Position Paper
Long Term Services and Support

Aging Life Care Professionals™ … coordinating services to optimize health and quality of life.

The Aging Life Care Association™ (ALCA), formerly National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers, is an organization of practitioners who use a holistic, client-centered approach to caring for older adults or others facing ongoing health challenges. ALCA is committed to maximizing the independence and autonomy of elders and strives to ensure the highest quality and most cost-effective health and human services. Members help older persons and their families cope with the challenges of aging through education, advocacy, counseling, and service delivery.

Long Term Services and Support

Long-term services and support currently are a patchwork of programs, which include home-based, community-based and institutional care. Both quality and site of delivery vary widely from state to state. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1992 states consumers in need of care and assistance, because of limitations due to physical, mental, or emotional conditions, shall have it delivered in their or their family’s choice of the least restrictive setting. Courts have held this to be true no matter what the age of the person under consideration.

I. Financing

ALCA supports:

  1. Public education about the need for long-term services and support and the availability of financing options.
  2. Effective integration of long-term services and support policies into our nation’s overall health care policy.
  3. The roles of both the private and public sectors in providing for quality long-term services and support.

ALCA advocates: for an individual who requires long-term services and support to not risk financial impoverishment to any greater degree than a person who requires acute medical care services

II. Delivery System

ALCA advocates:

  1. That each community or rural area provide a comprehensive range of culturally sensitive community and facility-based health, social, and support services.
  2. That long-term services and support be fully available while minimizing financial, social, medical or emotional hardships on the recipient or their families.
  3. For Medicaid to be retained as a safety net available to people in all settings and to help protect against spousal impoverishment, until comprehensive long-term care financing is in place.
  4. For Medicaid and other federal funding to be adequate to accommodate the anticipated growth in the need for assistance.
  5. That the coordination of services and caregiver education and training be provided by Aging Life Care™ / care managers.
  6. That the right of competent older adults to make their own care decisions be respected and, they be provided with educational support and information to make those decisions.
  7. That family caregivers and responsible individuals be provided with educational support and respite and, when appropriate, involved in care decisions.
    1. That the CLASS ACT in the ACA should be implemented to provide long term care insurance for any person who elects to sign -up for insurance to help individuals pay for home and community-based care, assisted living, and nursing home care.

ALCA supports: the development of innovative community-based approaches to help older adults and people with disabilities remain in the community and to ensure smooth transitions in care as envisioned by the Affordable Care Act.

Resolutions Approved by the NAPGCM Board of Directors October 22, 1998.
Reviewed, changed and updated by Public Policy Committee, September 8, 2008.
Reviewed, changed and updated by Public Policy Committee, December 16, 2008.
Revision by Public Policy Committee 6.1.09, Approved by NAPGCM BOD 7.30.09
Revision by Public Policy Committee 9.10.12, Approved by NAPGCM BOD 10.18.12