Dual Eligibles

Working together, housing and health care partners can launch initiatives that lead to improved health, safety, and quality of life for low-income older adults facing multiple health and social challenges. This guide outlines how housing and health providers can work together to make life better for older adults.

This GAO report examines (1) the extent to which Medicaid enrollees have private insurance, and (2) the state and CMS initiatives to improve third-party liability (TPL). Given the findings in the report, GAO recommends that CMS routinely monitor and share information regarding key TPL efforts and challenges, as well as provide guidance on state oversight of TPL efforts conducted by Medicaid managed care plans.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) provides new but limited opportunities to promote or fund specialized transportation services for older people and adults with disabilities. This paper explains how states can use these largely untapped options to expand services for targeted low-income populations with mobility needs. It also presents two case studies illustrating how the Atlanta region and the state of Connecticut are making this work.

As low-income adults covered under Medicaid expansion become eligible for and transition into Medicare, these individuals will face higher cost-sharing requirements. This report describes programs and policy options that could help low-income Medicare beneficiaries.

This study focuses on understanding the rates and patterns of enrollment in Medicaid among individuals already enrolled in Medicare, the factors that predict this transition to dual coverage, and those that predict nursing home entry. This volume of this report is a descriptive examination of the number and characteristics of Medicare beneficiaries who transition to dual coverage in the coming year.

This study focuses on understanding the rates and patterns of enrollment in Medicaid among individuals already enrolled in Medicare, the factors that predict this transition to dual coverage, and those that predict nursing home entry. This volume provides estimated econometric models that predict beneficiaries' enrollment in Medicaid, and their entry into long-term nursing home stays.

This report developed new estimates of the program's effects for Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) enrollees in eight states based on more recent data. PACE plans provide coordinated acute and long-term care services to nursing home eligible seniors residing in the community.

Shifting the balance in publicly-funded long-term care provision away from institutional care toward greater reliance on home and community-based services has been a federal goal for the past three decades -- a goal often referred to as "re-balancing" state LTC systems. This report explores inter-state variations in LTC expenditure and service use patterns, in terms of institutional and non-institutional services, and also by Medicaid LTC users' age and type of disability.

In this report, the GAO examined claims, expenditure, and quality data from Dual Eligible Special Needs Plans (D-SNPs) during 2009. The GAO notes that D-SNPs with higher levels of Medicare and Medicaid integration performed better on quality outcomes but did not reduce utilization of costly Medicare services. The GAO concludes that CMS projected savings from the Financial Alignment Demonstration and other initiatives to integrate care for dual eligible beneficiaries may be overstated.

This report brings together available evidence on the effect of PACE on several key outcomes: Medicare and Medicaid costs, hospital and nursing home utilization, quality of care, satisfaction and quality of life, and mortality. The authors summarize findings from past studies and assess their methodological approach. They improve on these earlier evaluations by conducting a more detailed review of the studies, as well as a more rigorous assessment of the quality of evidence presented in each.