Frauds in HealthCare, MediCare and Medicaid

1/ Medicare, Home Care... and Frauds https://smpresource.org/medicare-fraud/fraud-schemes/home-health-care-fraud/ Medicare Parts A and B cover intermittent or short-term home health services. These services must be provided by a Medicare-approved home health agency that works with your doctor to manage your care. To be eligible for Medicare coverage: • Your doctor must determine it’s medically necessary for you to receive skilled care services at home. Skilled care services at home could include part-time or “intermittent” nurse and nurse aide visits (personal, hands-on care) and rehabilitation services, which include speech-language pathology, physical and occupational therapy, and medical social services. • Your condition must be expected to improve in a reasonable amount of time or your condition requires skilled therapy to maintain your current condition or prevent or slow, further deterioration. • You must be considered “homebound.” This means you are unable to leave your home without assistance, it requires considerable and major effort, or it is considered dangerous due to your current health condition. You may leave home for medical care and some short or infrequent outings (for example, worship services) as long as you meet these conditions. o Note: Even if you do not qualify for home health services, you may still be eligible to receive outpatient therapy services in a doctor’s office, outpatient hospital setting, rehabilitation agency, Comprehensive Outpatient Rehabilitation Facility (CORF), public health agency, or your home. Outpatient therapy services are covered by Medicare Part B and subject to the 20% copayment. Report potential home health care fraud, errors, or abuse if: • You see on your Medicare Summary Notice (MSN) or Explanation of Benefits (EOB) charges for: o Home health services when you did not meet Medicare’s “homebound” criteria o Services that were not deemed medically necessary by your doctor o Home health services like skilled nursing care and/or therapy services that were not provided • You were: o Enrolled in home health services by a doctor you do not know o Offered things such as “free” groceries or a “free” ride from a home health agency in exchange for your Medicare number or to switch to a different home health agency o Charged a copayment for home health services o Asked to sign forms verifying that home health services were provided even though you did not receive any services • Someone came to your home and provided housekeeping or medication services, but you see on your Medicare Summary Notice (MSN) or Explanation of Benefits (EOB) that Medicare was billed for a covered service like skilled nursing or other therapy instead. • You accept cash or gifts in exchange for going along with a home health scam. To learn more about tips related to home health care fraud, click here. To learn how to read your Medicare Summary Notice (MSN) and Explanation of Benefits (EOB), click here. Report Suspected Fraud To report suspected fraud, click here. Report Suspected Medicare Fraud SMP Resources • Home Health Care Fraud Tip Sheet (English) (Arabic) (Chinese Simplified) (French) (German) (Korean) (Russian) (Spanish) (Tagalog) (Vietnamese) • Home Health Care Fraud Infographic (English) (Arabic) (Chinese Simplified) (French) (German) (Korean) (Russian) (Spanish) (Tagalog) (Vietnamese) • Home Health Care Fraud Video 2/ https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/01/21/789958067/patients-want-to-die-at-home-but-home-hospice-care-can-be-tough-on-families ...Usually, hospice care is offered in the home, or sometimes in a nursing home. Since the mid-1990s, Medicare has allowed the hospice benefit to cover more types of diagnoses, and therefore more people. As acceptance grows among physicians and patients, the numbers continue to balloon — from 1.27 million patients in 2012 to 1.49 million in 2017. According to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Association, hospice is now a $19 billion industry, almost entirely funded by taxpayers. But as the business has grown, so has the burden on families, who are often the ones providing most of the care. For example, one intimate task in particular changed Joy Johnston's view of what hospice really means — trying to get her mom's bowels moving. Constipation plagues many dying patients. "It's ironically called the 'comfort care kit' that you get with home hospice. They include suppositories, and so I had to do that," she says. "That was the lowest point. And I'm sure it was the lowest point for my mother as well. And it didn't work." Hospice agencies primarily serve in an advisory role and from a distance, even in the final, intense days when family caregivers, or home nurses they've hired, must continually adjust morphine doses or deal with typical end-of-life symptoms, such as bleeding or breathing trouble. Those decisive moments can be scary for the family, says Dr. Joan Teno, a physician and leading hospice researcher at Oregon Health and Science University. How To Be A Better Caregiver When A Loved One