The LTSS Center recommends that you put these 3 resources on your reading list for August.
USING SENIOR HOUSING AS A VACCINE
“We can build resilient, inclusive, age-friendly communities … by viewing housing not just as shelter, but as a vaccine that boosts the health of its residents and immunizes them against illness that too often results in medically unnecessary trips to a hospital.”
That’s the basic message of a recent blog in Banker & Tradesman by Chrystal Kornegay, executive director of MassHousing, an independent, quasi-public agency charged with providing financing for affordable housing in Massachusetts.
Despite its high housing costs and growing older population, Massachusetts “is well-positioned to be a leader in developing innovative solutions that combine housing and health care, especially for our older adults,” writes Kornegay, who is co-chair of the housing workgroup of the Governor’s Council to Address Aging in Massachusetts.
Her strategy: encourage more partnerships between health care entities and affordable senior housing communities.
Kornegay proposes that health care providers should be able to write a prescription for an affordable home, equipped with supportive resident services, for patients whose housing instability or lack access to a service-rich environment is driving overutilization of the health care system.
“MassHousing is eager to be a partner in creating a system that will allow hospitals to be among the sources of financing for a housing development, where they can prescribe supportive senior housing directly to individuals,” she writes. “Such a step would enable health care providers to spend in a more targeted and cost-efficient manner.”
STUDY: HOME-DELIVERED MEALS COULD SAVE MONEY FOR MEDICARE
Providing 7 days of free, healthy meals to frail older adults after a hospitalization could avoid nearly 10,000 return trips to the hospital resulting in admission, and yield a net savings of about $57 million for Medicare, according to a new report from the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC).
“In a real-world situation, the savings could be greater because the study did not take into account emergency room visits and nursing home admissions that could potentially be avoided,” the Associated Press reported.
BPC asked Ananya Health Innovations to analyze the potential impact of a Medicare meal benefit. The health care consultant reviewed 2016 billing data and focused on individuals aged 70 or older who were living with 2 or more chronic conditions and experienced limitations in activities of daily living.
BPC is recommending that lawmakers allow Medicare to offer benefits like home-delivered meals under certain conditions.
A TURNING POINT IN MEDICARE POLICY
The Creating High-Quality Results and Outcomes Necessary to Improve Chronic (CHRONIC) Care Act, passed as part of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, expands what qualifies as a supplemental benefit to meet the needs of chronically ill Medicare Advantage (MA) enrollees.
Under the new law, MA plans can offer Special Supplemental Benefits for the Chronically Ill (SSBCI), including services that are not primarily health-related, as long as the service has a reasonable expectation of improving or maintaining the health or overall function of the chronically ill enrollee.
“These changes require new principles to guide implementation of the law,” according to A Turning Point in Medicare Policy: Guiding Principles for New Flexibility Under Special Supplemental Benefits for the Chronically Ill.
The SCAN Foundation-funded report from Anne Tumlinson Innovations and the Long-Term Quality Alliance outlines guiding principles identified by a working group that included Marc Cohen, co-director of the LeadingAge LTSS Center at UMass Boston.
“These principles illustrate a new common vision for how Medicare can create the flexibility necessary to meet individual needs, balanced with appropriate guardrails to protect beneficiaries, providers, Medicare Advantage plans, and the integrity of the Medicare program overall,” says the report.
The report identifies steps to ensure that SSBCI reflect individual needs, that those benefits are clear, understandable, equitable, manageable, and sustainable; and that they evolve with continuous learning and improvement.