Welcome to hub-based long-term care.
It’s not a reality, at least not yet. But it might be in the near future, if some of the field’s deepest thinkers have their way.
This new approach lets consumers go through central doorways to find best-fit services. Regardless of whether that means skilled care, senior living, home care — or another option.
The full details appear in a brilliant report released Thursday by Nexus Insights. Its title is “Where Am I, Where Do I Go: The Missing Entry Point to Long-Term Care Solutions for Older Adults and Their Caregivers.”
The organization’s founder, Bob Kramer (who also cofounded the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care), is a key advocate. He said such a shift would make the search for long-term care less confusing and more efficient, while resulting in a better fit.
“Skilled nursing more than ever has to recognize it’s not about fighting to get people to come to their setting and holding onto them as long as possible so they can bill as much as possible. It’s rather demonstrating they’re very much part of a larger continuum and for many skilled providers that means an opportunity to think about their customer and resident in a much broader sense than when they’re in their building,” Kramer told my colleague Joe Bush.
The late Steve Jobs said that good ideas are worth nothing unless executed. There’s no doubt that a hub-based approach would greatly improve the way long-term care is delivered. But will it ever be executed?
Clearly, at least two hurdles will need to be overcome.
One is the nursing home industry itself. Yes, some of the 15,000 or so of the nation’s facilities would benefit under a hub-based approach. Others, however, would not. And as a general rule, organizations don’t typically rally around changes that might prove harmful or worse.
Then there’s the small matter of paying for this new system. The report recommends a public-private partnership. Sounds reasonable. But that might be a tough sell on each front.
More public funding means more taxes, unless the money can be scraped from another program. And as any lawmaker will tell you, stumping for higher taxes is not exactly the quickest path to job security these days.
As for the private funding? Well, I suppose a big, fat check from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation would be nice. But as a practical matter, this project might have to join the back of a very long line. There, or elsewhere.
Regardless, I want to wish Nexus Insights good luck in improving our nation’s dysfunctional long-term care system. We’ll certainly keep an eye on what happens. Or doesn’t.
John O’Connor is Editorial Director for McKnight’s.
Opinions expressed in McKnight’s Long-Term Care News columns are not necessarily those of McKnight’s.
