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There is a lot of current interest in the "rebalancing" of state long-term care systems between nursing facilities and home and community-based care. However, to know how far you've come, you've got to know where you started out.
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While some "front runner" Medicaid programs have made expansion of preventive care a priority to improve quality of care and reduce costs, most have only started to look at these possibilities. "Utilization rates remain low for preventive services that are very cost-effective and have been recommended for years," says Georges C. Benjamin, MD, executive director of the American Public Health Association.
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Children with private health insurance are more than six and a half times as likely to lose coverage in the three months after one or both of their parents loses a job, compared to children whose parents remain employed, according to researchers from the Child Policy Research Center at Cincinnati (OH) Children's Hospital Medical Center.
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While state Medicaid programs have projected the expected number of individuals coming in to the program in 2014 as a result of health care reform, it's less understood who these individuals will be. Are they a relatively healthy group, or are do they have complex, costly health care needs?
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The option to expand Medicaid coverage to childless adults immediately, instead of waiting until 2014, is one fiscal opportunity for states included in health care reform legislation. In April 2010, Connecticut became the first state to formally seek approval under the new federal law to cover more individuals under Medicaid.
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Georgia, like many states, is in the process of collecting data to show the results of its Money Follows the Person (MFP) program. "To date, 305 individuals left the nursing home and returned to the community," reports Alice Hogan, PMP, program director for Waiver Services at the Georgia Department of Community Health's Division of Medicaid, and acting project director for the state's MFP program.