Gets Sick "Imagine if you're the caregiver, and that you're in the house," Teno says. "It's in the middle of the night, 2 o'clock in the morning, and all of a sudden, your family member has a grand mal seizure." That's exactly what happened with Teno's mother. "While it was difficult for me to witness, I knew what to do," she says. In contrast, Teno says, in her father's final hours, he was admitted to a hospice residence. Such residences often resemble a nursing home, with private rooms where family and friends can come and go and with round-the-clock medical attention just down the hall. Teno called the residence experience of hospice a "godsend." But an inpatient facility is rarely an option, she says. Patients have to be in bad shape for Medicare to pay the higher inpatient rate that hospice residences charge. And by the time such patients reach their final days, it's often too much trouble for them and the family to move. HHS Inspector General Finds Serious Flaws In 20% Of U.S. Hospice Programs Hospice care is a lucrative business. It is now the most profitable type of health care service that Medicare pays for. According to Medicare data, for-profit hospice agencies now outnumber the nonprofits that pioneered the service in the 1970s. But agencies that need to generate profits for investors aren't building dedicated hospice units or residences, in general, mostly because such facilities aren't profitable enough. Joe Shega, chief medical officer at for-profit Vitas, the largest hospice company in the U.S., insists it's the patients' wishes, not a corporate desire to make more money, that drives his firm's business model. "Our focus is on what patients want, and 85 to 90 percent want to be at home," Shega says. "So, our focus is building programs that help them be there." For many families, making hospice work at home means hiring extra help.... This experience of family caregivers is typical, but often unexpected. 'It's a burden I lovingly did' "It does take a toll" on families, says Katherine Ornstein, an associate professor of geriatrics and palliative medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, who studies what typically happens in the last years of patients' lives. The increasing burden on loved ones — especially spouses — is reaching a breaking point for many people, her research shows. This particular type of stress has even been given a name: caregiver syndrome. "Our long-term-care system in this country is really using families — unpaid family members," she says. "That's our situation." A few high-profile advocates have even started questioning whether hospice is right for everybody. For some who have gone through home hospice with a loved one, the difficult experience has led them to choose otherwise for themselves. Social worker Coneigh Sea has a portrait of her husband that sits in the entryway of her home in Murfreesboro, Tenn. He died of prostate cancer in their bedroom in 1993. Coneigh Sea is a social worker from Murfreesboro, Tenn., who cared for her husband as he died on home hospice. Now, she wants to make sure her children don't do the same for her. Blake Farmer/WPLN Enough time has passed since then that the mental fog she experienced while managing his medication and bodily fluids — mostly by herself — has cleared, she says. But it was a burden. "For me to say that — there's that guilt," she says, then adds, "but I know better. It was a burden that I lovingly did." She doesn't regret the experience but says it is not one she wishes for her own grown children. She recently sat them down, she says, to make sure they handle her death differently. "I told my family, if there is such a thing, I will come back and I will haunt you," she says with a laugh. "Don't you do that." Sea's family may have limited options. Sidestepping home hospice typically means paying for a pricey nursing home or passing away with the cost and potential chaos of a hospital — which is precisely what hospice care was set up to avoid. As researchers in the field look to the future, they are calling for more palliative care, not less — even as they also advocate for more support of the spouses, family members and friends who are tasked with caring for the patient. "We really have to expand — in general — our approach to supporting caregivers," Ornstein says, noting that some countries outside the U.S. pay for a wider range and longer duration of home health services. "I think what we really need to do is be broadening the support that individuals and families can have as they're caring for individuals throughout the course of serious illness," Ornstein says. "And I think that probably speaks to the expansion of palliative care in general." Blake Farmer's reporting on end-of-life care is part of a reporting fellowship on health care performance, sponsored by the Association of Health Care Journalists and supported by the Commonwealth Fund. 3/ https://www.kff.org/medicaid/understanding-medicaid-home-care-amid-cms-focus-on-potential-fraud-and-abuse/ Understanding Medicaid Home Care Amid CMS Focus on Potential Fraud and Abuse Authors: Alice