Blog entries by Susan Reinhard

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed both new and longstanding cracks in the long-term services and supports (LTSS) system—cracks that have serious implications for consumers in need of LTSS and their family caregivers. It is time to reimagine, redesign, and rebuild both...

Vaccines are saving the lives of nursing facility residents and staff. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Nursing Home Dashboard showed that the widespread administration of COVID-19 vaccines among nursing facility residents and staff has resulted in a...

One day, with no warning and no prior history of discipline, Theatrice Ann Coats was fired from her job, allegedly for eating food at her desk. But the real reason may have been something that happened weeks earlier. When...

COVID-19 spoke to us about an issue long overdue for attention, and it is now time to heed its message. That issue is long-term care. To be sure, the pandemic has changed the way we think of long-term care,...

As AARP’s Long-Term Services and Supports State Scorecard makes clear, states are offering consumers more choices for long-term services and supports (LTSS), but we still have far to go to balance institutional care and home and community-based services (HCBS). ...

If there is one thing that our COVID-19 pandemic experience has taught us, it is that we should do all we can to avoid unwanted admissions to nursing facilities. It is true that some people want to go to...

COVID-19 has left an indelible mark on nursing home staff, residents, and their families. As of April 12, over a year after officials declared a public health emergency, nursing homes and other long-term care facilities have reported more than 1.4...

The news is shocking but not surprising. Nursing home resident deaths and infections among both residents and staff are skyrocketing to record highs in most of the country, and to national levels not seen since...

This blog is part of a series of posts being produced periodically in advance of the 2020 release of the next Long-Term Services and Supports State Scorecard. All Americans deserve a high-performing system of long-term services and supports (LTSS) for...