Aging/Older Adults

The D.C., Georgia, Minnesota, and Vermont state innovation profiles capture projects, demonstrations, and partnerships that were shared by states at ADvancing States’s 2016 spring membership meeting. Each profile was developed in collaboration with the state agency.

During calendar year 2015, ADvancing States engaged in a collaboration with the DentaQuest Foundation to identify and promote effective oral health interventions for older adults and people with physical disabilities. This initiative involved collaborating with partners from the dental, aging, and disability fields in order to increase knowledge regarding issues and challenges related to dental services for older adults and people with disabilities.

This report represents two years of work by the HCBS Committee and and contains the Committee's final set of recommendations. It describes key components of a conceptual foundation for home and community based services (HCBS) quality measurement, specifically an operational definition of HCBS, a list of characteristics describing high-quality HCBS, and a measurement framework of 11 domains and 40 subdomains.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a report about how to fight elder financial exploitation by using community networks. CFPB also offered specific recommendations as to existing networks and stakeholders to assist in the fight against exploitation.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released their monthly report for June 2016 on Medicaid and CHIP application, eligibility determination, and enrollment data. States provide data to CMS on factors related to key application, eligibility and enrollment processes using the Medicaid and CHIP Performance Indicator Project. The data is then used to inform CMS on the operations of the programs in each state and to share state performance data publicly.

ADAPTED PACE is an operational framework for a comprehensive, capitated, and community-based service model. Consideration of testing the expansion and adaptation of the PACE (the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly) model (ADAPTED PACE) to serve new populations was recently made possible by the PACE Innovation Act which granted waiver authority to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for this purpose.

The Family Support Research and Training Center (FSRTC) published a report that identifies indicators to monitor, track, and evaluate family support services: demographics of the caregiving situation, the impact on families, and indicators to assess family support at the state level. It also details recommendations for improvements to national and state datasets. The recommendations are intended to aid researchers and policymakers in improving family support services nationwide.

The National Governors Association (NGA) Center for Best Practices Health Division released a new guide, “The Future of Medicaid Transformation: A Practical Guide for States.” The guide provides a framework for how states can design statewide Medicaid transformation proposals, and is based on the NGA policy academy attended by three states that initially pursued Section 1115 waivers (Alabama, Nevada, and Washington).

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released their monthly report for May 2016 on Medicaid and CHIP application, eligibility determination, and enrollment data. States provides data to CMS on factors related to key application, eligibility and enrollment processes using the Medicaid and CHIP Performance Indicator Project. The data is then used to inform CMS on the operations of the programs in each state and to share state performance data publicly.

On Wednesday, July 20, 2016, the Center for Health Care Strategies, Inc. (CHCS) published a new brief, “State Trends in the Delivery of Medicaid Long-Term Services and Supports.” With support from The SCAN Foundation, seven states (Arizona, California, Kansas, Minnesota, New Jersey, Tennessee, and Texas) were selected to provide insights into current trends in both managed long-term services and supports (MLTSS) program refinement and long term services and supports (LTSS) system reform.