Burns, Abby Wolk, and Robin Rudowitz Published: Feb 24, 2026 PrintEmailCopy LinkAdd KFF on Google Potential fraud in state Medicaid programs is getting renewed attention, with a recent emphasis on home care, also known as personal care or in-home supportive services. Home care helps with self-care activities such as bathing, dressing, and eating for older adults and people with disabilities. KFF estimates that over 5 million people use Medicaid home care, which allows individuals to receive long-term care without moving into an institution. The Trump administration has recently pointed to Medicaid home care as a source of fraud. Medicaid home care is susceptible to fraud because services are provided in people’s homes to vulnerable individuals who may be less able to advocate for themselves, including some with Alzheimer’s and other dementias. However, there are also additional safeguards against fraud in Medicaid home care compared to other types of Medicaid services. This issue brief describes how Medicaid home care operates, including who is eligible, the various systems in place to promote program integrity in its delivery, and challenges using data newly released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Key takeaways include the following. • All states provide optional home care services to people whose needs are sufficient to warrant institutionalization. An institutional level of care is generally beyond what family members are capable of providing. • Recognizing the higher risk of fraud in Medicaid home care, federal and state governments have implemented additional tools to identify and detect home care fraud. States, along with the federal government, use provider credentialing and enrollment and data analytics to help prevent fraud. There has been new attention on fraud in Minnesota’s Medicaid program recently, but the fraud, and the state’s work to root it out, date back at least 18 months. • On February 14, 2026, CMS released a dataset with provider-level spending data that the agency suggests could be used to identify unusual billing patterns for specific services, states, or providers, but the limited data could result in mistaken conclusions. Home care is a major emphasis of the new dataset, which stems from the fact that second to hospital spending, long-term care is the second-largest source of Medicaid spending. Although Medicaid long-term care was historically provided primarily in nursing facilities, most enrollees who use long-term care now receive home care. Why does Medicaid cover home care and who is eligible for services? All states provide optional home care services. Under Medicaid, states are required to cover long-term care provided in nursing facilities, but not home care, which has been referred to as the “institutional bias” in Medicaid. States may only provide home care if they can demonstrate that providing the services would cost no more than institutional care would cost for an individual. All states choose to provide optional home care to people who would otherwise require institutionalization. The increased availability of home care reflects people’s preferences to remain in their homes. Expansions of Medicaid home care services also followed the 1999 Supreme Court ruling in Olmstead v. L.C., which declared that unjustified institutionalization of people with disabilities by a public entity (including Medicaid) is a form of discrimination and not permissible under the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. Even though nearly all of the benefits are optional for states to provide, the majority of people who use long-term care now do so at home. Medicaid home care use is limited by eligibility criteria that generally make it only available to people whose needs are sufficient to warrant institutionalization. To be eligible for Medicaid home care, applicants must meet both financial and “functional” eligibility criteria. Functional eligibility for Medicaid home care, which is evaluated by assessment tools developed by states, generally requires individuals to demonstrate that they need an institutional level of care. There are no recent data available about states’ specific definitions for an institutional level of care, but it generally indicates that people would require 24-hour services and assistance with multiple activities of daily living (ADLs), which include bathing, dressing, eating, toileting, continence, and transferring between bed and other settings. An institutional level of care is generally beyond what family members are capable of providing. People who require an institutional level of care generally have complex needs that require both skilled and unskilled services and often require services to be provided around the clock. In some cases, family caregivers may not have the medical expertise to provide services, but there are also challenges related to the physical demands of the job and having time to provide such intensive services. Helping family members to bathe, dress, and toilet themselves often requires the strength to lift them, which not all family