Long Term Services and Supports

This infographic has facts and statistics about programs serving older adults and the experiences of older Americans.

Experts at The Vanderbilt Kennedy Center and the state of Tennessee say families in poverty with disabilities in Tennessee and nationwide face difficulty both accessing and utilizing long term services and supports (LTSS) in both rural and urban areas. This article breaks down issues of accessibility across the country by discussing how affordable housing, transportation, and social determinants of health affect individuals differently based on their ability and region.

ADvancing States is pleased to announce the release of a new issue brief, Addressing Nursing Facility Financing Challenges during MLTSS Program Development developed in collaboration with Milliman. This brief is intended to shed light on the complex and often-misunderstood relationship between nursing facility financing and Medicaid delivery system design.

A Master Plan for Aging (MPA) is a cross-sector, state-led strategic planning process that can help states transform the infrastructure and coordination of services that support older adults, people with disabilities, and caregivers.This brief outlines unexpected benefits of the MPA process, and illustrates how they can help states respond to new priorities and challenges, such as public health emergencies and health equity.

The majority of individuals who need long-term services and supports (LTSS) in the United States rely on unpaid assistance from family and friends. The economic value of the unpaid care they provide is estimated to be over $470 billion annually. Unmet needs and waiting lists for Medicaid Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) place significant strain on individuals with disabilities and their families. This report explores how increasing access to HCBS services can reduce out-of-pocket costs for families and strengthen employment and financial wellbeing of family caregivers.

This report, written by RTI International and the Center for Health Care Strategies, combines information gathered from an environmental scan and case studies to provide an overview of the current landscape of Medicare Advantage Organizations (MAOs) that provide expanded supplemental benefits. It includes their initial experiences and challenges with developing and administering the benefits to their members.

In this blog post, Nancy Archibald, MHA, MBA, Associate Director of Integrated Care at CHCS, describes the state of Indiana's plan to launch Medicaid managed long-term services and supports in 2024. The state is receiving grant funding through Advancing Medicare & Medicaid Integration, an Arnold Ventures initiative developed in partnership with CHCS that assists states in filling resource gaps in designing and launching integrated care programs.

On January 12, 2022, CMS released the Medicaid LTSS Annual Expenditures Report for Federal Fiscal Year (FFY) 2019. This report discusses the LTSS rebalancing trends and growth in expenditures for home and community-based services as compared to institutional spending during the time period reviewed.

ACL recently published a new report sharing new information and insights on Older Americans Act (OAA) services, reveals major OAA milestones, and key information on the impact and necessity of services for older adults. This report includes highlights from OAA Title III programs in 2018.

COVID-19 is a long-lasting and complex disaster situation involving a public health emergency and an economic crisis, with particularly acute impacts for older adults, people with disabilities, and others with certain health conditions. States are responding with changes in policies and procedures to ensure individuals have access to public benefit programs (e.g. Medicare Savings Programs, LIS/Extra Help, SNAP, and LIHEAP). ADvancing States has a new brief highlighting where states are with benefit access and enrollment since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results in the brief comes from the 2021 ADvancing States Membership Survey: COVID-19 Benefits Access and Enrollment, a follow-up to the 2020 survey.