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Long-Term Care Bill offers more choices

The Long-Term Care Community Choices Act would give caregivers and others alternatives to institutional care, according to this news story from WSMV--4 in Nashville. AARP President Margot Seay discusses the legislation and what it means for Tennesseans.

Added: April 16, 2008
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Nursing Home Liability Bill dead until next year

Legislation that would limit the legal remedies for nursing home residents who’ve been abused or neglected is dead for the year. However, legislators will study the proposal this summer and fall, and they may resurrect it when the 106^th General Assembly convenes in January.

Proponents of the bill could not get enough support in a key subcommittee - in part because of ardent opposition by AARP members and volunteers, who called and visited the members’ offices often to express their disapproval.

Dozens of AARP volunteers wearing stickers that urged lawmakers to vote against the bill packed a legislative hearing room and were prepared to testify when the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Randy Rinks, D-Savannah, agreed to send it to a study committee.

The bill would have required nursing home residents - as a condition of admission - to agree to arbitration before filing suit against the institution. It also would have capped the maximum damage award for pain and suffering in injury or death lawsuits to $300,000. And it would have made it more difficult for cases involving injuries caused by negligence or abuse to be heard.

Although the bill - proposed by the nursing home industry - was called the ``Patient Protection Act,’’ it did absolutely nothing to protect patients or improve the quality of care in nursing homes.

Nursing home lobbyists said the bill was needed because too much money is spent on lawsuits and litigation, diverting funds from the care of residents. Opponents argued that if residents were receiving adequate care, there would be no lawsuits.

Last year, the state forced 22 nursing homes to suspend admissions – double the number of admission suspensions the previous year and triple the number in 2005. Also, there were 152 incidences where nursing residents were found in ``immediate jeopardy’’ of harm.

``Legislators wisely realized that this was not the time to do anything that would limit the legal remedies for people who have been abused or neglected in a nursing home,’’ said AARP Tennessee State Director Rebecca Kelly. ``Quality of care obviously needs to be addressed first.’’

The House and Senate speakers will each appoint five members to the study committee, which is expected to begin its hearings this summer.

``We look forward to participating in the discussions to ensure that the study committee members understand how important this issue is to AARP members, and to all Tennesseans and their loved ones,’’ Kelly said.

Added: April 16, 2008
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AARP TN President talks about Long-Term Care

State President Margot Seay appeared on WTVF Morning Line to discuss the efforts to expand long-term care in Tennessee. Seay answered viewers phone calls and discussed the Long-Term Care Community Choices Act of 2008.

Added: March 25, 2008
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Tennesseans strongly support home care

An AARP survey found nearly 9 in 10 Tennesseans support long-term care services at home. Check here for the details of the survey.

Added: March 11, 2008
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Interview with Gov. Phil Bredesen

Gov. Phil Bredesen was interviewed by AARP Tennessee Communications Director Karin Miller about his plans to restructure Tennessee’s long-term care system. Bredesen said, "Let’s start looking at this in a more sophisticated manner and start putting the patient back at the center of the equation instead of the institution." Here is more of the Bredesen interview http://community.aarp.org/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=1&nav=messages&webtag=rp-tn&tid=90

Added: February 29, 2008
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Fox News Special Report on LTC in Tennessee

Fox News anchor Laura Faber looked at Tennessee's Long-Term Care system in a special report called "Difficult Decisions." The report includes an interview with AARP Tennessee State President Margot Seay about what needs to be done to improve the choices for long-term care in the state. The report can be found at the following link: http://www.fox17.com/newsroom/special_reports/vid_38.shtml

Added: February 15, 2008
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Gov. Bredesen's Remarks on Long Term Care

From the State of the State Address

January 28, 2008

Finally, I’d like to talk this evening though about a promise that I’ve made and not yet kept—expanding alternatives to nursing homes for our elderly and disabled residents, the so-called home and community based services. Tennessee usually ranks dead last among the states in alternatives to nursing homes.

