A new report, designed to help states foster policies that encourage high quality care for older adults, analyzed the performance of long term services long term services and supports, including assisted living options, across all 50 states.
The report, Raising Expectations: A State Scorecard on Long-Term Services and Supports for Older Adults, People with Physical Disabilities, and Family Caregivers, appraised the affordability and access of care options, choice of setting and provider, quality of life and quality of care offered, and support for family caregivers as measures of success. The top performing states designed public policy initiatives that improved access and created flexible and comprehensive Medicaid programs, allowing older adults to use Medicaid on alternatives to nursing homes. “A high performing system, a person and family centered approach to long term services and supports places a high value on offering families choice and control over where they receive them and who provides them. That would be our ideal,” said Susan Reinhard, Senior Vice President for Public Policy of AARP.
Successful states also developed systems that allowed people to easily navigate services offered and address the needs of family caregivers. Although no state scored in the top quartile in all 25 indicators, the highest performing states overall were Minnesota, Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, and Wisconsin. The lowest ranking states, Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Indiana, were affected by high rates of poverty and disability, which may continue to pose challenges, though Reinhard emphasized that positive changes don’t always increase costs, and all states are capable of policy changes that improve overall care quality.
Read the full report and press release, or watch video of AARP’s recent meeting, AARP Solutions Forum: Raising Expectations: A State Scorecard on Long-Term Services and Supports, where the results were announced.
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