Long-Term Care

The National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care recently published the Fall 2023 issue of “The Resident Advocate,” their newsletter for long-term care residents containing news and information on rights, care issues, and updates on national policy. This issue includes: Tips for living with a roommate in a long-term care facility, Staffing issues in long-term care and how you can advocate for change, Steps to take when there is a problem in your nursing home, Reminders for visiting long-term care facilities during the holidays, and Participating in this year’s Residents’ Rights Month.

On March 3, 2020, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report that details challenges the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) faces in meeting growing demand for long-term care (LTC). Three major challenges the VA faces includes workforce shortages, ailing care geographically, and meeting needs for specialty care. The VA currently provides or pays for LTC for over 500,000 veterans in the U.S. in both institutional and HCBS settings.

The National Academy of Social Insurance released a report on potential designs for universal family care. The report highlights state program design proposals for early child care and education, paid family and medical leave, and long-term services and supports. The LTSS section of the report proposes four design issues states may face in developing a social insurance program for LTSS.

This updated primer explains key provisions of the Ombudsman rule. It highlights promising practices for coordination between State Agencies and the State Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program in long-term services and supports. The report was co-authored with the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care, who serves as a partner in the Administration for Community Living funded National Long-Term Care Ombudsman Resource Center (NORC).

On Thursday, November 15, 2018, the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) published an issue brief exploring the upcoming changes to spousal impoverishment policies in Federal Medicaid HCBS policy. This report provides an explanation of why spousal impoverishment policies exist, the changes made by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and the potential implications of the expiration of these ACA changes.

This report presents the most current descriptive national information on the supply, organizational characteristics, staffing, and services offered by paid, regulated providers of long-term care services in five sectors; and the demographic, health, and functional composition of users of these services. Services users include residents of nursing homes and residential care communities, patients of home health agencies and hospices, and participants of adult day services centers.

The Long-Term Care Financing Collaborative released a final report detailing the consensus framework for long-term care financing reform. LTCFC offered recommendations for reforms to expand access to long-term services and supports (LTSS) for individuals with all financial backgrounds. The proposed changes include: Clear private and public roles for long-term care financing; a new universal catastrophic long-term care insurance program; and redefining Medicaid LTSS to empower greater autonomy.

The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), with funding from the SCAN Foundation, published a report offering recommendations to improve the financing of long-term care. The BPC published another report in April 2014 that examined the challenges in financing and delivery. This report is a follow up of those findings that offers recommendations to improve these issues.

This white paper examines the progress that is being made in the Aging Network. This paper covers key developments that are re-shaping the network as well as efforts to better measure the quality and value of its programs and services. The paper also includes: Case studies highlighting the work of the aging network in Florida, Massachusetts and California, discussion of quality initiatives and congressional actions, and concluding observations.

The AARP Public Policy Institute published a report that examined what state Medicaid agencies need in order to effectively monitor the performance of managed long-term services and supports (MLTSS) programs. Eight states with long-term experience operating and overseeing MLTSS were used to analyze monitoring capacities and develop promising practices. The states were: Arizona, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.