members have. The time required to provide such intensive services also makes it difficult for family caregivers to provide this level of care and maintain employment or take care of their own health needs. KFF’s focus groups with paid and unpaid family caregivers provide detail that caregiving is physically, mentally, and emotionally challenging; and that family caregivers cannot provide an institutional level of care without supports. To help people requiring an institutional level of care remain at home, Medicaid supports family caregivers by providing supplemental paid care and with direct supports, such as respite care, training, and in some cases payments to the family caregivers to reflect the fact that caregiving makes it impossible to maintain outside employment. What program integrity tools for Medicaid home care exist? Recognizing the higher risk of fraud in Medicaid home care, federal and state governments have implemented additional tools to identify and detect home care fraud. In 2016, Congress passed the 21st Century Cures Act, which requires states to implement electronic visit verification for all Medicaid personal care and home health services if a visit is made to a person in the home. State’s electronic visit verification must include six data elements: member receiving the services, caregiver providing the service, type of service, location of the service delivery, date of the service, and time the service begins and ends. Electronic visit verification was established to help promote fiscal integrity for Medicaid home care, and states had until 2023 to fully implement the requirements. The Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS OIG) has an active project underway to evaluate the availability and completeness of the electronic visit verification data and how states are using the data to promote program integrity. An HHS OIG report finds that in fiscal year 2024, there were 298 fraud convictions....

AI and Research in Medicine and Other Fields

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ai-hallucinate-citations-medial-research/?intcid=CNR-02-0623 AI is fabricating citations in biomedical studies, researchers find By Megan Cerullo Updated on: May 13, 2026 / 5:09 PM EDT / CBS News Artificial intelligence is fabricating references to medical research that does not exist, according to recent findings. A recent audit found that, among millions of biomedical papers, more than 4,000 contained citations to non-existent research, according to an article in The Lancet. Such fabricated citations can undermine the clinical guidelines that health care professionals rely on to provide care, said Maxim Topaz, an associate professor at the Columbia School of Nursing and the study's lead author. An audit of millions of biomedical papers found more than 4,000 citations to bogus studies, the researchers said in a recent article published in The Lancet. Fabricated citations are dangerous because they influence clinical guidelines, which are based on public research that health care professionals follow in providing care, Maxim Topaz, an associate professor at the Columbia School of Nursing and the study's lead author, told CBS News. "When those fake references are making it into the literature, they will end up in those guidelines, and that's how doctors decide how to provide care for you," he said. "Your doctor could be making decisions around treatment based on studies that never existed." Growing problem Also troubling is that none of the mistakes Topaz and his team identified have been corrected or retracted, and could still be influencing patient care, he said. "The rate of fake references showing up in published medical literature is growing," Topaz added, noting that the number of such erroneous citations has grown 12-fold over the last three years. The fabricated references spanned nearly 3,000 academic papers. Topaz's own experience spurred him to investigate the issue. An AI app he was using to help polish one of his own scientific papers inserted a fake citation, he told CBS News. It then slipped through several layers of peer reviews before one sharp-eyed editor caught the phony reference. "I was mortified, because I've been studying AI for the past 15 years, so if it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone," he said. Such mishaps arise when an author asserts a statement of fact and asks AI for a citation, Topaz explained. "In some cases, AI would slip those in, inadvertently," he said. "You would hope the facts are accurate, but if they are supported by fabricated citations, you don't know if the 'facts' are accurate." In some cases, an AI tool will also cite a real author while inventing research and attributing it to that person. Other times, citations were completely fabricated, Topaz said. "This is just the tip of the iceberg," he said, noting that research across other fields could also be subject to the same issues. Meanwhile, faux AI-generated scientific citations can "look perfectly real," Topaz added, who emphasized the importance of researchers rigorously fact-checking their work.

