Exam 10: Long-Term Care

Increasing demand for long-term care is associated with macroeconomic and demographic trends as well as individual life style choices. For instance, higher workforce participation by women has raised the opportunity cost of care giving.

Payments to hospices from Medicare can be characterized as having reached the fourth stage of a typical financial reimbursement cycle: total cost control through global budgets.

More than 10% of U.S. health care spending goes to nursing homes.

Long term care insurance

Research shows that much more money is spent on medical care for the elderly today than 50 years ago. What is the likely reason? Do today's elderly tend to be sicker and more likely to be disabled than in prior years?

Payments to physicians from Medicare can be characterized as having reached which stage of a typical financial reimbursement cycle?

Long term care insurance

Medicaid payments to nursing homes using a case-mix adjustment

The full economic impact of nursing home certificate of need restrictions on a local economy is difficult to quantify because

An economist is asked to choose an appropriate cost escalation index for long term care providers. Using an index that relied more on housing and employment cost indices than on technology cost increases would probably result in lower cost escalation than a more general hospital cost index.

Middle and low income taxpayers benefit from several federal tax incentives to buy long term care insurance.

Use the concept of cost control by substitution to explain how the efforts to reduce healthcare costs by making cataract surgery an ambulatory surgery have actually increased Medicare spending on cataract surgery.

Home health care providers meet only functional and social needs of patients.

Originally, Medicaid has been created to provide medical insurance for indigent women and children. Now, however, the majority of Medicaid expenditures are for the elderly.

Which of the following statements about the certificate of need legislation is false?

What are some of the difficulties in implementing case-mix adjusted payment schedule in nursing homes? What are the criteria used to determine a case-mix weight? What are the strengths and weaknesses of such a system?

The wealthiest group in America is in the age category of

Explain how the market for nursing home care is a two part market in which those who can afford to pay out of pocket subsidize those with less money who are dependent on Medicaid to pay for nursing home. It may be helpful to draw a graph of the market demand.

Long term care facilities covered by Medicaid include facilities for the mentally impaired and the permanently disabled.

The case-mix reimbursement system for nursing homes may not be perfect because