Waiver allows for quicker home care
A visiting nurse sat at the kitchen table parceling medications for the week, a friend was reconnecting the gas stove, her daughter was tidying up and a neighbor stopped in for a visit.
Everyone seemed to be talking at once, and the 87-year-old Little beamed.
"I'm happy to be here," she said. "I slept good last night."
It was Little's first night at home after nine months in a nursing home, a place in which she had resigned herself to spend her final days. But now Little believes God had other plans. Her daughter and granddaughters, who confide their secrets to her and seek her advice, needed her back home.
"They call me the 'old wise owl,' " Little said.
Like many older Ohioans, Little wants to live at home for as long as possible.She couldn't do it without regular visits from a home-health aide and other help, and a state law that hasn't been used a lot recently made that possible.
Ohio's Home First waiver allows Medicaid-eligible nursing-home residents who want to return home or live in a less-restrictive setting to get home-care or assisted-living services without a wait. Since July, when cuts in state aid to long-term care services created waiting lists for popular long-term care services such as PASSPORT, 164 Ohioans have accessed immediate care under the waiver.
The Central Ohio Area Agency on Aging, which serves Franklin and the surrounding counties, has helped 23 residents, including Little, said Bethany Dohnal, a spokeswoman for the agency.
"We wanted people to have the most appropriate care," said Sen. John Carey, the Wellston Republican who pushed for the waiver.
"I think it's helped. It's saving lots of money and providing people with the care they want."
The $50.5 billion state budget approved by lawmakers in July cut funding to long-term care services by about 25 percent, creating waiting lists for the first time in two and a half years. New enrollment in home care and assisted living is now limited to 680 people a month. Last year, new enrollment averaged about 900.
As of Aug. 31, the waiting list was 364, according to Karla Warren, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Aging. State officials project it could reach 8,000 by June 2011, the end of the two-year budget.
Carey said it makes no sense for nursing-home residents to have to wait for home care if they want to move home and are able to do so. Home services are a fraction of the cost of institutional care, so taxpayers save, too, he said.
Little's daughter, Sally Dawson said her family was thrilled when her mother's health improved.
"She had accepted that she was there long-term, but as she improved and started feeling better, she wanted to come home, and I started feeling bad about her being there," Dawson said.
Little, who has relied on Medicaid since exhausting most of her savings, will have a home health aide or nurse check on her four times a week to help her bathe and to monitor her medications. She'll also have her meals delivered.
Dawson, who runs a group home for developmentally disabled adults next door to her mom's trailer, also will look after her.
"Holidays will be better. Everything will be better," Dawson said.
Little agreed. "I don't know why I'm here," she said. "But I think it's for a good reason."