Getting Help to Age in Your Home

Money Follows the Person expansion to help Medicaid patients live independently

by: Tom Puleo, from: AARP Bulletin, March 1, 2011

Edgewater Towers became Dennis Boughton's home last fall when he and 34 others were moved into home- and community-based settings after a New Haven nursing home was closed by the state. — Lisa Kereszi

Dennis Boughton's new apartment near the waterfront in West Haven feels like a college campus compared with the nursing home where he spent six years living behind a barbed-wire fence.

"That place had no freedom," Boughton, 68, said of New Haven's West Rock Health Care Facility, closed by the state last year for multiple patient-care violations.

Boughton, who uses a wheelchair because of a stroke, found Edgewater Towers last fall through Money Follows the Person, a federally funded program that helps residents move out of nursing homes and live independently while still receiving the services they need.

Money Follows the Person helps Medicaid participants get assistance such as help with meals, chores and medication — services that help them stay at home.

In one of his first acts after taking office, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, D, announced a dramatic expansion of the Money Follows the Person program.

Malloy's administration has asked the federal government to approve up to 5,200 nursing home-to-community care placements over the next five years. Nearly half of them — 2,251 — would make the shift by June 30, 2013.

The state's Money Follows the Person program now has approval for 890 people, said Anne Foley, undersecretary for policy development and planning at the Office of Policy and Management. So far, Boughton is one of 411 who have received services that allow them to live independently.

Nearly 90 percent of older Connecticut residents prefer to live at home as they age, according to an AARP survey, because they want control over their sleeping, eating and socializing schedules.

New policy is 'a no-brainer,' AARP says

"It's far less expensive to support people in the community — which is what they prefer — than in nursing facilities. It's a no-brainer from a policy standpoint," said Brenda Kelley, AARP Connecticut state director. She said Malloy's plan is "a bold vision that over time will save the state money, while providing thousands of older residents with what they want — the ability to live independently in their homes and communities as they age." Home care is two to three times less expensive than nursing home care, according to a state advisory commission. But Connecticut has lagged among states that are shifting funds to home care.

AARP research shows that in 2007, institutions received 91 percent of the state's long-term care Medicaid dollars for older adults and adults with physical disabilities.

Lawmakers say overhauling that spending model makes sense.