and follow his instructions as this list is just a general list and doesn’t get into everything you need to know when taking medication.  I know that not all medicated medical issues are ones that can be avoided, but this list helps remind me to work to avoid the ones that are.

I found this information in my dad’s copy of the AARP Bulletin where they were talking about a new AARP book by Madelyn Fernstrom and John Fernstrom – Don’t Eat This if You’re Taking That.

How does one keep it all straight?

Posted in Misc | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »