Long Term Care Home Essay

In addition, Community Care Services provides much needed monitoring and support service to ensure the older person is able to live in their own home. They cover everything from community nursing, meals, domestic help, personal care, home modifications, transport and day therapies and support for people with cultural and identifiable needs, as well as for people with particular health conditions. For example, meals on wheels services provide a nutritional food, Vital Call service to help the aged people in an emergency case. Some of the ways may support the older people are get assistance with “home help”,

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

Medicare provides federal health insurance coverage to millions of elderly, and disabled Americans. As of 2015 data by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Medicare covers 55 million people. Medicare covers people age 65 and older, people younger than 65 with certain disabilities, and people of all ages with End-Stage Renal Disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Medicare, 2015). Medicare consists of several different components, including: Part A, Part B, Part C, and Part D. This Federal health insurance program, Medicare, is financed by several sources, including taxes, revenue, and premiums. Each part of Medicare has different eligibility requirements and provides different benefits, and covered services.

Things such as food, energy bill, gasoline, mortgage and rent consume a large amount of seniors

The federal government provides health care insurance called Medicare. The program stared out strictly for those United States citizens who are 65 years of age and older. The plan has changed over the years to covering younger individuals with disabilities and diseases that are accepted by the program, like end-stage renal disease and young people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Medicare covers over 49 million people as of the end of 2015 (Anderson, 2015).

Medicare is a program created by the Social Security Act of 1965. It is a federally run medical health insurance program aimed at medical coverage for senior citizens over 65 years of age. Over the years, the program has expanded to cover other beneficiaries such as individuals with disabilities and has also evolved to add prescription drug benefits. The program has been immensely successful in bringing health services to millions of senior citizens and individuals with disabilities. Despite this success, Medicare has faced a myriad of challenges most importantly budgetary projections that predict a rise in Medicare cost due to the “Baby Boomers” becoming eligible while having fewer workers per retiree to fund Medicare. The government has turned to managed care plans in cost saving measures and to bolster the quality and efficiency of their Medicare. While this summary might not exhaustively delve into the complicated web of Medicare but it will highlight what is looming in the horizon; the struggle to find new and innovative ways to finance Medicare for future generations without burdening beneficiaries or taxpayers.

Currently, Medicaid is the premiere funding machine for long term care services. However, Medicaid is a needs based program. In order for an individual to qualify for Medicaid they must be in an financial situation with a very low yearly income. Therefore, this program only covers a fraction of elderly people within the United States at the very beginning of their long term care journey. The only option for individuals who do not immediately qualify for Medicaid is to pay the full cost of these long term care services. These costs can range an upwards of $90,000. An average American will spend around 3 years of their life in a nursing home and the average retirement savings of a family in 2013 was $163,777 (Morrissey, 2016). Therefore a majority of individuals will ultimately deplete their savings and ultimately have to rely on Medicaid and other welfare programs to pay for their long term care and

Documented in Oregon, one individual (Kate Cheney) was sent to a nursing home because her family was tired of caring for her. Kate had spent one unhappy week in the nursing home and her quality of life degraded so tremendously that she was motivated to take her own life. There is no requirement under the Oregon law that “sufficient home and community-based long-term care services be provided to relieve the demands on family members and ease the individual’s feelings of being a burden” (Golden 20). It is extremely upsetting that the daughter or son of an individual could devalue life to such an extent, especially the life of a parent. This lack of caring by family members can cause the patient to request PAS or take their own life.

Yet of perhaps greatest importance to the American healthcare system and industry is the demographical information of this older population in terms of its particular characteristics and disposition. More specifically, healthcare professionals and policy analysts must understand the aging populations’ economic and living situations, and their overall health status (Jacobsen, Kent, Lee & Mather, 2011). Economic factors are key as they directly pertain to the likelihood of reliance on publically-funded healthcare programs, while “the marital status and living arrangements of the elderly are closely tied to levels of social support, economic well-being, and the availability of caregivers” (Jacobsen et al., 2011, p. 4). The importance of this population’s general health status is, of course, self-explanatory.

