Aging/Older Adults

This report explores innovations that have the potential to improve quality of life for Americans who live with physical or cognitive burdens due to aging or disability. The report identifies six opportunities for emerging technologies to help Americans live longer, healthier, and more independent lives. These six areas are: Key activities of daily living, Cognition, Communication and social connectivity, Personal mobility, Transportation, and Access to healthcare.

These profiles include promising practices that agencies use to conduct education and outreach to inform consumers about benefits, and to help aging and disability professionals connect clients to benefits, such as the Medicare low-income subsidies, SNAP, and LIHEAP. The tip sheets include practices about: engaging consumers through fun and interactive games; a system for providing comprehensive eligibility information; and tools to simplify benefits information for staff.

This paper focuses on how state-funded home and community-based services programs can support low-income older adults. It highlights promising practices that support maximum independence for low-income older adults and/or people with physical disabilities and their family caregivers. The paper explores programs across nine states, including Washington state’s emerging innovation: the Medicaid Transformation demonstration.

This fact sheet provides an overview of the safe use of prescription opioid pain medications. It discusses the process of safety reviews at the pharmacy, as well as the Drug Management Programs to help patients who are at risk for prescription drug abuse. It is important to note that safety reviews and Drug Management Programs generally don’t apply to those who have cancer, get hospice, palliative, or end-of-life care, or those who live in a long-term care facility.

This brief highlights the critical services provided by the Older Americans Act (OAA). It also reviews the current funding challenges the program faces in light of rising inflation and increased demand for services from a growing population of older adults. The OAA was last renewed in 2016 for three years and is up for renewal again in 2019.

This study analyzes the financial burden experienced by people who require long-term services and supports. The study analyzes medical and LTSS spending among older Medicare beneficiaries, particularly the costs of assistive devices and personal care. The results show that for medical services covered by Medicare, beneficiaries with a high need for long-term services spend more than $2,700 a year out of pocket on average, twice as high as those without such need.

This resource provides a summary of the ten most-reported scams the Senate Aging Committee's toll-free Fraud Hotline (1-855-303-9470) in 2018. Common instances reported include IRS impersonation scams, sweepstakes scams, and computer tech support scams. This report also summarizes common scams by state and provides tips for avoiding scams.

This issue brief identifies key food sources of sodium, saturated fat, empty calories, and refined grains in the diets of congregate and home delivered meal participants. It also compares these key food sources for both participants and nonparticipants and explores differences between the two groups. Click here to read more about ACL's Nutrition

The purpose of this issue brief is to describe the types of foods that participants consumed as part of congregate and home delivered meals. The brief also examines differences between participants and nonparticipants in foods consumed over 24 hours

Medicaid value-based payment (VBP) models tie payment to outcomes including quality of care, health status, and costs. This guide presents a checklist of four issues for consideration as states identify issues to consider when developing and adopting value-based payment (VBP) models for HCBS within managed long-term services and supports (MLTSS) programs. The guide also reviews strategies for stakeholder engagement.