Long-Term Care Sector, in Crisis, Grapples With ‘Age-Friendly’ Approach

The long-term care needs of the nation’s “silver tsunami” of 65-and-older population — a wave that began as the first of the baby boomer generation turned retirement age in 2011 — continue to elicit challenges in the broad health care buckets of spending, coverage, access to services and disparities in care. But during a recent webinar, experts discussed some promising solutions, including one health insurer’s initiative that takes a caregiver-centric approach to post-acute care.

Such pervasive problems in long-term care, an industry with a $415 billion tab in annual spending, were the primary theme of an Aug. 7 National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM) webinar, an event that framed the contributory elements of the country’s “long-term care crisis” — namely, underinvestment, a lagging workforce, fragmented care and an industry that often fails to take a person-centered approach.