The state is making progress in an effort to get long term care patients out of long term care facilities.
In 2008, Department of Health Services Secretary Karen Timberlake says the state was been able to relocate 895 seniors and people with disabilities out of long term care facilities. She says those people are now either living in their own homes or in a more community-oriented setting. Such settings can result in big cost savings for the state, because patients are no longer paying nursing home costs fir care they may not actually need.
Over 2,500 people have been moved into community-based care since the effort began in 2006. Timberlake says that helped to save the state nearly $4 million through Medicaid in the 2008 fiscal year.
In addition, the effort has also helped nearly 500 people avoid moving into a long term care facility in the first place.
Timberlake says the program is not intended to remove people from a nursing home or other types of facilities, if they need to be there.
