Honor The Promise

The Honor the Promise Platform

In order to ensure accessible and cost-effective health care for Maryland seniors, the State must adopt these key action items:

1. Improve access to senior care options.

• Adequately fund services to individuals residing in senior care facilities – budget cuts threaten quality of care.
• Allow individuals currently receiving services in the community to participate in the Older Adults Waiver.
• Expand Maryland’s Congregate Housing Services Program.
• Create a Maryland Affordable Housing Investment Fund to encourage development of more affordable housing for seniors.

2. Stabilize the senior care workforce to ensure Maryland can care for the future needs of a growing senior population.

• Enact programs to recruit and retain additional nursing/geriatric program faculty, including increasing pay.
• Increase access to education grants for individuals interested in working in senior health care.
• Allow reciprocity for individuals licensed in other states to work in Maryland (e.g., nursing home administrators).

3. Eliminate unreasonable delays in seniors receiving approval for State assistance – fix the Medicaid eligibility system.

• Purchase a new eligibility computer system to streamline the process between DHMH, DHR and local agencies.
• To increase efficiency, require semi-annual training sessions for individuals involved in the eligibility process (State workers and providers).
• Develop a pro-rating eligibility system to allow an individual whose countable resources slightly exceed the allowable amount in a given month to still qualify for assistance.

4. Reduce paperwork for caregivers at home and in facilities.

• Adequately staff State oversight agencies so they can meet their own timeframes for approving documents, sending survey results to providers, issuing licenses, etc.
• Create a central State repository for information submitted by senior care providers to avoid State agencies requesting duplicative information.
• Develop a system to allow all information to be submitted and received electronically to eliminate delays caused by paper submissions.

Help us speak out about the problems facing Maryland regarding senior care.

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