§ 151-e-1

151-E:1 Purpose. – I. The purpose of this chapter is to provide medicaid eligible elderly and chronically ill adults with a continuum of care appropriate to their needs and affordable to the state and its taxpayers. II. To a great extent, the current system relies on nursing facilities to provide care for this group. While the quality of this care is high, an increasingly elderly and disabled population and a constrained public financial resource base require the state to reevaluate how long-term care services are provided. Moreover, many long-term care recipients and potential recipients prefer to be cared for at home or in other settings less acute than a nursing facility. Because far more may be spent on nursing facility care than on home and community-based care, there is an inherent difference between the state's present long-term care system and what recipients prefer. III. This chapter is an essential step toward rebalancing the long-term care system and expanding choices available to recipients. It increases the continuum of care by adding mid-level care, including but not limited to, assisted living and residential care services.

rm care system and expanding choices available to recipients. It increases the continuum of care by adding mid-level care, including but not limited to, assisted living and residential care services. Through an acuity-based reimbursement system , a comprehensive needs assessment process, and an information and assistance process, it provides those eligible for Medicaid nursing facility services the opportunity to choose more appropriate, less costly mid-level services and home and community-based care. In this way, the state intends to serve this increasing Medicaid eligible population more appropriately and more economically. Source. 1998, 388:1, eff. Nov. 25, 1998. 2007, 330:4, eff. Jan. 1, 2008.