AI Literacy Across the United States Workforce

https://blog.citp.princeton.edu/2026/05/05/make-america-ai-ready-strengths-weaknesses-and-recommendations/ What Does It Do Well? It’s accessible. The choice of SMS for delivery maximizes reach. It meets people where they are, requiring no app installation, account creation, or navigating unfamiliar web platforms. The 10-minute-a-day pacing is practical. It emphasizes verification of AI outputs. The course consistently emphasizes that AI output must be checked, not blindly trusted. The example of looking up a restaurant only to find out that a nail salon has opened in its place is memorable (Lesson 6, below). The course also thoughtfully extends this skepticism to AI-generated images, video, and audio. It centers human responsibility. The quiz question about a coworker submitting an AI-generated report with fabricated statistics (Lesson 2, below) returns a sensible response: the human is responsible. This is repeated throughout the course and is one of its most important messages. It’s honest about AI’s limitations. The course doesn’t shy away from the fact that AI can be confidently wrong. The term “hallucination” is introduced clearly, the concept of training data cutoffs is explained, and the course repeatedly emphasizes that AI predicts rather than knows or understands. For a 101-level course, this is appropriately calibrated. What could be fixed in AI 101? There are some things we’d recommend fixing about the course. The course repeatedly contradicts its own privacy and security advice. The course contains a serious inconsistency when it comes to data privacy and security. On the last day of the course it offers common-sense advice, stating “PROTECT your private info. Never share passwords, Social Security numbers, medical records, or confidential work data with AI tools,” later adding not to share “income data.” But some of the advice and exercises leading up to that point had already prompted users to input some of these “never share” types of data. • On Day 3, the course urges the user to input a photo, PDF or recording of their own voice. • On Day 4, it says that a “power move” is for users to “give AI your own data to work with,” including instructions to “paste your resume” and “share your monthly expenses.” • On Day 5, the course says that a good use case for AI is putting “medical symptoms” in to learn medical terms and prepare questions for a doctor. • On Day 6, it tells the user to share their address to find a restaurant near them. These self-contradictions expose a central tension: AI tools can be more useful when they know more about you, so a blanket prohibition against sharing private information will limit their usefulness. Unfortunately, there is no simple answer to the question of how to protect your privacy when using AI, and there is no single approach that will work for everyone. It requires critical thinking based on an understanding of different threat models, including prompt injection risks, traditional cybersecurity risks, legal risks, AI companies’ eagerness to train on user data, and workplace policies that of course vary between organizations. We recognize that this level of nuance would be too much for an introductory course. We would recommend that the privacy protection lesson come earlier in the course, and include information about privacy settings that AI tools offer, such as temporary or incognito chats. Instead of the “never share” language, giving people at least a rudimentary understanding of what could go wrong would be more helpful, along with links to resources where they can learn more. The quizzes adopt a right-wrong dichotomy The quiz questions often ask the user for an explanation of AI’s failure modes and social effects. While it is important to face these head-on, the questions consistently have one “obviously correct” answer that maps to the course’s framing. Several wrong answers are absurd strawmen (“AI likes making things up to test you,” “AI’s internet connection was slow”). This limits the potential to build genuine understanding or critical thinking about AI’s functioning and societal implications. We would recommend an approach that highlights known issues without pretending that the explanations are simple. Flexibility in how issues are framed will allow course participants to grapple with them in a manner that is relevant to the skills they are building. More open-ended quiz questions might include: “Your employer starts mandating that all workers use AI. This may enable your employer to monitor your productivity. What are your options?” or “You are about to apply for a loan. How can you find out whether and how AI will be used in evaluating your application?” What could DOL build upon in AI 201? Expanding upon the introductory materials in the 101 course, there are several opportunities for content development that we would recommend. The course misses how AI is reshaping work For a course that is offered by the Department of Labor, there is very little content on the subject of work — the course frames AI solely as a productivity tool workers can use. The Department of Labor exists to protect workers, their wages, their safety, and their rights, yet the course largely skips over the ways AI is already reshaping hiring, performance monitoring, and layoffs of workers across many sectors. An AI 201 course could provide more information on these, and inform citizens of legitimate reasons they may have to call