Home and Community Based Services—Money Well Spent

By: State: South Carolina | Source: AARP.org

What are Home and Community Based Services?

Home and community based services prevent or delay frail seniors and persons with disabilities from being admitted to nursing homes. Services include such assistance as personal care aides, adult day services, transportation, home-delivered meals, congregate meals, nutrition education, respite care and other services.

What does it cost us?

The range of aging services—home-delivered meals, personal care, adult day services, etc.—that help seniors remain in their home cost an average of $822 dollars per individual per year. In contrast, persons in Medicaid-paid nursing home beds cost taxpayers anywhere from $25,000 to $37,000 per year. Re-iInvesting this $2.9 million today can potentially save the state expenditures of more than $30 million in delayed or prevented nursing home admissions over the next few years. Other states have already realized the wisdom of this type of investment and have moved more of their dollars into home and community-based services.

Who is served?

More than 17,000 seniors. Seventy percent of these seniors have incomes below the federal poverty level of less than $800 a month. Half of these seniors live alone. Sixty percent live in rural areas and almost 30% are 85 and older.

How do we compare to other states?

We serve the second lowest percentage of eligible seniors in the Southeast. For example, Mississippi serves more than double the percentage of seniors that South Carolina serves.

What are the health benefits of receiving home-delivered meals?

A recent study showed that of seniors with similar health conditions, those that received home-delivered meals had fewer emergency room visits and inpatient hospitalizations than those who did not receive meals. Investing in services to seniors in their own homes is a smart financial decision in many ways such as reducing the state's health care costs.

What you can do

Follow the South Carolina budget to make sure that $2.9 million is included to provide these valuable services. Click this link for the Palmetto Pulse to find out more.