The first-year experience for the Department of Health & Welfare’s “Money Follows the Person” program to move patients from institutional care to home and community care, where appropriate, has resulted in 64 patients making such moves, Paul Leary, Medicaid administrator, told JFAC this morning. Sixteen moved from intermediate care facilities to the state’s developmentally disabled waiver program; 47 moved out of nursing homes and went on the aged and disabled waiver program in the community; and one moved out of a facility and now just gets the state’s enhanced Medicaid benefit.  These are all patients who are aged, blind or disabled; it’s a grant-funded demonstration project. Next year will be the third year of the five-year demonstration grant, which provides transitional services and supports as patients make the moves. Next year's grant funds total $555,300.

“I think so far we’re very encouraged,” Leary said. For a patient in an intermediate care facility, Medicaid spends $94,063 a year; in a nursing home, $72,350 a year; on the DD waiver in the community, $55,382; and on the aged and disabled waiver in the community, $22,814.