Roles For Long-Term Care

The Older Americans Act (OAA) funds critical services that keep older adults healthy and independent—services like meals, job training, senior centers, caregiver support, transportation, health promotion, benefits enrollment, and more. The Act is overdue for reauthorization—and Congress needs to seize this opportunity to update and renew its commitment to these programs and those they serve. To ensure America’s aging population is able to maintain and live healthy lives provisions are needed to the current OAA. These provisions include:

Getting older can be difficult, especially when ill health requires transitioning to a long-term care facility. However, this significant life event can be made more agreeable when everyone involved knows exactly what to expect. Thanks to 30 years spent serving aging clients all over Northern Kentucky, attorney Matthew L. Darpel PSC knows that the right support is crucial. That’s why his firm strives to provide dedicated legal guidance on elder law issues that affect local senior citizens.

Current numbers show substantial growth from the eighties, and estimates suggest that the demand for long term care among the elderly will more than double in the next thirty years. (Feder, Komisar, and Niefeld) This growth will exacerbate concerns about balancing institutional and noninstitutional care, assuring quality of care, and most importantly adopting and sustaining financing mechanisms that equitably and adequately protect the elderly who need long-term care.

The Elder Justice Act was passed on March 23, 2010 as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) as the first piece of federal legislation to allow funds to address elder abuse, neglect and exploitation nationwide (Federal Laws, 2015). Part I of the Elder Abuse Act is the Elder Justice Coordinating Council made up of federal government representatives charged with the responsibility of coming up with programs for the promotion of elder justice. They have to provide recommendations to the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services on the issues of abuse, neglect and exploitation of the elderly. Then there are 27 professionals from the general public who are to give recommendations to the Coordinating Council as well. Part II of the Elder Justice Act talks about funding and enhancing long-term care. Long-term care is important because you need programs committed to training long-term staff,

Federal and state ensured that nursing home residents are covered of legal rights- to include privacy, dignity, money, protection from abuse and exploitation, freedom, self-determination, and freedom to exercise their religious, political and sexual practices (Img. 2).

The ombudsman program strives to promote community involvement via volunteer opportunities (Strengthening the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program Provisions in the Older Americans Act, n.d.). They also educate consumers and long-term providers about patient’s rights and quality care procedures and practices. They have also become detrimental in the recommendations of changing laws, regulations, and policies as necessary while complying with federal laws (Strengthening the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program Provisions in the Older Americans Act, n.d.). As previously mentioned, ombudsman program volunteers advocate for patient’s rights, quality care including personal care, and residential care within long-term care facilities (Strengthening the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program Provisions in the Older Americans Act, n.d.). Promotion of the development of citizen organizations, family councils, and resident councils are also administrated through the ombudsman program (Strengthening the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program Provisions in the Older Americans Act, n.d.).

In these services they would usually be offered help with activities of daily life, such as eating or bathing. Some home services also give them other benefits such as residential services, personal care or case management. To give more open details on experiences of Medicaid beneficiaries who need home and communities based services Musumeci and Reaves discuss nine seniors who are disabled and who live in different states. Those include people with different kind of disabilities which can be either developmental, physical or intellectual and issues such as autism, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis and their functional limitations that are there because they aged (Musumeci & Reaves, 2014). Based on interview that were given from these people to the Kaiser Commission in 2013 based on Medicaid and uninsured, these peoples’ profiles clearly show us how beneficiaries funds, well-being, status of their employment are affected by the coverage of Medicaid and the role these services play in their daily lives (Musumeci & Reaves, 2014). In the last years states are trying to work on rebalancing long-term care system by dedicating more spending to home and community care rather than institutional care. The reason is this being the efforts that are driven by beneficiaries who are

Introduce Topic: In 1987 President Ronald Reagan passed the Federal Nursing Home Reform Act. This Act, also known as the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA), brought reform and a set of standards of care for people living in certified nursing facilities. (Hollis) Included in these set of standards, is the “Resident’s Bill of Rights”, which states that residents of nursing facilities have “The right to be free from … any physical or chemical restraints imposed for purposes of discipline or convenience and not required to treat the resident’s medical symptoms”. (U.S. Code Title 42 Chapter 7)

The long-term care system consists of an integrated continuum of many institutional and non-institutional providers who deliver extended care when needed. Long-term care providers distribute a variety of care to individuals with chronic, mobility and/or cognitive impairments/limitations. These providers include: nursing facilities, subacute care, assisted living, residential care, elderly housing options and community based adult services (CBAS) (Pratt, 2010). CBAS is broken down into subdivisions, which include: home health care, hospice care, adult day care and adult day health care (ADHC). ADHC’s falls under the category of non-institutional care, allowing individuals to be independent, stay within their community, live at home, and age in place, while being of high quality and low cost. The ultimate goal of ADHC’s is to keep individuals out of hospitals and nursing homes (institutional care), and allow them to live their life comfortably, independently and in their households with their loved ones (Alteras, 2007).

The federal government is responsible for setting out regulations for nursing home facilities all over America. It requires that require that these facilities to adhere to the codes of conduct, uphold the constitutional rights of residents in these facilities and uphold professional conduct (G.J.Jorgest, 2006). In many states such as Iowa, the local government include clauses that are aimed at making the lives of those in these facilities more bearable either as they brave their illnesses or as they age. These clauses are designed to be consistent with the regulations set by the federal government and are in most cases stricter.

Aime Forand, introduced a bill in Congress which gained speed for incorporating hospital and nursing home care as a continuation of the Social Security Benefits (Shi & Singh, 2013). This would serve many in need of the continuity of care once released from the care of the hospital. As the AMA fought against this bill, it thwarted its progress by voicing it as a threat to the doctor – patient relationship”, (Shi & Singh, 2013).

The elderly population in the United States has been and is expected to increase due to the aging of the baby boomers’ generation. The percentage of the elderly in relation to the U.S. total population is approximately 14% (Novak, 2012). With the expected increment, the overall state of health across the nation will be dependent on how healthy the elderly are. Consequently, measures to ensure optimal health of this age group should be a priority for policymakers and other stakeholders in the health sector.

I feel that as advocates there are many things we can do to ensure policies protect the aging population we work with. One of the many things we can do is make sure that if we work in a senior care community, we can make sure that the policies are updated all the time. If we were to be a housing director or a manager of some sorts, I think looking at the residents that you have and looking at the staff to see what can be better.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (n.d.), long-term care is the range of services, in addition, to support one might find necessary to acquire for their individual care requirements. Often long-term care offers assistance, rather than providing medical care which includes the tasks of everyday living. These services can sometimes entail delivering medical care that requires the expertise of skilled healthcare workers to deal with the numerous chronic illnesses correlated among the senior and disabled populations. Also, individuals need help with the basics of cleansing, putting on clothes, and the capability of feeding themselves, transporting to and from the bathroom and other locations, and caring for the incontinence.

Welfare facility for the elderly requiring long-term Care: Living facility for older people who require long-term care