“Spending on nursing home, home healthcare growing fast,” by Kathleen Steele Gaivin, McKnights Senior Living “Nursing home care and home healthcare were two of the fastest-growing categories of healthcare spending in 2023, according to Altarum’s monthly Health Sector Economic Indicators brief, released Tuesday. Initial data show that national health spending overall grew by 6.2% for the year, whereas the gross domestic product grew by 6.3%. Personal healthcare spending grew by 7.7%. … Spending on home healthcare increased 10.7% in 2023, and spending on nursing home care increased by 9.8%, according to the report.” LTC Comment, Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for
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“New Eligibility Rules Are a Financial Salve for Nearly 2 Million on Medi-Cal,” by Bernard J. Wolfson, KFF Health News “Until Jan. 1, 3 million Medi-Cal beneficiaries, mainly those who are aged, blind, disabled, in long-term care, or in the federal Supplemental Security Income program, faced limits on the value of financial accounts and personal property they could hold to qualify for coverage. Now, nearly 2 million of them will no longer face these restrictions, putting them on par with the roughly 12 million other Medi-Cal beneficiaries who don’t have asset limits. Until Jan. 1, 3 million Medi-Cal beneficiaries, mainly those who
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“Medicare home care eligibility standards unfairly burden family caregivers, think tank argues,” by Adam Healy, McKnights Home Care “Researchers called on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to act now to integrate more kinds of home care benefits for Medicare beneficiaries to help patients and their caregivers grappling with strict eligibility criteria and inadequate support systems. … Medicare’s criteria for a beneficiary to be eligible for home care is too high, they argued, and unpaid family caregivers bear the greatest responsibilities caring for those that do not make the cut. Oftentimes these caregivers are forced to ‘spend down’ to
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“About 30 percent of older adults who need care are caring for another,” by Kristen Fischer, McKnights LTC News “More than 30% of older adults who are caregivers are also receiving care to assist with completing their own daily activities. The older adult caregivers are also more likely to care for a spouse, be older than their spouse, have limited financial assets and be in worse physical health, according to a new study. The report was published Monday in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.” LTC Comment, Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform: This whole caregiving challenge just keeps getting scarier
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