Cash and Counseling

Flexible Choices (a Cash & Counseling program) is a consumer or surrogate directed home and community based option. The program offers consumers a cash-value allowance with which to purchase their care. Working with a consultant the individual develops a budget which details expenditure of the allowance. This procedure from the Vermont’s LTC program manual details what is allowable for purchase. As states consider the idea of allowing purchased goods and services, this list serves as a guide.

AoA announced $13 million to support state efforts to help individuals with long-term care needs to avoid unnecessary nursing home placement. This includes $10 Million for an AoA Nursing Home Diversion Modernization Grants Program and a special $3 Million funding opportunity made available by the Veterans Health Administration. Only State Units on Aging are eligible to apply, but must involve AAAs and community-based organizations in projects. The application deadline is August 14, 2008.

Here, consumers and advocates can find information and tools needed for effective self-directed mental health care. The guide summarizes the goals of self-directed planning and the rights of the consumers. It also lists strategies by states to support these services. Fact sheets and questions-and-answers provide further information on financing, eligibility, evaluation, planning, and support brokerage.

The authors examined whether consumer direction is effective for elderly people with mental illness. The treatment group, those that participated in Cash and Counseling, fared better than elderly people that have a mental illness but did not participate in C&C. They also fared as well as elderly people without mental illness that were in the program. Variables studied included measures of consumer satisfaction as well as objective measures such as health, among others.

Best practices in HCBS workforce development, Federal and state workforce initiatives, and research findings are highlighted in these slides and handouts. Presentations and workshops touched on wages and benefits, recruitment, credentials, peer support, policy, and more. The agenda, program, and evaluation results are also available. The symposium was hosted by the National Direct Service Workforce Resource Center May 8-9, 2008 in Baltimore, MD with support from HHS and the Dept. of Labor.

This document sums up the proceedings and conclusions of a summit convened June, 2007 in Washington, D.C. by Mature Market Institute and the National Alliance for Caregiving. Six recommendations for future research on family caregiving are made based on identified gaps in knowledge. Also presented is a list of the most important past studies, as identified by participant consensus. Experts in the fields of social work, sociology, economics, psychology, and gerontology participated.

This book and corresponding materials present a strategy for improving the health care workforce serving older adults via expanded education and training, models of care, and public/private programs. The committee proposes a three-prong approach: 1)Enhance the geriatric competence of the entire workforce; 2)Increase the recruitment and retention of geriatric specialists and caregivers; 3)Improve the way care is delivered. The book is available free online or for sale in PDF or hard copy format.

This report outlines an integrated strategy to update the country’s long-term care services infrastructure in preparation for the aging of the population over the next thirty years. Recommendations are focused on the areas of quality, workforce, technology, and financing.

This final report summarizes the findings from five years of research on how each of the three demonstration states implemented its program, and on how the programs have affected the consumers who participated, the consumers’ paid and unpaid caregivers, and the costs to Medicaid. The analysis is based on an experimental design to ensure that the estimates of program effects are unbiased, and has sample sizes that are adequate to detect program effects of policy-relevant magnitudes.

The presentations from the November 2007 F/EA Workshop are now available. Topics included Promising Practices in Workers’ Compensation, CMS Policies, the Role of Reporting Agents in the Provision, plus Government and Vendor F/EA Operations, Design and Implementation Issues. Review the presentations by states, vendors and subject matter experts.