ACP Offers Recommendations to Combat Long-term Care Challenges

The recommendations address improvements in quality, accessibility, equity, and affordability.

A new position paper from the Health and Public Policy Committee of the American College of Physicians (ACP) takes a closer look at the challenges in long-term care services and supports (LTSS).

LTSS challenges include COVID-19 safety, labor shortages, quality, and financing. The paper tackles these challenges by offering policy recommendations and asks policymakers and stakeholders to make improvements in quality, accessibility, equity, and affordability.

"ACP believes that the LTSS sector must be strengthened to ensure that patients can maintain quality of life, while also retaining their financial stability as they age," the paper said.

ACP recommendations include:

• A multipronged public-private sector approach to reforming long-term care service financing, specifically, the development of a publicly funded, universal catastrophic LTSS insurance program and policies that would make front-end, private long-term care insurance affordable and accessible.
• To address workforce shortages, policymakers and employers should offer comprehensive training, pay increases, benefit packages, and opportunities for career advancement and growth; as well as additional policies to assist unpaid caregivers through respite care, training, and reimbursement.
• Evidence-based intervention to ensure and improve the quality of long-term care services
• Conducting research on the effects of ownership status in the long-term care services sector, including quality of care, staff and patient safety, costs, and staffing ratios.
• Funding, assistance, and staff support for nursing homes and other long-term care services organizations for emergency preparedness planning

According to the paper, government spending and demand for long-term care services increases as the population ages; with more than half of Americans turning 65 requiring some type of long-term care service.

"A new coverage program and reforms to the private insurance market will inject much-needed financial resources into the system, bolster the [long-term service workforce] and relieve the massive burden taken on by family caregivers," the paper's conclusion stated.