This is the year I want to fix that, this is the year I want to fulfill my promise.

In the months ahead, with your help, we are going to fundamentally restructure how long term care is handled in our TennCare program, and it will be a much better and more humane program as a result.

Eligibility is slow today; we are going to speed it up. We need to make it easier to stay at home with

more home and community-based services. We need more residential alternatives to nursing homes and we need more consumer-directed options such as allowing the consumer to select or even employ his or her own caregivers.

These are not just goals, we will present you with the “Long Term Care Community Choices Act of 2008” to restructure legislatively this part of TennCare, and TennCare itself will be making changes in conjunction with this to open the doors to a richer set of choices for our citizens.

We cannot of course put significant new dollars into long term care this year. What we will do is to

restructure what we have, and provide a framework for the future in much the same way as we did with the BEP last year. We will not do this independently, but in consultation with members of the

legislature, with the industry itself, and with citizens who have been calling for changes in long term

care for a long time.

There is a growth in my own personal understanding here. It becomes plainer to me every day that our state has so many citizens who are elderly and who are beginning to deal with the reality that they can no longer do everything for themselves in quite the way they did twenty years ago. Our state is full of the children and grandchildren of these citizens who want the best for them, and are looking for ways to accomplish that.

And most personally, I know my mother is watching this proceeding tonight, and she still hasn’t stopped teaching me. I want to say to her, Mom,

I’ve seen how much you want to be in your own home; I know how difficult that would have been a few times these past couple of years without some help; I know that not everyone has a granddaughter like you do who can give that help.

My job is to open more doors to alternatives here in Tennessee. If you want to stay in your home, if it makes sense to do so, this is the year we’re going to start making it easier.

Added: January 29, 2008
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Tennessee AARP outlines plans for 2008--CTFP

Tennessee AARP outlines plans for 2008

Thursday, January 24, 2008

By:
Emily Bregel (Contact)

High on the Tennessee AARP’s agenda this year is the expansion of funding for home and community-based care for the state’s aging or disabled residents.

“We are literally last in the nation in providing alternatives to nursing home care through Medicaid funding,” said Karin Miller, director of communications for the Tennessee AARP. “We’re trying to expand those opportunities for people to stay in their home as opposed to having to go into a nursing home.”

The Tennessee AARP regional impact team met Wednesday to discuss plans for the coming year. About 30 people attended the event, including local chapter members, representatives of the Southeast Tennessee Area Agency for Aging and Disability, the Tennessee Association of Adult Day Services and the TVA Retirees Association’s Chattanooga chapter.

TennCare now has 3,700 slots to fund enrollees who need home or community-based care instead of a nursing home, and the AARP wants to expand that number by 2,300, Ms. Miller said.

The group’s director of advocacy, Patrick Willard, spoke at the meeting about issues of identify theft for seniors.

Last year the Tennessee AARP pushed the Credit Security Act, which forced businesses and nonprofit associations to stop requiring people to use their Social Security numbers as a means of identification, Mr. Willard said.

In the current legislative session, the state AARP will put forth legislation to address government use of the identification number in hopes of making the number unnecessary for voter eligibility, he said.

He cited an event in December in Davidson County, Tenn., in which someone broke into the county’s Election Commission offices and stole a laptop containing the Social Security numbers of 337,000 people.

Ms. Miller also spoke about the group’s campaign, called “Divided We Fail,” which aims to bring members of both major political parties together on the issues of health care and financial security, she said.

“We need to get everyone from both sides of the aisle together and come up with some common-sense solutions,” Ms. Miller said.

BY THE NUMBERS

AARP members in Tennessee: 711,000

Amount of state funding for nursing homes in 2006: More than $942 million

Amount of state funding for home and community-based care in 2006: About $10.8 million

SOURCE: Tennessee AARP

Added: January 24, 2008
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