Investigation: Washington State moves Medicaid nursing home patients to adult family homes

The Seattle Times investigates Washington's practice of relocating some Medicaid patients from nursing homes to adult family homes.

"Jeri Ringseth had no business being in an adult family home. Her physical and mental disabilities are so significant that she's spent most of her adult life in nursing homes or state hospitals. ... Ringseth is just one of thousands of Medicaid recipients who have been steered by the state from expensive nursing homes into adult family homes, which cost the state one-third as much. These homes are a growing, little-regulated housing option for the state's aged — as well as for the poor and frail, such as Ringseth, who cannot care for themselves alone. … In hundreds of cases, a Seattle Times investigation has found, medically fragile adults such as Ringseth are handed over to amateur caregivers who are inadequately trained to keep them safe" (Berens, 2/1).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.