Why Ohio Needs the Unified Long Term Care Budget

The Ohio Department of Aging has been leading the charge in determining the steps necessary to establish a unified budget for long-term services and supports, as well as to determine what that budget will look like and how it will be managed. The Department of Aging actively solicited input from aging network and state agency partners, long-term care service providers, aging advocates, policy makers, the general public and more to guide the process.   

In June, the Joint Legislative Committee on Medicaid Technology and Reform (JLCMTR) heard from experts who reported that, using current laws and methods, Ohio cannot continue to provide long-term care for those who will need it in the coming decades.  Robert Applebaum and Shahla Mehdizadeh, researchers at the Scripps Gerontology Center, Miami University, warned that Ohio's fragmented long-term care system would consume 32% of the state's General Revenue Funds (GRF) budget in Medicaid costs by 2020, compared with 24% in 2006.  If Medicaid inflation continues at 11.5%, as it did from 2000 to 2006, and if the state budget grows at 3.5%, Medicaid would account for 68% of the total GRF budget by 2020.
 
Preliminary planning to address the challenge completed the Final Report of the Unified Long-Term Care Budget Workgroup. The report, required by the biennial budget bill, H.B. 119, is the product of a ten-month effort by the workgroup, chaired by Barbara Riley, Director, Ohio Department of Aging, and its five subcommittees.  The group included more than 300 participants, including legislators, consumers, service providers, advocates, representatives from state agencies and local entities, and interested stakeholders. The full report is available at http://goldenbuckeye.com/ultcb

The report details a multi-year plan to phase in a coordinated budgeting system in which each agency would begin by combining all its long-term care appropriations in one line item.  Eventually, all long-term care appropriations would appear in one line item within the Department of Job and Family Services budget.  This plan would provide the transparency, cost-effectiveness, and financial accountability for policymakers and consistent rates for service providers that lawmakers asked for in HB 119.  In addition, the plan calls for less nursing facility based care and more care provided through home- and community based services (HCBS).  Currently, about 63% of Ohioans receive Medicaid-covered long-term care services in nursing facilities, 38% through HCBS.  If the services were delivered 50-50%, Ohio would save $114 million based on fiscal year 2007 costs.
 
In October, the AAA8 Regional Advisory Council heard a presentation and plans for advocacy on the ULTC Budget from Tom Pappas of Pappas & Associates. An ongoing plan to educate Ohio's legislators on issues related to the process and the AAAs' role will continue into 2009.

We welcome to the region Autumn at the Lake - located at 14100 Zion Rd. in Thornville, Ohio. Featuring a 70-foot fully functional lighthouse, it is a 50-bed nursing and rehabilitation center that offers comprehensive care in a home-like environment. Outpatient therapy services also will be available. 

Steve Hitchens, president and chief executive officer of Autumn Health Care, announced private pay admissions into the facility are being accepted. Autumn At The Lake will be the seventh facility owned and operated by Autumn Health Care, which has facilities in Newark, Somerset, Zanesville, Coshocton, Cambridge and Mount Vernon. 

For admission information, call the facility at (740) 246-LAKE.
For more information on Autumn Health Care, call (740) 345-9198 or visit www.autumnhealthcare.net. For more details, contact Admissions Coord. Kristin King Johnson at 740-246-5253.