Gov Says He’ll Push More At-Home Health Care

Governor Phil Bredesen says he’d like to shift more TennCare money to pay for at-home health care services for seniors.

Bredesen made his comments yesterday in response to a Tennessean article describing the selling of homes to pay for nursing home care.

The state and federal government spent 1-billion dollars on long-term care services last year. In order to recover some of that money spent, the federal government mandates the state try to recoup funds through the sale of assets like homes after a person has deceased. Bredesen says it’s an unsustainable situation.

“It underlines for me that fact that long-term care, nursing home care has got to be disengaged at some point in this country from the Medicaid program. Basically the only way you can qualify for it is to spend-down, to have very few assets.”

A house doesn’t count as an asset when applying for TennCare, but the state will count it as recoverable once a person has died.

At-home health care services are generally cheaper than nursing homes. But TennCare is still required to recoup losses on money spent for any type of long-term care, including funds shifted into the at-home or community based services.