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The Money Follows the Person (MFP) demonstration provides enhanced federal matching funds, allowing states to better support Medicaid long-term services and supports beneficiaries in transitioning from institutions back to the community. This report highlights 2015 MFP enrollment and spending trends and services and supports offered across state MFP demonstrations.
Using the 2011 National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS), this brief first examines the need for long-term services and supports (LTSS) among seniors living in the community. It then studies health status, mobility limitations, and housing characteristics of seniors living in the community with an LTSS need.
Long-term care (LTC) in the United States has evolved over the course of the last century to better serve the needs of seniors and person with disabilities. This long-term care timeline outlines the major milestones in LTC from the nursing home era, which created an institutional bias in LTC, to the era of home and community based services (HCBS) and integration, and into the era of health reform and beyond.
This issue brief summarizes major provisions of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to modernize and strengthen federal Medicaid managed care regulations, which serves as an informational guide to key proposed new federal expectations and requirements of states and managed care arrangements, and federal oversight interests moving forward.
The Balancing Incentive Program provides enhanced federal matching funds, allowing states to advance their efforts to rebalance Medicaid long-term services and supports (LTSS) spending and expand access to home and community-based services as an alternative to institutional care. This report highlights participating states' efforts to implement the program's three structural requirements and use the enhanced federal funds in support of other Medicaid LTSS rebalancing efforts.
More than one third of the nation’s 15,500 nursing homes, accounting for 39 percent of all nursing home residents, received relatively low ratings of 1 or 2 stars under the federal government’s recently revamped Five-star Quality Rating System, according to a new analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
This issue brief presents national and state-level analysis of nursing homes based on the Five-Star Quality Rating System, recently updated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to help consumers compare nursing homes when selecting one for themselves or their family members. The issue brief finds that more than one-third (36%) of the nation’s 15,500 nursing homes certified by Medicare or Medicaid received relatively low ratings of 1 or 2 stars (out of a possible 5 stars). In 11 states, at least 40 percent of nursing homes in the state have 1- or 2-star ratings. In 23 states, however, at least half of the nursing homes have 4- or 5- star ratings. This issue brief discusses relevant policy considerations regarding nursing home quality—a serious issue in light of the vulnerability of the nursing home population and recent reports of problems arising from inadequate staffing, fire safety hazards, and substandard care.
Medicaid, the main health insurance program for low-income people and the single largest source of public coverage in the U.S., turns 50 this year.
The Medicaid program, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 30, 1965, will reach its 50th anniversary this year, a historic milestone. This report reflects on Medicaid’s accomplishments and challenges and considers the issues on the horizon that will influence the course of this major health coverage and financing program moving forward.
More than half of all Medicaid beneficiaries now receive their services in risk-based managed care plans, and states’ use of managed care is expanding. States operate their own Medicaid managed care programs within federal rules and requirements. The federal regulations were last updated in 2002 and a new proposed rule is expected in Spring 2015. This brief identifies key issues in the regulation and discusses how CMS might address them.
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