Articles Posted in Long Term Care Facilities

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Although nearly all would agree that safe nurse staffing ratios are important and necessary, long term care (LTC) facilities (also known as nursing homes) and skilled nursing facilities (SNF) seem forgotten in the rally for safe nurse-patient ratios on units.

Federal law has few requirements for nurse staffing in long term care facilities, and the federal standards haven’t changed in over 30 years when the Nursing Home Reform Law of 1987 was implemented, requiring these facilities to have the following:

  • A registered nurse eight consecutive hours, seven days a week
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For years, attorneys, accountants, financial planners, and insurance sale persons have been touting the benefits of long-term care insurance. “Buy in your 50s and you will never have to worry about your future long-term care expenses ever again” was the common refrain. It was sound advice. With the right long-term care policy your problems were solved. Daily benefit rates typically covered the lion’s share of the daily private pay rate preserving assets for much-needed extras and, in many cases, a tidy inheritance for the next generation.

Unfortunately, any aging population, the unexpected popularity of assisted living facilities, and a steady increases in the cost of care has made it all but impossible for insurance companies to continue to provide the promised levels of benefits without increasing premiums. It can be argued that insurance companies should have seen the baby-boomers coming but no one anticipated that so many seniors would prefer to transition to an assisted living facility foregoing the in-home care option. Insurance companies also expected a much higher percentage of customers to cancel coverage. A common theme across all types of elective insurance coverage types. The constant refrain from professional advisers to clients recommending that they retain long-term care insurance at all costs had the unintended effect of making LTC insurance untenable for insurers.

All of these unanticipated and unintended consequences has had a real impact on seniors. In some cases, premiums have as much as doubled in the past two years and Mass Mutual, one of the largest LTC insurance underwriters, is about to ask regulators to authorize an average increase in premiums of 77 percent.

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Recently, a lawsuit was filed against the Illinois Department of Human and Family Services over delays in the processing of claims for Medicaid benefits. Although the lawsuit focuses primarily on applications for community Medicaid and health insurance benefits, delays by IDHFS in processing Medicaid claims for long-term care benefits can have a dramatic effect on those seniors requiring assistance to pay for long-term nursing home care.

A quick synopsis of the Medicaid system as it applies to nursing home benefits:

Medicaid (not to be confused with Medicare) is a government program funded by both state and federal resources to help seniors and disabled individuals with limited resources pay for long-term care. Although Medicare will cover short-term stays in a nursing home for rehabilitation and some respite care, Medicare provides no benefit to those seniors that need to move to a nursing home on a permanent basis.

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Medicaid funds long-term care services for low-income individuals, but 48 states have opted to give assisted living residents the ability to receive Medicaid benefits, mostly through Medicaid “waiver” programs that promote home health care.  More than 330,000 people in assisted living are receiving more than $10 Billion in benefits to pay for those services.  Because the number of individuals receiving long-term care services from Medicaid in ALFs is only expected to grow, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) surveyed state Medicaid agencies and interviewed officials for a report on federal oversight of these facilities.

The GAO found that there are both gaps in state reporting of cases of harm to assisted living residents–such as abuse, neglect and exploitation-and lack of guidance from the federal government on what needs to be reported.  States are required to monitor “critical” incidents that may harm a beneficiary’s health or welfare, but they have leeway in determining what the consider a critical incident. While all states considered physical assault, emotional abuse, and sexual assault to be critical incidents, three states don’t monitor unexpected or unexplained deaths and seven states don’t monitor the treat of suicide at the ALFs.

“Medicaid beneficiaries receiving assisted living services include older adults and individuals with physical, intellectual or developmental disabilities, some of whom can be particularly vulnerable to abuse, neglect, and exploitation,” the report notes.

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