Reports

This report evaluates the experience with the New Jersey Care Partner Support Pilot Program (Pilot) that was conducted in four counties in New Jersey in 2011. The Pilot aims at improving the knowledge and skills of family caregivers caring for adult family members and friends participating in New Jersey’s Medicaid Global Options home and community-based services waiver (GO Waiver) and the state-only funded Jersey Assistance to Community Caregivers (JACC) program.

Agency with Choice (AwC) is a model of Financial Management Services (FMS) in which an agency and a participant are joint employers of workers who provide service to the participant. This paper presents the benefits, challenges, and risks of AwC FMS and puts forth the National Resource Center for Participant-Directed Services (NRCPDS)’s list of key components for AwC FMS to be considered participant-directed, providing a model for consistency in future implementation of AwC FMS.

The ULI published an article on the opportunities and challenges that the baby boomers has created for the U.S. housing industry. The challenge is to meet the diverse lifestyle needs of people in their senior years. Those who are moving desire urban locations where they can be close to many services such as restaurants, health care, and public transportation. The commonality across all aging baby boomers, however, is that they have an aversion to current and future institutional living.

This survey reports on trends in Medicaid spending, enrollment and policy initiatives for FY 2012 and FY 2013. The report describes policy changes in reimbursement, eligibility, benefits, delivery systems and long-term care, as well as detailed appendices with state-by-state information, and a more in-depth look through four state-specific case studies of the Medicaid budget and policy decisions in Massachusetts, Ohio, Oregon and Texas.

Washington is the first state to enter into a MOU to participate in the new managed-fee-for-service Demonstration to integrate the service delivery across primary, acute, prescription drugs, behavioral health and LTSS. This document details the principles under which CMS and the State plan to implement and operate the Demonstration. It also outlines the activities CMS and the State plan to conduct in preparation for implementation of the Demonstration and initiate the Demonstration.

Using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health as a framework, this paper identifies definitions of disability for transition-age youth that can be used to compare and contrast statistics on the characteristics and outcomes of this population across different surveys.

This guide addresses the emergency procedure needs of people with a disability. It provides evacuation tips and general information for those who have five categories of disabilities, including impairments in mobility, vision, hearing, speech, and cognition. It also includes a Personal Emergency Evacuation Planning Checklist that building services managers, families, and people with disabilities can use together to design a personalized evacuation plan.

This paper examines the contents of the 26 states’ proposals, which intent to test on two models related to financing dual eligible beneficiaries, in the areas of target population, implementation date, enrollment, financing, benefits, beneficiary protections, stakeholder engagement, and demonstration evaluation as set out in the states’ initial submission to CMS. Negotiations between CMS and the states are ongoing and are likely to result in some changes from the states’ initial proposals.

GAO has released a report on overlapping disability and unemployment benefits. The Social Security DI and Unemployment Insurance (UI) programs both provide assistance to workers who have lost their income. Existing rules and definitions result in a limited number of individuals being eligible for overlapping DI and UI payments. GAO was asked to determine the extent to which individuals have received DI and UI benefits concurrently.

This guidebook is intended to be a resource for veterans and family members as they navigate the complex interaction between government benefits and employment or self-employment. This guidebook focuses on government benefit programs that veterans access most frequently. The primary focus of the guidebook is on the impact that work income can have on factors such as initial eligibility, ongoing eligibility, and cash benefit amounts.