Policy alerts, briefs, letters & papers

This report provides a summary of how long-term services and supports (LTSS) are financed and describes factors that contribute to uncertainty of the future costs for LTSS, including changes in how LTSS will be delivered. Three projections of future LTSS spending for senior populations under different scenarios are offered. These scenarios differ based on projecting the number of people with varying functional limitations and the resulting need for varying degrees of LTSS.

Here is a one stop resource of documents and history related to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA). In addition to the text, summary, and legislative history of the laws, you can find advocacy resources, news and analysis. The attached article serves as a general summary of the history of the ADA and the effort to restore its original intent of achieving full civil rights for people with disabilities through the ADAAA.

This is the eighth consecutive year that state Medicaid officials were surveyed to track program trends. In addition to data on expenditures and enrollment, the report outlines policy enhancements and restrictions in all states and the District of Columbia. The resource ends with a discussion of current key Medicaid issues and perspectives of State Medicaid Directors.

Determining how to optimally balance our demand for the best health care with limited funding represents one of the most challenging policy dilemmas facing the U.S. To help understand how to best accomplish this task, the document authors forecast Medicaid expenditures and enrollment for the next ten years. The data are organized by enrollment groups and service settings/categories.

The Medicaid Buy-In (MBI), Social Security Disability Income (SSDI), and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs all provide workers with disabilities options to maintain health coverage if they earn too much for Medicaid or Medicare benefits. The first issue brief explains how these programs compare and interact in terms of eligibility, coverage, populations, and enrollment. The second examines how MBI participants that collect SSDI utilize SSDI work incentives.

Answering the question posed in the title is one key to evaluating Medicaid Buy-In (MBI) programs. This issue brief, the fifth in a series on workers with disabilities, compares demographics, health status, and expenditures between these groups. Significant areas of difference that were identified are race, gender, diagnoses, and expenditures.

This brief, the third and final in a series, offers information on how services and supports delivered by peer providers could be financed through state and federal programs. Review approaches to different financing strategies for services rendered by Consumer Operated Service Programs (COSPs) and peer providers in traditional mental health agencies. Also included are procedure codes commonly used to bill and two federal funding streams currently for financing and provides examples from states.

This second brief, which is part 2 of a 3 part series, provides information on approaches policymakers may consider as they establish and support peer providers in traditional mental health provider agencies and networks. It discusses approaches to introducing the concept of peer providers to agencies, strategies for addressing staff attitudes regarding peer providers, supervising peer providers, liability and risk management, and other pressing issues for agencies that employ peer providers.

This first brief, which is part 1 of a 3 part series, aims to provide information to state policymakers on the two prominent models of peer support services (COSPs and peer providers). The brief discusses each model, provides examples of programs for each model, and offers a discussion of how policymakers might assess which model is right for their jurisdiction. In addition the document sets forth key questions for policymakers who are interested in developing and supporting these models.

Federal data is used to describe the status of Americans with disabilities and their quality of life. The report measures indicators such as employment, education, health status and health care, financial security, leisure and recreation, personal relationships, and crime and safety. The authors also lay out a road map for the federal government to expand the national disability indicator set, as well as for installing the set into a key national indicator system.