Pitt students, professor get Medicare funding for 81-year-old [View All]

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Pittsburgh Tribune Review

When University of Pittsburgh law student Ivana Grujic took a look at her assignment at the university's health law clinic, the file was so thick and the issues so complex she didn't know where to begin.

"We were pretty inexperienced," said Grujic, a third-year student from Philadelphia.

But when she, classmate Kurt Hoffman and professor Stella L. Smetanka completed the assignment a year later, they had won a key decision that could help thousands of senior citizens on Medicare who need intensive rehabilitation services.

The case, cited by advocates and members of Congress as potentially precedent setting, overturned a ruling by Medicare officials that Wanda Papciak, 81, of the South Side could not continue to get rehabilitation services after a hip replacement.

The Pittsburgh decision in September and a parallel Vermont ruling fueled efforts to get Medicare officials to broaden coverage for people needing similar services.



Read more: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/pittsburgh/s_710443.html

---

Way to go students!