Long Term Services and Supports

Louisiana’s Department of Health and Hospitals is currently advertising for a Director to lead its newly created unit for Aging/Adult Long Term Care services. Creation of this unit is part of an exciting, larger effort to reform how the state delivers long term supports and services to older adults and people with disabilities. The deadline to apply for this position is August 6th.

This Policy Research Brief reviews available research on the costs and outcomes of community service provision for people with intellectual disabilities (or “mental retardation”) and developmental disabilities, with a particular emphasis on residential services. It focuses on a number of key issues related not only to public expenditures, but also to funding systems, related policies and regulations, and their impact on service systems, on specific service types, and on service users.

Wisconsin launched a new initiative called Family Care that redesigns its long term supports system by concurrently reducing its complexity & increasing participant choice. One of its most groundbreaking features is the way it concretely translates into policy the principle of “money following the person” by creating for program participants an entitlement to both community supports & institutional care. This report looks at how the state uses single point of entry & person centered services.