On Friday, I attended an Alliance for Health Reform Session which was cosponsored by AARP. AARP released a report on a study they did on the use of managed care for persons needing LTSS. [LTSS (Long term services and support) replaces Long term care in the terminology lexicon. Not sure why]. see http://www.allhealth.org/briefing_detail.asp?bi=256
More details on the session will be available in a few days.
Here is a link to AARP's report
http://www.aarp.org/health/medicare-insurance/info-07-2012/keeping-watch-building-state-capacity-to-oversee-medicaid-managed-long-term-services-and-supports-AARP-ppi-health.html
Managed LTSS has the potential to be a cost saver but could lead to reductions in quality of care. At least 10 states have been doing such programs already and another 10 states are planning to start such programs in the coming year, so this is a major trend forward as States look to reduce costs, and hopefully improve quality. The session pointed out those states that seemed to be doing the best job at this. NCQA is developing new measures for these programs. Quality-of-life measures were included in the discussion.
Please contact me via email thausner@gmail.com if you want to see an article by CQHealthbeat on this session.
Following the session, Josh Wiener at RTI, shared with me findings from a report to congress that they did on the integration of Post acute care. see
http://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/Reports/downloads/Flood_PACPRD_RTC_CMS_Report_Jan_2012.pdf
This appears to be a very well done project and is a very important step forward in the integration of the different post acute services. I am particularly pleased to see their development of a set of quality measures that applies across the different settings. Having done considerable work in this arena, I am very impressed with the measures developed. They are consistent with those we developed in home health.
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