RTI International

How Providing Social Supports And Care Coordination May Lower Medical Costs For Seniors Living At Home  

What if real estate developers worked with on-site nurses and social workers to help frail older adults and younger people with disabilities stay in their apartments? Could they deliver--in a cost-effective way--social supports and care coordination that would improve the well-being of residents, reduce their health care costs, and benefit property managers? The answer is: They can, especially for older [...]

By |2019-08-07T15:03:07-04:00August 7th, 2019|Senior housing|1 Comment

How Can We Keep Nursing Home Residents Out of Hospitals?

One-third of nursing homes residents are admitted to the hospital at least once each year, and half of those admissions could be avoided. Preventing them could protect hundreds of thousands of older adults from potential harm and save Medicare billions of dollars. The problem is neither new nor surprising. But it is tough to fix. Last week, the federal Centers [...]

By |2015-09-02T17:47:56-04:00September 2nd, 2015|Hospitals, Medicare, nursing homes|2 Comments

When It Comes To Long-Term Care Insurance, Americans Don’t Get It

A newly-released survey shows just how conflicted Americans are about long-term care insurance. And how unrealistic they are about how much long-term care costs and how much insurance they can buy for what they are willing to spend. The survey, completed in 2014 by the consulting firm RTI International and the survey research firm GfK Research for the US Department [...]

By |2015-08-19T12:05:22-04:00August 19th, 2015|long-term care insurance|2 Comments

Congressional Long-Term Care Panel Will Finally Meet, But Odds for Success are Lengthening

The Congressional long-term care commission will finally hold its first meeting in late June. However, the panel must conclude its meetings in the fall and commission members are increasingly pessimistic that they will reach agreement on any substantial reforms to the nation’s troubled system of supports and services for the frail elderly or younger people with disabilities. Last Friday, I [...]

Do Seniors Hide Assets to Get Medicaid Long-Term Care Benefits?

There is a widespread belief that seniors, in cahoots with shady lawyers and greedy children, hide their assets so they can receive Medicaid long-term care benefits.  It turns out that this image—sort of the greedy geezer equivalent of Cadillac-driving welfare queens—is largely an urban myth. While some seniors undoubtedly find ways to transfer assets (everyone, it seems, knows someone who has—or [...]

By |2013-04-24T14:34:42-04:00April 24th, 2013|long-term care financing, Medicaid|3 Comments

Policy Experts Agree: The U.S. System for Financing Long-Term Care is Crumbling

America’s system for financing long-term care is failing, and the window for creating a payment system that works is rapidly closing. That was the conclusion of a morning-long expert session sponsored last week by the SCAN Foundation. While the participants differed on specific solutions, most agreed on four key issues: The existing system for funding paid long-term supports and services [...]

“We’ve Got to Get Real About Medicare and Medicaid”

Yesterday, I joined three of the most creative thinkers in the long-term care policy world to discuss the future of  personal care services for the elderly and disabled in an era of shrinking government resources. My fellow panelists at the event, sponsored by The Urban Institute, were Robyn Stone, author of Long-Term Care for the Elderly and senior vice president for research at Leading Age, [...]

Looking at Long-Term Care as the Government’s Role Shrinks

On Tuesday, Nov 8, I'll be moderating an important discussion on the future long-term care in an era of shrinking government. My fellow panelists will be Robyn Stone, author of Long-Term Care for the Elderly and senior vice president for research for LeadingAge, a trade group that represents non-profit providers ; Len Fishman, the CEO of Hebrew Senior Life, an innovative senior services provider in Boston, [...]

Tough Sell: The Future of CLASS and Private Long-Term Care Insurance

It is a tough time to try to sell long-term care insurance.  The private market was stunned on Nov. 11 when MetLife, one of the nation's biggest carriers with insurance on 600,000 lives, announced it would stop selling new policies. At the same time, surveys by two of the nation's most respected long-term care researchers suggest why it will continue to be very [...]