Nearly 15,000 Ohioans turn 60 each month, and as the population ages, the cost of caring for the elderly and disabled is gobbling up more and more tax dollars.
To slow state spending on long-term care and ensure that services are available to those in need, Ohio must shift its focus from high-priced nursing-home care to more affordable home- and community-based services.
A new report from a state-appointed advisory council that comes a month before Gov.-elect John Kasich takes office cautions that "projected growth in our senior population will create unsustainable expenditure increases in Medicaid long-term care. To be prepared as a state, we must take action today."
The Unified Long-term Care Systems Workgroup recommends in the 15-page report released today that the state provide an array of services, particularly those that allow residents to live at home as long as possible.
"We need to make sure the folks who need nursing-home care get it while diverting as many as we possibly can to home- and community-based care," said Barbara E. Riley, director of the Ohio Department of Aging.
The savings can be significant.
The state spends about $1,400 a month per person to provide home-care services through the PASSPORT program, while nursing-home care for an individual costs taxpayers three times that, or $4,321 a month.
The report includes an assessment by Miami University's Scripps Gerontology Center of a state initiative that moved 2,327 Ohioans home from nursing homes between March and November. Researchers calculated an annual savings to the state of $79 million and found that if all the individuals remained in the PASSPORT program for an average of 39 months, taxpayers would save $260 million.
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