“Medicare home care eligibility standards unfairly burden family caregivers, think tank argues”

“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 become eligible for Medicaid, whereby long-term services and supports, including home- and community-based services, are more easily accessible.”

LTC Comment, Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform:

Another wishful thinking report hopeful for help from a sinking Medicare entitlement program. Note the assumption that caregivers “spend down” for care to get Medicaid. They are as likely or more so to spend down by means of converting countable to exempt assets and using the many other creative methods of Medicaid planning. To make sense of what ails LTC, read the Paragon Health Institute’s “Long-Term Care: The Problem” and “Long-Term Care: The Solution” and watch this “virtual LTC event” featuring age wave visionary Ken Dychtwald and leading LTC researchers.