Basic HTML Version
22
NOV / DEC 2013
I
Healthcare Journal of NEW ORLEANS
dialogue
community-based services might work for
that person, they might need fewer hours,
perhaps there is a work programor day pro-
gram for them. At the same time if I can also
manage the transportation needs and the
hospitalization needs and make sure peo-
ple aren’t over-utilizing those by not having
good prevention and disease management
then we can save costs there.
But again we are saving those costs not
to save costs, but to help me provide more
options for the next person on my waiting
list or the next person who is really in need
of services.
Editor:
So one of the primary objectives is to
move away from an institutional system to a
more community-based system?
Kathy Kliebert:
We’ve been moving from an
institutional system to a community-based
system for a number of years, both in devel-
opmental disabilities and thosewho are aging
who have adult onset disabilities.We’re going
to continue to do that. It’s always our goal that
if a person can receive services near their
homes, in their communities, with their fami-
lies or close to their families, we know that’s
much better for the individual, we know it’s
we also recognize that this is a big prob-
lem for upcoming years in terms of hav-
ing enough services available for our aging
population, people with disabilities. We
recognize that as we’ve got more and more
demand for services we should really look
at our whole long-term care system. Look
at the resources we have in it andmake sure
we are using those resources as best we can
by better managing care, coordinating care
between providers, including the acute por-
tion in that managed care so that we have a
system that truly doesmanage care. It’s really
not about budget savings, it’s about figuring
out how we can use those resources differ-
ently to handle the demand that we are going
to have in the future.
Editor:
What are some of the benefits to the state
of changingmodels?
Kathy Kliebert:
Again, primarily it’s that we
can use our current resources. For instance
we have individuals who might be in one of
our home and community-based services
and they also receive transportation services
from Medicaid, have frequent hospitaliza-
tions, frequent doctor’s visits. Right now the
residential side is handled by a casemanager,
but they only manage the waiver supports,
the home and community-based supports.
I don’t have anybody managing those acute
services.There’s nobody looking at howoften
this person is going in, are there things we
can do for disease management, prevention,
stuff we can do to keep them fromgoing back
and forth to the hospital. I’m not coordinat-
ing that. And, the residential services that
are being provided—I don’t have anybody
looking at if that’s the right level of service
for that person. Are there other less intense,
less intrusive programs that might work for
those individuals? Is there a program that’s
not an institutional service that might work
for those individuals?
So to have somebody holistically look
at the services provided to that person
then I can have much more cost-effec-
tive options. We might find that home and