Factors Affecting Long Term Care System

Issues with long term care services include employee turnover, regulation, employee communication and especially payment for services. Legal concerns associated with long-term care are the rise of population who will eventually need it. The demand for long-term care services are going to explode as the population ages and more people are living longer with chronic conditions. But the main questions still remains, who will pay for these services and how will they be delivered? When I say this I’m referring to the actually facilities themselves, will there be space for patients when the time

Long-term care can be defined as a broad set of paid and unpaid services for people who are mentally or physically disabled, or whose chronic illness places them in need of medical or personal assistance for long periods of time. “It is estimated that there are more than twelve million Americans of all ages whose mix of serious disability and chronic illness places them at the high risk for functional decline, hospitalization, or nursing home placement.” (Benjamin) Several different populations require long-term care services, and the needs of these populations vary. In addition to the elderly, many of the long-term care users are younger persons with physical disabilities; persons with developmental disabilities; and persons with chronic

Hello Dr. Ullom, majority of the long term care facilities are under staffed. There is usually one registered nurse in charge to manage a 240 bed facility, with LPN's  and nursing assistance. I feel that these patients would benefit from having one RN to every six -eight patients with a nursing assistance. Not only would this benefit the patient but the nurse as well. Patient are placed in long term care facility with a certain problem, but ends up with additional condition such as UTI, MRSA, pressure ulcers, and etc. These issues are related to poor care they receive because of unstaffing. I'm not placing blame on the LPN or nursing assistance, but with a RN and low nurse to patient ratio, they will receive better care.

What are the Effects of current health care tends on long term care and this facility

Shortage of nursing staff in the long-term care continues to rise due to a couple of reasons. Many studies have revealed several factors that play a significant role in nursing shortages over the years. These factors include health care organizations downsizing the number of staff on a unit and increasing workloads, prolong work hours, and the people leaving the workforce. These factors have a significant impact on the quality of care in the long-term setting. This paper will compare and contrast the effect of lack of staffing has on the quality of patient care in a long-term settings. Over the years, the toll of the economy has had an impacted on the healthcare system which led to the reduction in the number of nursing staff and increasing the workload.

The Continuum of Care is the variety of health care services provided to numerous individuals who are in need of it. All the various Long Term Care providers work as a unit, helping an individual handle their disability with various health care amenities accessible. The Continuum of Care, as stated in Long Term Care: Managing Across the Continuum (2010), is “comprehensive, integrated, and client-oriented”. All the services offered should be client-based and cater to the client’s needs and suitable care. The client’s should be able to obtain services when it is needed from the provider, making it comprehensive. All the different Long Term Care providers should be interconnected between one another, because their goal is all the same. Their goal is to care for the client’s needs. The Continuum of Care consists of: nursing facilities, sub acute care, assisted living, residential care, elderly housing, and a variety of community-based services (Pratt, 2010). All these different providers work together to care for the individuals within the health care industry, creating the continuum and making it integrated. The continuum has many positive attributes, along with many barriers. The range of barriers are: poor transitions from Long Term Care setting to setting for the clients, the continuum is reimbursement-driven, it is fragmented and uncoordinated, it is under staffed with medical professionals, and there are major language and literacy problems.

The challenges and impact of Baby Boomers on long-term care systems are going to modify the manner in which traditional health care, patient access, financial payments and treatment are delivered. Baby Boomers will have an extensive amount of care maintenance needs involving various rehabilitation conditions, acute and chronic illnesses, which will require a significant amount of thoroughly trained gerontologists, skilled nurses, nurse practitioners, social workers, community advocates, and family involvement. This article explores options sought to reduce the costs to society and Baby Boomers as innovative savings, tax credit options, and other alternative long-term care financing choices lessening the impact on the long-term care system.

Long-term care facilities are a traditional approach to caring for the elderly or chronically ill members of society. These facilities are set up in a couple of different ways to provide specialized

Benefit provisions vary from one state program to another, but federal guidelines require all states to provide a minimum benefit package, including hospital inpatient and outpatient care, physician care, and many other services. In the area of long-term care, all states are required to pay for nursing home care, and they must also pay for home healthcare for those who are “nursing home eligible” which are those who would need nursing home care if they did not receive home care. And although federal guidelines do not require it, an increasing number of states also pay benefits for home and community-based services. These services may include personal care, home health aide services, rehabilitation, therapies, intermission care, homemaker services, and other services. In addition, a few states pay for long-term care services received in an assisted living residence. Unlike Medicare, with its highly restrictive conditions for payment of nursing home or home care benefits, Medicaid generally meets the need for long-term care (for those who eligible). Medicaid pays benefits for personal and supervisory care even if skilled care is not needed, and the program covers ongoing care needed to cope with a chronic impairment, not just care required for a short time to facilitate recovery from an acute illness or injury. However, there are some important limitations to Medicaid long-term care benefits: (1)

Throughout Unit 6 we reviewed the continuum of care in long-term care facilities and its many aspects. The continuum of care, also referred to as the delivery system of health care, is best defined as a full range of long-term care services increasing in level of acuity and complexity from one end to the other (PowerPoint). This delivery system is comprised of three substantial components. These components are the informal system, community based care, and the institutional system.

In 1983, the Medicare prospective payment program was implemented which allowed hospitals to be reimbursed a set payment based on the patient’s diagnosis, or Diagnosis Related Groups (DRG), regardless of what treatment was provided or how long the patient was hospitalized (Jacob & Cherry, 2007). To keep the costs below the diagnosis related payment, hospitals had to manage efficiently the treatment provided to a client and reduce the client’s length of stay (Jacob & Cherry, 2007). Case management, or internal case management “within the walls” of the health care facilities was created to streamline costs while maintaining quality care (Jacob & Cherry, 2007).

The continuum of institutional long-term care is for patients whose needs are not adequately met in a more community-based setting. It is for individuals who need more dependency. There are two ends of the continuum of institutional long-term care spectrum. On the one end there are the individuals that may only need basic personal or custodial care (Shi & Singh, 2015, p. 399). An example of personal and custodial care can include help with walking, bladder training, or just helping with bathing. On the other end there are the individuals that may need more round the clock care with nursing or specialized services along with the basic needs (Shi & Singh, 2015, p. 399).

Health care is a fascinating industry. So many types of care are included within the industry. Health care can be very broad or very specific. Health care is also comprised of different types of health care. One specific sector is long-term health care. Long-term care plays a huge role in the health care continuum. This paper will define long-term care and a continuum as well as discuss the services provided and how these services fit in the continuum of care, the resources that go along with long-term care and how it contributes to overall health care resources, and how long-term care services

This paper will review the many aspects of long-term care problems and many challenges there are within Long-Term care. We will look at rising costs within long-Term Care, patient abuse, will look at the quality of life, shortages of nurses and demand that the elderly are putting on the medical field. The type of care that Long-Term Care had been giving to its patients and the changes within Long-Term Care.

Hospitals and health systems in the U.S. are experiencing a remarkable transformation in their business models directed from numerous influences that are projected to ultimately turn the industry around. Pressures include providers troubled with the quantity of services they are responsible for, to providers who concentrate on presenting high-cost services that give emphasis to sustaining healthy populations (Dunn & Becker, 2013).