Medicaid and Family Caregiving: Services, Support and Strategies Among Aged/Disabled HCBS Waiver Programs in the U.S. (2005)

This descriptive study characterizes and analyzes the role of Medicaid HCBS waiver programs in supporting family and informal caregivers of frail elders and adults with disabilities. The paper draws on findings from FCA's 50-state survey of 150 publicly funded programs with a caregiver support component conducted in 2003. The paper describes how waiver programs are administered at the state and local levels, how families access them, the approaches taken to assess the needs of family and informal caregivers, the services waiver programs provide to support families, the amount spent on respite care, the main challenges faced by waiver programs in implementing caregiver support services and coordinating services with other HCBS programs, and how waiver programs view issues around the integration of caregiver support into HCBS.

Author
Lynn Feinberg and Sandy Newman
Family Caregiver Alliance

Published by Rutgers Center for State Health Policy and the National Academy for State Health Policy

Date 5/1/2005

To View The Report

http://www.hcbs.org/moreInfo.php/doc/1401

For a short version of this article, view the Issue Brief here.

http://www.hcbs.org/moreInfo.php/doc/1402

Topic: Direct Services and Support for Caregivers