Assisted living facilities save Medicaid money. However, it is difficult to know what funds are spent wisely.
A group of U.S. Senators asked the Government Accounting Office to look into how the government’s Medicaid money was being spent. However, the results were not good, according to The New York Times in “U.S. Pays Billions for ‘Assisted Living,’ but What Does It Get?“.
Every year, the government spends approximately $10 billion on assisted living facilities. The discouraging news? It is almost impossible to determine how much of the money is well-spent and how much of it is not. The GAO found that a lack of regulations and proper oversight made it impossible to get even basic information about patient outcomes and critical events in many states.
This is disturbing since Medicaid is expected to need even more money in the future to pay for the nursing home care and assisted living care of an aging population.
Reference: New York Times (Feb. 3, 2018) “U.S. Pays Billions for ‘Assisted Living,’ but What Does It Get?”
