Long-Term Care - Illinois General Assembly

• There should be a realignment and consolidation of administration of existing programs to
better serve the elderly and reduce the state's administrative costs. There needs to be a
single point-of-entry. There is money right now at the federal level to pilot for such an
initiative. We need to do it now. It needs to be consistent from community to community.
The conflict of interest between the “gatekeepers” (those doing client assessments) and
providers will have be addressed.
Currently there is a searchable database in the Department of Public Health and a separate
one in the Department on Aging. There should be one database that has home and
community-based as well as facility-based care. A client should be able to go in and punch
in Macon County and see the kinds of services available in that area, and the eligibility
standards and information about the individual providers. There should also be information
about treatment centers for Alzheimer's, and about other diseases affecting the aged.
Family caregivers should be able to access that information. They should also find
information about providing care – i.e., how to feed someone who is lying prone.
• The health, safety and well-being of the seniors must be one of the state's highest priorities.
There should be appropriate monitoring, not just of facility-based programs, but of home and
community-based programs.
• There should be a single point-of-entry for complaints that uses the same standard definition
to classify the cases, regardless of whether the person lives in a facility, doesn't live in a
facility, has a family relationship with the perpetrator or not.
• Services must be of the highest quality, both client-focused and consumer-directed. Look at
the existing consumer-directed pilot program and see if it's appropriate for in-home
programs, to allow some seniors the flexibility of directing their own care. There must be
appropriate safeguards to ensure that the individual is not going to be exploited, abused,
and that fraud is not going to be perpetuated.
All providers, facility-based, community or home-based, need to be required to have quality
assurance programs. They need to make routine reports to the state of Illinois. Every
provider needs to have annual satisfaction survey, and the results should be available to the
public upon request.
High worker turnover is contrary to the concept of quality. Illinois needs to develop career
ladders with incentives for advancement.
“One of my volunteers' daughters has been an in-home care worker all her
adult life, and she's now in her late 30s, early 40s. She is going to be one of
those people who is going to be poor as a senior, because she doesn't have a
pension, she doesn't have health insurance. Why doesn't she move on? She's
an intelligent woman. The reason is — she loves what she does. She loves
every one of those seniors she takes care of. We should be promoting that,
not putting barriers to people being able to stay and to grow within those fields.”
• A basic set of services, home, community and facility-based, should be available to a senior,
regardless of where they live in this state. Services are provided in a patchwork across the
state.
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