The New York Times ran an article entitled “Helping Elderly Leave Nursing Homes for a Home” that provided a positive review of the Money Follows the Person (MFP) concept. The concept is a federal initiative to help states reduce their reliance on institutional care for people needing long-term care, and expand options for elderly people and individuals with disabilities to receive care in the community. With grants of $1.44 billion over five years, it is the largest demonstration program of its kind in the history of Medicaid. Each state uses the grant funds to develop systems and services to help long-term residents of nursing facilities, intermediate care facilities for the mentally retarded, and psychiatric hospitals who want to move back to home or community-based settings. They also are increasing efforts to shift Medicaid long-term care spending permanently toward community-based care and services.
The article references Mathematica‘s five-year evaluation for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) that is assessing how state long-term care systems change to support the transition of people from institutions to the community, whether the changes were successful and sustainable, and to what extent MFP helps rebalance state long-term care spending. For the report’s home page, click here.
