Aging/Older Adults

This report outlines concrete steps to protect vulnerable Social Security beneficiaries and recipients. The report includes recommendations for Congress, the Office of Management and Budget and SSA to strengthen the current administrative process, create better monitoring and explore comprehensive, government-wide coordination and cross-agency reform of rep-payee processes.

This resource identifies key challenges related to oral health care access and utilization for low-income adults, and outlines states’ current coverage of dental benefits for adults in Medicaid.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) examined states’ needs assessment processes for provision of long-term services and supports. GAO studied six states that differed in the following ways: assessment tools in use, participation in federal initiatives, HCBS delivery systems, and geographic location. GAO also reviewed federal requirements and documents and interviewed CMS officials and stakeholders.

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.

Building Complex Care Programs: A Road Map for States is a guide for state leaders in establishing and advancing complex care programs. This guide from the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) Health Division includes lessons learned from their work with states and effective practices gleaned from multiple pioneering state and local complex care initiatives.

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.

Previous studies have demonstrated that socially isolated older adults are at greater risk for poor health and death than their well-connected counterparts. The AARP Public Policy Institute has released a new report that examines whether social isolation also affects health care spending among older adults, and finds that a lack of social contacts among older adults is associated with an estimated $6.7 billion in additional Medicare spending annually.

The Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP) is a $400 million federal workforce investment program projected to serve over 67,000 low-income unemployed older adults in program year (PY) 2017. This is the only federally funded program to target older individuals who want to enter or reenter the workforce. The fiscal year (FY) 2018 budget eliminates all funding for SCSEP. This white paper examines the evidence on the value of SCSEP and discusses the potential effects of cutting it.

This issue brief provides an overview of state agency data systems that are utilized to collect, aggregate, and analyze data for the administration of the Older Americans Act (OAA) programs. This report provides a snapshot of current state systems in 2017, changes to which are impacted by both national and state-level factors.

This report reviews federal health and housing policies, noting the barriers created that seniors with clinically-driven housing insecurity must navigate. It also reviews a series of initiatives that ACAP members are undertaking to address housing as a social determinant for this vulnerable population, with examples from California, Ohio, and North Carolina.