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