Reports

This brief recognizes the issues that face home care workers – including low wages, difficult work, and few, if any, benefits. At the same time, demands for home health care are increasing. This document, written on behalf of the Service Employees International Union, advocates on behalf of home health workers to raise wages in order to encourage participation in a workforce that assists Illinois vulnerable populations.

Special Needs Plans (SNPs), authorized by the Medicare Modernization Act, offer state Medicaid programs a new potential vehicle for coordinating Medicare and Medicaid benefits for dual eligibles. This report investigates the degree to which states (and plans) are using this option to develop more fully integrated Medicare-Medicaid models for dual eligibles needing long-term care services.

A new AAHSA report proposes that individuals and government share the burden of paying for long-term care costs. The final report recommends that the nation move away from Medicaid's welfare model of long-term care financing and adopt an insurance system that is funded by premiums, provides cash benefits so consumers have optimal flexibility in choosing care options, and offers as close to universal coverage as possible. Review the AAHSA Cabinet LTC Financing Strategy.

Legisbrief is a briefing papers that offers important issues of the day. This volume provides an overview of new ways to help residents of nursing homes who want to return to their own homes but still receive services. The federal New Freedom Initiative awards grants to help states find ways to enable nursing home residents to use community-based care instead.

Recognizing the importance of measuring progress toward rebalancing, CMS contracted with Thomson Medstat to develop a model profile of one state and a companion technical assistance guide that other states can readily use to replicate and adapt the profile. Review Pennsylvania’s profile based upon their long-term support system across all disability and age groups. The technical assistance guide illustrates what a profile can provide and discusses the methods for development.

Forty-three states and territories have received three-year competitive grants since the ADRC program was launched. This report details findings at the overall ADRC level and the pilot level on the outcomes, accomplishments, and contributions of the ADRC program over the grant period, including more immediate results related to key consumer and program outcomes. It also documents lessons learned and program and policy implications at the pilot, state, and national level.

The report presents six strategies or policy levers, gleaned from previous research reports that can be implemented on the federal and local levels to promote collaboration and coordination and support livable community objectives. Examples were selected from a vast array of actions that can be taken. Each of the strategies is illustrated by actual promising practices at both the federal and state levels that can be adapted and replicated elsewhere.

Putting innovative research to work in the policymaking process takes tenacity and understanding on the part of researchers and lawmakers. This report offers a four-stage framework to support effective use of research in health policymaking and improve communications between researchers, state policymakers and program administrators. Review a case study from Massachusetts plus communication strategies and key practical lessons on understanding, developing, implementing, and evaluating policy.

ADRCs can be affected by both external and internal changes in leadership. Organizations that plan for and carefully manage a leadership transition, however, can minimize disruption and even use the change to shift direction and strengthen organizational capacity. This issue brief offers suggestions for ways ADRCs can manage transition and position themselves to take advantage of opportunities to strengthen collaboration and advance the goals of the ADRC program.

Launched in 2004, Flexible Services and Supports (the Pilot) gave participants control in calculating an individual budget where they then purchased services and goods to meet their community living needs. What were the experiences that provide lessons for the design and implementation of this model on a larger scale? This report reviews: design issues and implementation barriers, makes recommendations for future work, and describes any financial impacts of the Pilot on Medicaid utilization.