Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Adult day care centers feel like cruise ships

From the NY Times:

Scores of elderly Russian immigrants played bingo under the chandeliers of a former funeral parlor in Brooklyn on a recent Monday, with a free dinner and door-to-door transportation from anywhere in the city.

Zhang Di Hua, 69, playing table tennis at Centre Street Adult Day Care in Chinatown, which receives money for serving impaired or disabled Medicaid recipients.

Nearby, older people speaking Chinese filled a supermarket-size storefront with vigorous games of table tennis, billiards and mah-jongg, and ordered free lunch from a takeout menu featuring minced pork, beef and salty fish.

In Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, at the new R G Social Adult Day Care Center, known locally among elderly immigrants for luring clients with cash and grocery vouchers, most people there for lunch did not stay to eat. Instead, many walked briskly toward the subway carrying bags stuffed with takeout containers, and two elderly men rode away on bicycles with the free food.

Not a wheelchair or walker was in sight at these so-called social adult day care centers. Yet the cost of attendance was indirectly being paid by Medicaid, under Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s sweeping redesign of $2 billion in spending on long-term care meant for the impaired elderly and those with disabilities.

Such centers have mushroomed, from storefronts and basements to a new development in the Bronx that recently figured in a corruption scandal. With little regulation and less oversight, they grew in two years from eight tiny programs for people with dementia to at least 192 businesses across the city.

Managed care companies, financed by Medicaid, pay the centers to provide services to members. But the door swings both ways: Centers also refer new clients to the companies.

With the largest Medicaid budget in the country, $54 billion, New York is trying not only to rein in runaway spending, but also to “rebalance” it, away from costly institutional care, like nursing homes and medical models known for overbilling, to inexpensive supports that keep people safely in their communities.

In that context, Jason Helgerson, the state’s Medicaid chief, defended the rapid expansion of social-model adult day care, saying that without a chance to socialize and connect with others, Medicaid clients would suffer a decline in health that would add costs. But when a reporter described some of the practices observed at centers, he expressed surprise and anger.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Classic examples of tweeding.

They have a ritual every year - Albany will cut your funding - get into the bus for a photo op with your rep - money is released - your rep is a hero with another photo op when they visit the center - and a block of 1000s of votes lined up that will swamp any insurgent without benefit to this cute little ritual.

Anonymous said...

This is just another example of why out bizarre public/private health and elder care system can not be sustained.

When my father was in decline the V.A. sent a rep from the Visiting Nurse Service to try and get him on his feet again.

Six weeks of "treatment" where a therapist visited at various time each week. They had him do simple exercises, mostly siting and standing.

The final "test" was to have him get down to the building's lobby on his own power using a walker. He made it barely.

A copy of the bill arrived: approx $5600 about $840 per visit. The V.A. paid...But really.

For all this company actually did, instead the VA could have just given him a video tape and told him to watch and follow the exercises then after a period send someone to evaluate him.

I was available to help in any way needed.

We will eventually -have- go go Single Payer and get the profit out of this system.

Jon Torodash said...

The most surprising thing about this story is that it was published by the NY Times and not the NY Post.

Helgerson thinks the companies feeding at the trough are going to "stamp out the fraud and abuse?"

The contracts...

Anonymous said...

What a difference compared to that hole in the wall
(heavily supported by Stavisky...$500,000 a year)
North Flushing Senior Center.

Where the hell does all of Toby Ann's money go?

It doesn't look like it goes to the seniors.

Anonymous said...

from reading that article, does anyone go to those places who didnt get here just a few years ago? Seems like everyone just hopped off the boat and walked over to one of these centers. tweeding at its finest.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
What a difference compared to that hole in the wall
(heavily supported by Stavisky...$500,000 a year)
North Flushing Senior Center.

Where the hell does all of Toby Ann's money go?

It doesn't look like it goes to the seniors.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
BRING IN THE FEDS!!!

Anonymous said...

Interesting that these are senior citizens are Chinese. Wonder if they were born here or came here in the past few years.
Why I wonder is because in the small town in MA that I live in 20 miles WNW of Boston, a large percentage of the people in elderly housing are Chinese. I gather that they are brought in by their children who have already come here and then take advantage of all kinds of local services.
Our country is being killed financially because we don't know when to say NO. It's time to reduce immigration and eliminate the refugee program. The refugee program is how the Boston bombers came into the US. It had nothing to do with immigration.
Google "US refugee program" it will make your blood boil.

Anonymous said...

IMMIGRATION REFORM IS NEEDED!

It will be happening very soon, despite President Obama's hesitation, after the Boston Marathon bombings.

Anonymous said...

Chinese-American centers get everything.
African-American ones get little by comparison.

Anonymous said...

"It will be happening very soon, despite President Obama's hesitation, after the Boston Marathon bombings."

Dream on - if it didn't happen after 911, it will not ever happen.

Anonymous said...

At least senior are benefiting

Anonymous said...

911 happened how many years ago?
This just happened.

The learning curve is slow.
One more "event" and you'll see change!

Tune up your brain cells, malcontent.

Anonymous said...

Seniors are benefiting?

The OWNERS of such centers use these seniors to benefit them even more!

What do you think pays for their fine homes in Scarsdale, Douglas Manor, and Port Washington?

Get it now?

Anonymous said...

Uh, speak English. It's seniors, not "senior".

Anonymous said...

Such adult daycare centers have mushroomed, from storefronts and basements to a new development in the Bronx that recently figured in a corruption scandal.

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