What is Family Care?

Aging and Disability Resource Centers

Aging and disability resource centers (ADRCs) offer the general public a single entry point for information and assistance on issues affecting older people, people with disabilities, or their families. These centers are welcoming and convenient places to get information, advice and access to a wide variety of services. As a clearinghouse of information about long-term care, they will also be available to physicians, hospital discharge planners, or other professionals who work with older people or people with disabilities. Services will be provided through the telephone or in visits to an individual’s home.

  • Information and Assistance. Provide information to the public about services, resources and programs in areas such as: disability and long-term care related services and living arrangements, health and behavioral health, adult protective services, employment and training for people with disabilities, home maintenance, nutrition and Family Care. Resource center staff will provide help to connect people with those services and to also apply for SSI, Food Stamps and Medicaid as needed.
  • Long-Term Care Options Counseling. Offer consultation and advice about the options available to meet an individual’s long-term care needs. This consultation will include discussion of the factors to consider when making long-term care decisions. Resource centers will offer pre-admission consultation to all individuals with long-term care needs entering nursing facilities, community-based residential facilities, adult family homes and residential care apartment complexes to provide objective information about the cost-effective options available to them. This service is also available to other people with long-term care needs who request it.
  • Benefits Counseling. Provide accurate and current information on private and government benefits and programs. This includes assisting individuals when they run into problems with Medicare, Social Security, or other benefits.
  • Emergency Response. The resource center will assure that people are connected with someone who will respond to urgent situations that might put someone at risk, such as a sudden loss of a caregiver.
  • Prevention and Early Intervention. Promote effective prevention efforts to keep people healthy and independent. In collaboration with public and private health and social service partners in the community, the resource center will offer both information and intervention activities that focus on reducing the risk of disabilities. This may include a program to review medications or nutrition, home safety review to prevent falls, or appropriate fitness programs for older people or people with disabilities.
  • Access to the Family Care Benefit. For people who request it, resource centers will administer the Long-Term Care Functional Screen to assess the individual’s level of need for services and eligibility for the Family Care benefit. Once the individual’s level of need is determined, the resource center will provide advice about the options available to him or her – to enroll in Family Care or a different case management system, if available, to stay in the Medicaid fee-for-service system (if eligible), or to privately pay for services. If the individual chooses Family Care, the resource center will enroll that person in a CMO. The level of need determined by the Long-Term Care Functional Screen also triggers the monthly payment amount to the CMO for that person.

 

Findings from the Aging and Disability Resource Centers:

  • During calendar year 2004, resource centers handled nearly 66,500 contacts. The number of contacts is only an approximation of the number of individuals who received information and assistance from the resource centers; one person may have made more than one contact during this period, while other single contacts assisted more than one person. A contact is defined as an exchange between a person seeking assistance or information and a resource center staff person trained to provide that assistance.
  • People calling on their own behalf as well as staff from long-term care facilities and community agencies are the most frequent callers, followed by friends and relatives.
  • People most often call the resource center seeking information and assistance related to basic needs and financial related services such as health insurance, money problems, or paying for food and utilities. However, people have called their resource center about a wide variety of topics from in-home care to hospice services, from legal issues to Alzheimer's care, from job help to education.