TOOLKIT: Supporting Greater Investment in Workforce Caring for Dual Eligibles

Significant investments must be made in the direct-care workforce to ensure that “dual eligibles” receive the services and supports they need, according to an advocacy toolkit published by the Eldercare Workforce Alliance (EWA) in October.

The 57-page toolkit provides advocates with the information needed to understand consumers who are dual eligible — people who are eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare — and to effectively advocate on their behalf.

The toolkit lists a wide range of state-specific interventions to train and develop the direct-care workforce to meet the unique care needs of dual eligibles. It also outlines the ways that advocates can set up a meeting with relevant long-term care stakeholders in their state.

All of the recommendations made in the toolkit are designed to both improve care and control costs, the report says:

Investing in and improving training and support for direct care workers is another area for potential cost savings, given the connection to factors — like few opportunities for advancement, low pay and poor working conditions — that contribute to direct care workers’ typically high levels of job dissatisfaction and turnover.

Both family caregivers and direct-care workers are discussed in the EWA toolkit, as well as the necessity of coordinating a dually eligible individual’s care across a spectrum of health care professionals.

The EWA is a coalition of 30 national organizations, including PHI, that work on developing solutions to the “immediate and future workforce crisis in caring for an aging America.”

— by Matthew Ozga