Prescreening at-risk elders for entry into a community-based long-term care program

Despite the expansion of community-based service alternatives, demand for case coordinated community care continues to rise. Many programs, under pressure to target their services to te most disabled, have developed comprehensive entry criteria to determine eligibility. Their criteria generally require an in-person assessment to make the determination, but because of the volume of potential applicants, in-person assessment of each applicant has proven to be impractical. Although most programs have developed some type of screening method and a wide range of approaches are used, little research exists to validate the screening efforts. This study reports on a screening method used in the national channeling demonstration and compares the results of a telephone screen to the results of an in-person assessment.