Bredesen releases details on home-based care
Long Term Care proposals moving forward
Realizing the powerful nursing home lobby controls where the money goes, JCIL suggested a decade ago they get into the home-care business. No one listened. Thank God the governor is now listening to his mother.
Gov. Phil Bredesen is proposing giving many elderly and disabled Tennesseans the option of staying out of nursing homes by providing them with caregivers in their own homes. The state spends about $1.2 billion a year on long-term care through TennCare, with about 98 percent of it directed at nursing home facilities. Officials estimate that Bredesen's plan could direct about half of those funds to home-based care in the next decade.
Bredesen said his proposal would also simplify the process for how elderly or disabled people find out whether they qualify for home-based care. "At its core this is about keeping people in their homes as long as they want to remain in their homes," Bredesen said. "And it's driven for me by just the experience with my own mother. It is so clear to me that she would go to any length to remain in her home"
TennCare Director Darin Gordon said there's no way to predict how many people will select home-based care once it becomes more available. But based on other states' experiences, Tennessee could move to a 50 percent split between home-based and nursing home care in six to 10 years, he said.
The average cost per person in home and community-based care is about $12,000 per year, while nursing home costs for a year can range between $45,000 and $60,000 per person, Gordon said. If the legislature approves Bredesen's plan this year it will start up in July 2009.
"This is a fundamental restructuring," Bredesen said. "It's about quality; it's about offering choices; it's about simplifying the system."
The administration expects nursing home operators to branch out into home-based care once more money starts flowing in that direction.
Lawmakers have been at the forefront of legislation to help elderly and disabled citizens “age in place” by receiving more home and community based care options -- and generally to give them more choices about their health care. This week marked the passage of House Bill 941 out of Health and Human Resources Committee, legislation that would offer financial allowances to consumers, giving them the freedom to choose which services they want within their spending plans.
The program began as a demonstration in Arkansas, Florida, and New Jersey. Currently, 12 more states are implementing self-directed personal care programs. Findings of a demonstration project jointly supported by the U.S. House and Human Services and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation showed that recipients with disabilities who direct their own supportive services were significantly more satisfied and appeared to get better care than those receiving services through homecare agencies.
Another piece of legislation championed by House members for several years was rolled into an Administration’s bill and passed unanimously in the House this week. The bill encourages personal responsibility by rewarding those who purchase long term care insurance. Currently, to receive state dollars for long term care, participants are required to “spend down” their assets—sometimes losing family heirlooms or land. House Bill 4206 would allow those types of assets to be retained, dollar for dollar, to equal the amount of a long term care insurance purchase, rewarding the participants and allowing them more freedom.
This report from our Representative Jimmy Eldridge on April 17, 2008.. Thanks for joining the JCIL TEAM!
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Update of Long-Term Care Community Choices Act of 2008 from Tennessee Disability Coalition CLICK HERE