Policy alerts, briefs, letters & papers

The Oklahoma Department of Human Services Aging Service Division presents this documentation of the principles and processes used in supporting its consumer advisory committee for Real Choice System Change grant and CDPASS grant activities. Building and documenting a shared vision of effective public policy funded by public dollars is a fundamental responsibility of grant recipients. This paper helps explain the stakeholder experience and considers ways to create a quality process.

To assist the CMS in monitoring the Medicaid Buy-In program, Mathematica has developed a series reports and policy briefs that present quantitative measures of participation in the program. For both the issue briefs and the statistical profile, researchers built a new longitudinal person-level database on Buy-In participants that contains information provided by the states as well as data from the SSI and SSDI programs and from Medicaid and Medicare programs.

This report, the latest in a series on participation in the Medicaid Buy-In program, presents a snapshot of the program in 2005 that captures the interplay of policy features, enrollment trends, and participant characteristics that have made the program what it is today. Moving away from the aggregated data used in previous studies, the analysis for this report is based on individual-level data provided by states to CMS through “finder files.”

The federal government will match expenditures that it deems necessary to support the “efficient and effective” administration of the Medicaid program. This administrative federal financial participation (FFP) is typically 50% of the costs, but in certain cases, enhanced match of up to 90% is available. Medicaid administrative activities can include many of the ADRC functions.

For people who have disabilities and consequent difficulty living independently, living in the community requires not only medical and support services, but also housing. This paper explores one approach to merging the worlds of housing and long-term care clustered housing-care. Clustered housing-care arrangements make it possible for individuals to age in place in secure, comfortable, residential-like settings. The paper defines, discusses the impact and questions the futures of this concept.

The Rhode Island MIG project produced an issue brief, which outlined the State’s utilization of 1619(a) and 1619(b) waivers, their effect on disabled workers, the barriers these waivers present, and recommendations for eliminating barriers and other best practices.

ADRCs have used a number of strategies to streamline access to long-term services and supports. One key strategy, used by many ADRCs, is to provide online applications for Medicaid or screening tools to assess eligibility for benefits. This issue brief provides details about ADRC grant efforts related to online applications. The report details both advantages and challenges plus provides a case example for South Carolina.

Whether by establishing strong referral protocols with local or state veterans agencies or by serving veterans directly, ADRC staff should be trained to assist veterans who come to ADRCs for information, assistance, or referral. This Issue Brief includes an overview of veterans, the services and benefits offered by the VA, examples of productive collaborations between veterans agencies and ADRCs, and resources for ADRCs.

The National Health Policy Forum Issue Brief provides information about Systems Change grants and the kinds of activities state Medicaid agencies have undertaken to transform their institutionally based systems. This brief raises critical policy questions related to public spending for long-term care in different settings that might be considered in tandem with future grant funding decisions.

This paper presents the perspective that options counseling is a pivotal function of Aging and Disability Resource Centers (ADRCs) and its essential elements are counseling and decision support. The diverse array of definitions currently in use runs the risk of diminishing the importance of options counseling, which is a key function of a comprehensive long-term care system.