Concerns Raised About Long-Term Care Counselors
A top priority for AARP Florida is to help improve long-term care services for everyone in the state, but a program to address this need, Florida Senior Care, is raising questions.
The story is a little complicated, but it boils down to this: The same state agencies that want to move Medicaid beneficiaries into managed-care organizations are also paying for the counselors who advise beneficiaries on whether to sign up for the program.
The FSC program, an initiative of former Gov. Jeb Bush, would move older Floridians receiving Medicaid into HMOs and other large managed-care organizations.
Two state entities, the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) and the Department of Elder Affairs (DOEA), want to implement two pilot projects in 2007: one in Pensacola, where seniors will be required to join a managed-care plan; and one in Orlando, which was originally billed as a test of voluntary managed care. New questions are arising, however, about exactly how “voluntary” the Orlando pilot test will be.
Older Medicaid beneficiaries in Pensacola have no choice: If you don’t pick a plan in 30 days, the state will assign one to you.
State “choice counselors” will also advise Orlando seniors on whether to maintain their current care arrangements or to sign up for Florida Senior Care. But if they don’t make a decision one way or the other, the state will automatically switch them to FSC. And the counselors’ objectivity is in doubt from the start – after all, they’re hired by the agencies that are promoting the managed-care experiment.
Janet Legassie is a service coordinator at Baptist Terrace, an independent-living retirement facility in downtown Orlando. She reports that none of the 240 residents of the 14-story high-rise were aware of what the state is planning for them.
“Our residents enrolled in Medicaid to help cover the cost of long-term care have no idea that Florida Senior Care could uproot them to nursing homes, far away from their families,” said Legassie.
“I am concerned about how the AHCA and DOEA plan to provide choice counseling services,” Legassie continued. “The choice counselors need to be unbiased, and they should not be employed by AHCA or anyone else with a vested interest in getting Florida Senior Care to become a statewide plan.”
When it comes to Florida’s managed long-term care initiative for Medicaid recipients, AARP Florida has a simple message for state lawmakers: Just say no. To learn more about AARP’s efforts on long-term care and other legislative initiatives, go to www.aarp.org/fl.
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