for regulation. It could also go into more depth on the privacy question. Finally, AI 201 could reckon with the broader societal consequences of this technology: for instance, bias, surveillance, and the concentration of power in the hands of a few large technology companies. Workers who understand these dynamics are not just AI-literate; they are better equipped to advocate for themselves. Deepening Technical Explanations The 101 course keeps its terminology simple, which is important. But sometimes it oversimplifies. An AI 201 could deepen the explanation of how models are trained, make inferences, and deliver human-interpretable results. The course’s technical explanation — AI finds patterns and makes predictions — serves as the entire mental model. This framing makes AI sound more mechanistic and less opaque than it actually is. On day 3, the language of pattern and prediction drops out, with the language of “instruction” and “results” substituting in for the human input and predicted output of AI. The current course also equates predicting with guessing and AI training with “studying” – analogies that might be a useful starting point, but are quite limiting. For an AI 201 course, the connections between AI learning, model weights and predictions – as well as the connections between all of these things and the results generated from instructions – could be deepened. Indeed, how AI can be biased, can hallucinate, and otherwise can make errors is easier to comprehend when one understands a bit of the math behind machine learning. More Active Learning Engagement The quizzes in AI 101 are based on reputable learning science. Often the quiz will introduce a new concept or ask the user to stretch what they just learned to cover a new situation. There’s good evidence to think that this sort of “pre-assessment,” followed quickly by lessons teaching the correct answer, does improve retention in general. But as we said the AI 101 quiz questions consistently have one “obviously correct” answer that maps to the course’s framing, limiting the potential to challenge the user’s understanding. Additionally, we found minimal tailoring of text-message responses to the user’s quiz answers, despite the affordances of the interactive platform. If one user selects what is considered a right answer while another selects a wrong one (we tested this), the course responds with similar if not identical information. Better quizzes in AI 201 could perhaps be assessed by an LLM, with adaptive responses that meet the user where they are, and stretch their understanding when they’ve acquired a solid base. The daily challenges in AI 101 (Quick Draw, Udio music generation, fridge photo recipes) are well-designed to get people past the intimidation barrier. They’re low-stakes, fun, and demonstrate AI capabilities concretely. But for AI 201 they could be more effectively leveraged to actually show people how AI can be useful in their work and daily lives, and can (as promised by AI 101) “save them 5 hours per week”. Who created the course, and how? The DOL’s press release announcing the course points to a collaboration with a private partner called Arist. Arist’s website at the time of writing states that “Arist is the #1 enablement AI. Arist’s agents orchestrate creation, delivery, and analytics, end-to-end.” While the DOL announcement gives little detail as to the nature of the collaboration, if the company co-developed actual course content using generative AI this fact should be disclosed. One of us ran selected course content through Pangram, a tool which purports to detect AI content, and the results came back suggesting it was 100% AI-generated. Without putting too much stock in that, we began to suspect that some of the faults in the course could be explained this way. The simplistic framing of how AI generates results (patterns/predictions, instructions/results) could come from AI: since LLMs are trained on old explanations of how LLMs work, they may reach for framings that are not up-to-date. Also, if each module/quiz was generated separately, that could explain abrupt changes in terminology and the contradictions we identified regarding the sharing/not sharing of private information. The use of AI for content creation isn’t a problem per se; but the failure to disclose left a missed opportunity for a teachable moment on the utility and risks associated with generative content. Also, the contradictions in regards to security and privacy, which we discussed earlier, should have been caught by human oversight. Additionally, going forward, transparency about how commercial partners are involved can lend itself to wider adoption and trust of course materials and DOL initiatives. The final lesson of the course refers users to an Arist-sponsored AI summit featuring Tony Robbins and Dean Graziosi. While the Summit appeared to be free, it raises the question of what other paid AI-enablement sessions or products these well-known coaches might offer. Graziosi has drawn attention for his role in other problematic training programs. Users deserve to know who benefits from pursuing the recommendations made by a Federal agency. Conclusion Make America AI Ready offers significant insight into the priorities the Federal government holds in reaching widespread AI-literacy across the United States workforce. Although we suggested several areas for development, the course content and manner in which it was released are a useful start in achieving this aim.

