LTSS

The Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS) and Manatt Health has developed a new toolkit that provides a targeted menu of long-term services and supports (LTSS) reform strategies adopted by state innovators that may be replicated by other states. The toolkit identifies concrete policy strategies, operational steps, and federal and state authorities that states have used to advance their LTSS reforms.

This report presents the findings and conclusions of this national evaluation of the MFP demonstration. The MFP Rebalancing Demonstration program launched more than nine years ago. There are 44 grantee states, and as of the end of calendar year 2015, grantee states had transitioned a total of 63,337 Medicaid beneficiaries from long-term institutional care to community residences and home and community-based LTSS.

This is a technical report about the supports and services that people with IDD receive through the State IDD agency. In addition to the report, there are state profiles, which describe status and trends for each state in the country, and a chart gallery, which is an interactive tool to view detailed data by state, year, and funding authority. Topics include ICF/IID and Medicaid Waiver recipients, expenditures and expenditures per person from 1977 to 2015.

The historical progression of bundled payments from acute care to post-acute care and the growing recognition of the value of HCBS create an interesting opportunity for sustainably integrating medical services with other (LTSS). Building on past lessons from efforts to incorporate community-based LTSS into traditional medical care models, such as care transitions, may help to inform successful future strategies to enable bundles to more efficiently achieve the Triple Aim.

Many individuals with long-term services and supports (LTSS) needs either reside in institutions or are at risk for institutionalization. Rebalancing care to provide LTSS in the community is one goal of the federal Financial Alignment Initiative for Medicare-Medicaid enrollees. This profile details the experiences of the Health Plan of San Mateo (HPSM) as it implements a pilot program to help dually eligible individuals in nursing facilities transition back to community living.

The National Center for Health Statistics' Long-Term Care Statistics Branch released a report on variation in residential care community nurse and aide staffing levels in the United States. This report presents national and state estimates of staffing levels in residential care communities for registered nurses, licensed practical or vocational nurses, and aides in the United States for 2014.

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.

Justice in Aging, with the support of the Albert and Elaine Borchard Center on Law and Aging, released a new paper, Advocacy Starts at Home: Strengthening Low-Income Older Adults and Caregivers. The paper's structure introduces Margaret and her story of being a family caregiver, discusses the problems as a result of the strain of poverty on low-income family caregivers and then offers solutions to help support older adults and their caregivers.