PHCA Urges Administration to Move Methodically When Implementing Community HealthChoices

HARRISBURG —  The Pennsylvania Health Care Association (PHCA) today offered to work closely with the Wolf Administration, consumers and the entire General Assembly to ensure that Community HealthChoices (CHC) will provide a system of long-term services and supports that is person centered, coordinated and focused on preventive services and participant outcomes in the most appropriate and cost-effective care setting.

“Each states system of Managed Long-Term Services and Supports (MLTSS), which Pennsylvania has deemed Community HealthChoices, is very different and has had varying degrees of success in assuring access to care, saving money and improving the health of the long-term care population”, said PHCA President W. Russell McDaid. “The challenges that Pennsylvania’s aging population presents are very real. We do not believe that managed care organizations will be able to ‘manage away’ the chronic and ongoing care needs and costs of caring for many of our frail elders in need of around the clock care and services.”

McDaid added that “No one who does not need the around the clock skilled care and services provided in a nursing home should be forced to reside in a nursing home merely because other options do not exist. However, when a consumer has multiple chronic health care needs, and the most appropriate setting to assure they get the care and services they need is the nursing home, the system should not be stacked against the delivery of that care.”

“Our members view themselves in an important partnership with the consumers they serve, their families, and the Commonwealth, and believe that there is no one size fits all approach and no single proven model that the Department can merely pull ‘off the shelf’ that will make this program a success,” Mr. McDaid continued.

“Pennsylvania should proceed carefully, and allow adequate time between the implementation of each phase to make any program modifications that may be necessary in the best interest of consumers and those providing care and services before expanding the program statewide,” Mr. McDaid added. “We need to ensure that those who need long-term care receive quality services in the most appropriate and cost-effective setting at each stage of their life.”

“We look forward to working with the administration, consumers and the legislature to ensure that CHC is phased in to assure that it improves care and outcomes for consumers, and continues to focus our tax dollars towards care for vulnerable Pennsylvanians rather than the bottom line of large multi-state insurance companies,” he said. “We should all share the same goal, which is to have a system of long-term services and supports that is person centered, coordinated and focused on preventive services and participant outcomes.”