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County finds money to continue elderly care
By BRIDGET HALL GRUMET
© St. Petersburg Times, LECANTO -- With a little juggling and squeezing, county officials have scraped together enough money to continue the home health care program for homebound residents through the end of this month. The state-funded Community Care for the Elderly program -- which provides 170 Citrus residents with bathing, meals, medication delivery and minor housekeeping -- was set to run out of money before the end of its fiscal year June 30. The county Support Services Division, which administers the program, told some residents last Friday that their services could be curbed until the new fiscal year funding begins July 1. "There was more demand for the service than we were able to provide with a full year of funding," said Heidi Denis, whose Department of Community Services includes the Support Services Division. "In this case, they probably notified (the residents) too soon, because they were able to go back and pick at the bones" to find more funding, Denis said. The Support Services Division freed up $30,000 for the home health care program this week by postponing computer and software purchases it had planned for this year, division director Anne Westbrook said. "Our clients are obviously our main concern," Westbrook said. "We know that we stand between them and a nursing home." The program's financial woes are not over yet, though. Next year, the county will receive $415,162 from the state to run the Community Care for the Elderly program, down from the $448,654 it received this year. In both cases, the county must provide a 10 percent match. Westbrook said the county will trim its administrative costs first. A part-time secretarial position will be eliminated, and fewer dollars will go to case management. It remains unclear whether the county will have to cut back on the services to residents as well, Westbrook said. "We may reduce services that would be so minimal that (residents) may never notice, or if we have attrition, we may be able to leave things the way they are," Westbrook said. Although the state cut funds from the Community Care for the Elderly program, it increased funding for another home health care program, the Medicaid Waiver program. Legislators figured they would get more bang for their buck: The federal government provides 55 percent in matching funds for the Medicaid program, but no dollars for the Community Care for the Elderly program. "The rationale is that they can increase the services by getting federal matching funds under a different program," said Dean LaFrentz, executive director of the Mid-Florida Area Agency on Aging, the non-profit group that oversees both home health care programs for the 16-county region that includes Citrus. The Medicaid Waiver funding for Citrus next year will be $858,069, up from $670,440 this year, LaFrentz said. The problem, Westbrook said, is that most of the residents in the Community Care for the Elderly program do not have low-enough incomes to qualify for the Medicaid program. Residents must have no more than $1,590 in monthly income and no more than $2,000 in assets (not including home or cars) to qualify for the Medicaid Waiver Program. There is no income cutoff for the Community Care for the Elderly program. "If they don't meet the (Medicaid) income eligibility requirement, even by $6, they're not eligible," Westbrook said. "Those are the ones the (Community Care for the Elderly) program provides for."
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