Caregivers

The Center for Health Care Strategies published a brief highlighting six states – Alabama, Idaho, Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Virginia – who have participated in innovative work to boost the support network for family caregivers. The brief includes lesson learned from each of the states’ programs and policies that support family caregivers. Additionally, the brief describes four elements that are essential to making effective changes to family caregiver support programs.

AARP has released its fourth iteration of the Long-term Services and Supports Scorecard. This scorecard ranks states and DC in order from 1 to 51 on a wide range of issues pertaining to older adults and people with disabilities. The LTSS scorecard has five domains that states are ranked within, and each of those domains has multiple indicators that are used to derive the overall score.

This brief draws from interviews with states operating new and long-standing MLTSS programs to identify six major trends in the refinement of MLTSS and underlying LTSS delivery systems nationally. The states examined in this brief are strengthening their Medicaid MLTSS programs to serve more LTSS beneficiaries and facilitate the development of integrated care programs that reduce service fragmentation for Medicare-Medicaid enrollees, particularly through Medicare Advantage D-SNPs

This report analyzes the challenges grandparents and older relatives face as primary caregivers. The report outlines the numbers of grandparent and older relative caregivers, and the reasons for this care. It also examines how HHS supports state efforts to use federal programs and initiatives to assist these caregivers. GAO concludes the report by making recommendations for how HHS could improve the sharing of information and best practices about older caregivers with states.

ARCH has developed voluntary guidelines for the operation of respite care during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many communities are re-opening, and this document aims to help respite providers plan to resume services in the safest way possible. This handbook includes decision making guides on when it is safe to receive or provide respite, highlights important considerations for respite care during COVID-19, and summarizes key resources for respite agencies and family caregivers to learn more.

The National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP released an update version of the Caregiving in the US report for 2020. The report contains updated data from research conducted since the report’s last release in 2015. Included in the report are data about caregiver prevalence and demographics, care recipient demographics, types of care caregivers provide, caregiver training and information needs, and other results from the research.

This week, the Senate Finance Committee released the language and summaries of legislation to help nursing home efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19. The Act would call on nursing homes to ensure that a portion Federal relief funds, made available on or after July 1, for responding to COVID-19 would be used for personal protective equipment (PPE) and COVID-19 testing in long-term care facilities. The Act also has language for expanding resources for elder justice activities.

On July 2nd, ADvancing States, in partnership with n4a, Meals on Wheels America, and NANASP, submitted a letter to Congress requesting additional funding for OAA programs to continue providing COVID-related services and supports. The letter requests an additional $1.1 billion for these services, which was the combined total of OAA funding provided in the Families First Coronavirus Response and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Sercurity Acts.

This AARP Public Policy Institute research report examines support for family caregivers in managed long-term services and supports. The report finds that states have made progress in this area, but have opportunity to continue improving support for family caregivers in their MLTSS programs. One potential solution suggested by the report is to ensure that MLTSS contracts between states and health plans include clearly defined requirements to identify and support family caregivers.

This issue brief explores the results from NCOA's survey on how the opioid epidemic impacts older adults and their caregivers. The brief explains the survey methodology, discusses key findings, and proposes recommendations for the aging network.