2025 Public Policy Priorities
Friends of Residents in Long Term Care advocates for policies that ensure North Carolinians receiving long-term care services are provided with quality care. Our Board of Directors met on Tuesday, January 14, 2025 and voted to approve five public policy priorities for 2025.
These priorities include:
1) Strengthen the aging, disability, and health care workforce. North Carolina’s workforce needs to be strengthened to meet the unique needs of our state’s growing older adult population. We must invest in recruitment, retention, and training of workers in aging-related fields. A quality, well-trained, and well-supported workforce increases quality of care for older adults. Training for workers must include competencies to support the unique needs of older adults. We also support completing a comprehensive Medicaid rate and wage analysis to inform rate setting for long-term care services and supports.
2) Strengthen the state’s Long Term Care Ombudsman Program at the state and regional levels to sustain quality long-term care in our state. This includes exploring how to best define the roles and responsibilities of the Community Advisory Committee volunteers within North Carolina's ombudsman program and addressing staffing concerns associated with paid ombudsman positions.
3) Adjust the Special Assistance rate to increase access to affordable care available for lower income seniors and disabled adults. Currently, with low reimbursement rates, fewer facilities are willing to accept Special Assistance, and this impacts the availability of care and cost it takes to receive services in Assisted Living settings. An increase will better reflect the cost of providing room and board in Assisted Living.
4) Create transparency to provide better care and support to residents in long-term care facilities receiving public support requiring audited, consolidated cost reports to better show how much funding is spent on resident care.
5) Medicaid Estate Recovery: Strengthen state minimum standards for hardship waivers under Medicaid. This includes raising the estate recovery value threshold to $120,000 to better reflect the current market rates.
More information on each priority coming soon!