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KFF designs, conducts and analyzes original public opinion and survey research on Americans’ attitudes, knowledge, and experiences with the health care system to help amplify the public’s voice in major national debates.
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This analysis examines the characteristics of Medicaid enrollees who use Medicaid long-term services and supports (LTSS), how enrollees who use LTSS differ from those who do not use these services, and how enrollees who use different types of LTSS differ from each other.
In January 2014, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published a final rule that created new requirements for Medicaid home- and community-based services (HCBS) programs. This issue brief describes the settings rule, implementation of the rule across states and HCBS waivers, and what to watch as implementation continues.
This data note provides new information about waiting lists from KFF’s most recent survey of state Medicaid HCBS programs, including a discussion of why waiting lists are an incomplete measure of unmet need and why they are not necessarily comparable across states or over time.
In a new analysis of survey data from state Medicaid home care programs, KFF found that in most years since 2016, there have been nearly 700,000 people on waiting or interest lists for expanded home and community-based services (HCBS), with a total of 692,000 across 38 states in 2023 and waiting lists averaging three years.
Today, KFF Health News and The New York Times published the first phase of an investigation into America’s long-term care crisis, which has left many in the boomer generation facing the prospect of exhausting their financial resources as the price tag for care explodes.
This survey shows that most adults feel unprepared for affording the cost of long-term care and support service, and just under half are not confident they will have the financial resources to pay for care they might need as they age. Most older adults have not taken financial or practical steps to plan for their potential future care needs.
In response to long-standing workforce challenges in home- and community-based services, states have reported increasing Medicaid payment rates, providing more education and training or leveraging other strategies to recruit and retain workers.
Almost every state reported increasing Medicaid payment rates for home- and community-based services to recruit and retain workers as part of their strategy to address long-standing workforce challenges, according to a new report from a survey of state officials administrating those programs.
Family caregivers played a key role in supporting people who used Medicaid home- and community-based services (HCBS) during the COVID pandemic. Many states used new pandemic-era authorities to support and pay family caregivers and maintain services in other ways amid workforce shortages and other challenges.
Drawing from KFF’s 50-state survey of state Medicaid HCBS officials, conducted between May and August of 2023, this issue brief describes how states used the PHE authorities to strengthen their HCBS programs, changes as the PHE ends, and the role of family caregivers in providing HCBS.
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