Direct Care Workforce

A recent report from Long-Term Quality Alliance (LTQA) and the Community Living Policy Center (CLPC) at Brandeis University highlights recommendations to inform future research, policy, and practice that aim to advance efforts to improve standardized data collection and reporting, to better understand the impacts of direct-care workforce shortages, and to drive critical investments in the direct-care workforce. To inform this exploratory study, LTQA and CLPC conducted six focus groups and four key informant interviews with managed-LTSS health plans, home-care providers, self-direction experts, fiscal intermediaries, state-association representatives, and other policy experts and advocates...

On Thursday, December 7, the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) issued a report to address issues related to the long-standing shortage of direct care workers. Through research, interviews with stakeholders and federal policy experts, and private roundtable discussions, BPC identified three major challenges to recruiting and retaining direct care workers...

ACL has awarded a five-year grant totaling over $6 million to establish a national center to expand and strengthen the direct care workforce across the country. In support of the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to strengthening the care economy, this initiative will provide technical assistance to states and service providers and facilitate collaboration with stakeholders to improve recruitment, retention, training, and professional development of the direct care workers who provide the critical services that make it possible for people with disabilities and older adults to live in their own homes and communities.

National Association of State Directors of Developmental Disabilities Services (NASDDDS) released a joint white paper with the Institute on Community Integration at UMN and the Human Services Research Institute providing data on and suggested policy remedies for the direct support workforce crisis.

Workforce Affinity Group

Workforce Affinity Group

Workforce Affinity Group

The AHCCCS Administration is publishing preliminary decisions for Differential Adjusted Payments (DAP) strategies to be implemented in the contracting year 2022 for select AHCCCS-registered Arizona providers, which meet agency established performance criteria. This preliminary public notice also addresses future DAP reimbursement strategies that may be considered for implementation in CYE 2023 and thereafter. DAP rates are proposed to be implemented to assure that payments are consistent with efficiency, economy, and quality of care and are sufficient to enlist enough providers so that care and services are available at least to the extent that such care and services are available to the general public in the geographic area.

This report summarizes findings from research involving stakeholder organizations working with family caregivers in the private and public sectors. The report includes insights into best practice models and action steps that can be included in the national strategy to meet the RAISE goals. Additional stakeholder groups such as the direct care workforce, county health care providers, employers, aging and disability organizations, faith-based groups, respite care providers, and others participated in a series of individual interviews and group listening sessions.

States are often exploring ways to effectively support direct care workers, who are often times women, people of color, and living at or near the poverty level. This blog post explores four key recommendations for states to strengthen their direct care workforce, with an emphasis on state Medicaid agencies. The post draws from a CHCS report which focused on strategies used in the state of Michigan.