Some of the most significant welfare programs in the American human services system are Medicaid, cash assistance, children’s health insurance, and Medicare programs. However, Medicaid programs were passed in 1965, which in 2010 the program covered 46.9 million people and 70% of the spending goes to the ages and disabled. Although, cost-cutting measures target the elderly and disabled, who have drained most of their life savings in paying nursing home bills. Meanwhile, people who need dental care, eye care, or have the bad luck to live in a state without Medicaid coverage they will have to eat strained food and stop reading. Moreover, cash assistance programs was part of the Social Security Act of 1935, then was changed in 1965 to the Aid to

     One of the major problems nagging America is the need for a new health care system. The number of uninsured Americans needing medical treatment is rising. Medicare, a major part of the American health care system, is projected to go broke in 2019 according to USA Today?s article, 'Congress refuses to swallow cures for ailing Medicare.' I have seen this ruin people?s pursuit of happiness. I worked in a nursing home for the past five years. Many elderly patients run out of money to support themselves for their long term care. When they go on Medicare, only certain treatments and prescription drugs are available. This causes them to worsen in condition physically and mentally. I believe that with a

Group home staff provide training and support as identified in each Individual Support Plan. Assistance may include personal care, budgeting, shopping for personal needs, planning for and participation in leisure activities as well as other areas of need. Residents are encouraged and expected to participate, as much as possible, in maintaining the home including meal preparation, housekeeping, and laundry. Families are encouraged to participate in the annual planning process and to identify areas of need as they arise throughout the year.

Further compounding the problem, baby boomers have not saved enough for general retirement expenses and are especially unprepared for unplanned expenses such as LTC needs. Many expect that cash-strapped government entitlement programs to fill the savings gaps (Spiegleman, 2013). Because the majority of Americans do not plan in advance to fund LTC, government programs currently account for 63 percent of LTC funding, with Medicaid paying for 40 percent and Medicare paying for 23 percent in the form of post-acute care. Policymakers need to be proactive in reforming the current system to ensure that retirees have access to high quality care without bankrupting future generations. As the baby boomer population ages into Medicare, which is already suffering from its own poor financial health, the consequent rising health care costs could negatively impact the nation’s long-term care system (Adamopoulos, H.,

With close to 76 million people who will be retiring in the next 10 or so, the big question is “Where are they all going to go?” (Dohm, np). Although they will not all need the care right away, they will need it eventually and with the limitations as of right now it will be very hard to get around this dilemma. One option could be increasing the availability of home health care. Home health care is simply a nurse who does rounds to people’s houses. This helps with those who have had surgery, or in this case who need a little assistance with daily tasks or frequent monitoring (“What’s Home Health Care?”, np). The inevitable changes that occur when aging include; dry, loose skin; gray, white, thin hair; muscular and skeletal problems; heart and circulatory/respiratory issues; deteriorating nervous system; changes in digestion urinary and endocrine systems. The progressing of theses occurrences mean the increasing of amount of help needed. However, this option allows for a decent amount of independence; which in turn will help the patient feel more secure and safe, and help with those with memory illnesses such as Alzheimer's and dementia to experience less confusion and displacement (Simmers, 270-277). Another option would be building upwards on pre-existing nursing homes. By adding other layers, all

According to U.S Department of Health and Human Services Administration on Aging, 2010, U.S. Social Security Administration, 2012, in 1935, there was an estimate of 7.8 million older adults population which was when the United States government officially defined age 65 as the retirement age in the country. Older adults comprised of 4.1% of the total population in 1900, there as since then been a steady raise 12.4%, 13.0% (40.3 million) in the years 2000 and 2010 respectively. (U.S. Census Bureau, 2011). Touchy & Jett, 2012 have projected that by 2030, for every 5 Americans 1 of them will be 65 years old or older. Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) clarified that about 80% of older adults are nursing at least one chronic medical problem such as coronary illness, malignancy, diabetes, or stroke while about 50% have no less than two unending condition (multi-morbidity). The above stated dynamic increment will have significant ramifications on the country’s financial, political, and particularly social insurance issues. "Propelling age is an uncontrollable variable for having different interminable