War and Love

https://www.nguoi-viet.com/nvtv-tin-tuc/nvtv-tin-thoi-su/tam-tinh-chu-tat-tien-sach-war-and-love-su-that-cuoc-chien-viet-nam-qua-goc-nhin-nguoi-linh-vnch/ War and Love by Chu Tat Tien

Myths about Sleep

https://www.npr.org/2024/01/09/1196978496/debunking-popular-myths-about-sleep To help educate the public about healthy sleep, Robbins and her colleagues identified popular myths about sleep and debunked them in a 2019 paper published in the journal Sleep Health. They looked at statements such as "many adults need only 5 or less hours of sleep" and "it does not matter what time of day you sleep." And they found that these claims had "a limited or questionable evidence base." Robbins walks through some of these myths with Life Kit and shares some much-needed tips on how to get better sleep. MYTH 1: It doesn't matter what time of day you sleep "Unfortunately, the time of day does matter," says Robbin. Our circadian rhythm — the internal circuitry that guides the secretion of the essential sleep hormone melatonin — is "significantly influenced by natural sunlight in our environment." When the sun comes up and we go outside, that sunshine "stops the floodgates of melatonin and switches the 'on' phase of our circadian rhythm," she says. "Conversely, going into a dark environment is what allows for the secretion of melatonin," she adds. MYTH 2: One night of sleep deprivation will have lasting effects If you had a bad night of sleep, don't stress — just get back to your normal sleep routine as soon as possible, says Robbins. But those effects likely resolve with recovery sleep. So if you have an off night, don't beat yourself up about it, says Robbins. Instead, try to get back on track with your normal sleep schedule as soon as possible. MYTH 3: Being able to fall asleep anytime, anywhere is a good thing Being able to fall asleep in random places, like your desk, isn't a good thing. It takes a well-rested, healthy person about 15 to 20 minutes to fall asleep, says Robbins. "It's a myth that a good sleeper would be able to hit the pillow and fall asleep right away," says Robbins. "This is because sleep is a process." It takes a well-rested, healthy person about 15 to 20 minutes or maybe a little bit longer to fall asleep, she adds. MYTH 4: You can survive on less than five hours of sleep Some people brag about needing only a few hours of sleep at night. That may come from the notion in our high-performing society that "well-rested people are lazy," says Robbins — "which is a myth." The reality is that adults need about seven to nine hours of sleep a night, she says. "That's where we see the most optimal health [outcomes]: improved heart health, longevity and brain health into our older years." Sleeping less than seven hours a night can result in weight gain, obesity, diabetes and hypertension, according to a statement from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society. It's also associated with impaired immune function, impaired performance and increased errors — like "sending an email to the wrong person or entering incorrect numbers in a spreadsheet," says Robbins. So if you can, try to hit that goal of sleeping seven to nine hours as many nights of the week as possible, she adds. You'll know that you've hit your sweet spot when you "wake up feeling refreshed, have energy throughout the day and are not reaching for coffee or energy drinks in the afternoon." MYTH 5: Watching TV is a good way to relax before bedtime Watching a show on a device that emits heat, like a laptop positioned on your stomach, can deter your ability to fall asleep, says Robbins. MYTH 6: Exercising within four hours of bedtime will disturb your sleep What the research does show is that exercise and sleep appear "mutually beneficial," wrote Robbins and her colleagues in their paper. One analysis of several research papers found that people who consistently exercised saw "small to moderate improvements in sleep." "Exercise releases endorphins, which are mood elevators that can help with the No. 1 cause of sleep difficulties: stress," she says. For that reason, Robbins encourages people to exercise — even if it's close to bedtime. "If that's the only time you can get a workout in, go for it."

