FYI: To apply for the MI Choice Medicaid Waiver program, call
866-593-7413
A day after his 59th wedding
anniversary, Jack Masters left a nursing home to return to live with his wife,
Sue.
This was after Masters spent some 10 months in a
nursing home after having three strokes in 2011.
His transition back to his home on Harsens Island
where he and his wife retired was possible due to funding from the Money Follows the Person/Nursing Facility Transition program via
the Michigan Department of Community Health MI Choice Medicaid Waiver Program. The program provides
home-care services for people who are seniors or disabled and are 18 or older
and eligible for Medicaid. He and his wife
manage those services via the Self-Determination option.
When asked what advice he would give to people
considering leaving a nursing home, Masters, 84, said: “You will feel much
better, make faster progress, and accomplish more because you will be where you
belong.”
Many residents in this nation aren’t really where
they belong.
There are some 16,639 nursing homes in the United
States with 1.7 million residents. Many of them are disabled, including the
39,917 in Michigan in such homes, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
This program
assists those who want to leave nursing homes
to return to living in a community setting of
their choice. This program helps “gets them started then helps to maintain them in the community,”
said Marcia Marklin, the program manager of Home Care at the Macomb-Oakland
Regional Center, a nonprofit with offices in Auburn Hills and Clinton Township
which provides services to seniors and those
with disabilities.
When money from the federal or state government
through Medicaid follows the person, “it creates housing options for the
disabled, younger people and those with low incomes,” she said. “People should be able to choose where they live. This
program helps to provide that choice.”
Michigan and 41 other states and the District of
Columbia have implemented Money Follows the Person programs. From spring 2008
through December 2011, nearly 20,000 people have left nursing homes and
returned home.
MORC alone has transitioned 157 people out of
nursing homes into the community since 2005. A dedicated nursing facility team
has been created to get some of the 10,051 people in Medicaid nursing home beds
in Oakland, Macomb, St. Clair, Livingston, Washtenaw, and Macomb counties in
their own homes or apartments with the daily care they need, said Marklin.
“The people we have
helped
transition are much happier, healthier and live a better quality of life,” she
said.
Besides being 18 or older, MI Choice requires recipients to have a
monthly income of $2,130 or less; $2,000 or less in assets (excludes one home,
one car) and requiring nursing home level of care.
Caregivers are provided to do errands when people
are moved out of nursing homes into places of their own as well as help with
personal care, dressing, provide adult day care and
other daily living tasks.
“We help
support
some people in the program who are 100 percent disabled and they have
caregivers 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” said Marklin. “There’s sometimes
a combination of paid workers and family members who are not paid.”
MORC, which started trying to move people into
homes or apartments before the federal program began 21 years ago, receives
annual funding of $8.7 million from MDCH for the
MORC Home Care Inc. division.
Jerry Wolffe is the Disability Rights
Advocate/Writer in Residence at MORC Inc., a nonprofit that provides services
to people with disabilities in Oakland, Wayne and Macomb counties. He can be
reached at 586 263 8950.
