Coordination, choice, and value in long-term care

Systemic problems in the nation's long-term care system result in high-cost, low-quality care in most states. Consumers must exhaust their savings to become eligible for long-term care coverage through Medicaid, get lost in a maze of fragmented systems funded by different sources, and often are institutionalized unnecessarily. Several states have developed new models to provide long-term care that is better coordinated and includes more social supports. As these examples show, it pays to invest in home and community-based care systems and to help those systems connect to medically based networks.