9 people share the best life advice they ever got from their mom

https://www.npr.org/2023/05/14/1176068317/9-pieces-of-sage-life-advice-from-your-moms-and-grandmothers 9 people share the best life advice they ever got from their mom Updated May 9, 202510:01 AM ET 1. Avoid too many cooks in the kitchen "My mom used to tell me: 'The more people who become involved in a disagreement, the less likely it is to be resolved.' " – Jenny Hougendobler 2. Don't rely on a partner for money "Don't ever rely on a man for your financial security. This was advice from my mom in the 1960s. She was a career woman and a feminist. My dad was sporadically employed. When I started working, she encouraged me to contribute the max to my 401k before I really understood what a 401k was." – Meegan Holland Sponsor Message 3. 'It all comes out in the wash' "My grandmother used to tell me, when things got bad in my life, not to worry because 'it all comes out in the wash.' " – Ralph P. Fontcuberta, III 4. Remember the golden rule "My mom always said, 'If you treat people the way you want to be treated, you'll never have trouble sleeping.' " – Roberta Bruhn 5. Keep yourself grounded "When I was raising teenagers, [my mom] told me that teenagers are on a roller coaster full of ups and downs — but that as tempting as it would be to get on the ride with them, it would be better for all of us if I stayed on the ground." – Kelly Ramsey 6. 'Don't be afraid to ask for help' "Twenty years ago, I was a single mom raising two kids, ages 8 and 6. I had a full-time job and a long commute. My stepmom told me, 'Don't be afraid to ask for help.' It worked. A little bit of help here and there from a friend or neighbor took the edge off a challenging day." – Gail Webber 7. Beauty isn't everything "While not super helpful in the moment, [and] usually said when I was concerned about clothes, she was right. Growing up as a teen girl, the focus on beauty was extreme, and my mom's feminist perspective has helped shape my lens of the world." – Sarah Switzer 8. It takes all kinds of people "My mom always said when I was complaining about someone, 'It takes all kinds of people to make a world.' " – Judy Peters 9. If something scares you... "My mom told me that if something scares you, you should probably do that thing." – Andrea Brannon

Emotional Surveillance

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026/05/worker-surveillance-emotion-ai/687029/ The Rise of Emotional Surveillance Companies are monitoring workers not just for productivity but for agreeability. By Ellen Cushing May 3, 2026, 8 AM ET The good news, for me at least, is that the computer thinks I have a nice personality. According to an app called MorphCast, I was, in a recent meeting with my boss, generally “amused,” “determined,” and “interested,” though—sue me—occasionally “impatient.” MorphCast, you see, purports to glean insights into the depths and vagaries of human emotion using AI. It found that my affect was “positive” and “active,” as opposed to negative and/or passive. My attention was reasonably high. Also, the AI informed me that I wear glasses—revelatory! The bad news is that software now purports to glean insights into the depths and vagaries of human emotion using AI, and it is coming to watch you. If it isn’t already: Morphcast, for example, has licensed its technology to a mental-health app, a program that monitors schoolchildren’s attention, and McDonald’s, which launched a promotional campaign in Portugal that scanned app users’ faces and offered them personalized coupons based on their (supposed) mood. It is one of many, many such companies doing similar work—the industry term is emotion AI or sometimes affective computing. Some products analyze video of meetings or job interviews or focus groups; others listen to audio for pitch, tone, and word choice; still others can scan chat transcripts or emails and spit out a report about worker sentiment. Sometimes, the emotion AI is baked in as a feature in multiuse software, or sold as part of an expensive analytics package marketed to businesses. But it’s also available as a stand-alone product, and the barrier to entry is shin-high: I used MorphCast at no cost, taking advantage of a free trial, and with no special software. At no point was I compelled to ask my interlocutors if they consented to being analyzed in this way (though I did ask, because of my good personality)….