Supporting Family Caregivers of Medicare patients
2020 data from AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving show that an estimated 53 million adults in the U.S. are unpaid caregivers to an adult or a child, of which 48 million are caring for someone over the age of 18 years.
- 61% of these caregivers are working adults
- 42 million are caring for someone over 50 years of age
- Disproportionate number of these caregivers are women
The US Census Bureau estimates that 19 million individuals will be over 85 years by 2060, 3X that of 2020: who will care for them? Empowering family caregivers to allow in-home care will be ideal, because seniors prefer to stay within the comfort of their home and with family members instead of a hospital or long-term care facility.
What can the federal government do to support in-home care?
- Increase Access to In-Home Benefits and Support for Family Caregivers Within Medicare (Traditional as well as MA)
- Beneficiary access to personal care and skilled care services at home
- Incentivize MA plans to provide supplemental benefits (personal care, respite care for caregivers) and social determinant of health benefits (food, transportation)
- Coordinated care and enhanced benefits: assistance with healthcare navigation, care management, telehealth, post-hospitalization home care
- CMS could test these pilot programs and their impact on preventing hospitalization and nursing home admissions
- Educate and encourage health care providers to use existing billing codes for services such as caregiver health risk assessment, training and care management
- CMS can enforce rules that ensure family caregivers are included in the beneficiary’s care plan, such as transitions across care settings and discharge planning
- CMS can launch pilot programs that compensate family caregivers for their services and time
- Make data-driven decisions: prioritize data collection on caregiver needs, focus on using appropriate performance measures to capture caregiver health and wellbeing, include caregiver-related questions in patient satisfaction surveys
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