A preferred vision of the future in long term care and senior services will require that consumers accept more responsibility towards maintaining their health. Heart disease, strokes, and diabetes - three leading chronic and debilitating conditions affecting the elderly - are directly linked to poor lifestyle choices. Due to the huge numbers of baby boomers requiring care in their senior years faced by a shrinking workforce to care for them and the unsustainable demand it will place on Social Security and Medicare; it will become paramount that boomer’s are held accountable for both their physical and financial health.
The North Star is reached when PANPHA members are:
- Practicing healthy lifestyles to prevent and reduce the effects of chronic disease.
- Purchasing affordable, quality long term care insurance in mass numbers.
- Avoiding sheltering assets to receive Medicaid funding for nursing home care.
- Interpreting quality measures of care communities to make informed, realistic and sound choices.
- Volunteering in response to meaningful opportunities provided by senior service and long term care providers.
- Appreciating the value of the whole continuum of care, including nursing homes.
- Embracing end of life care by accepting palliative care over expensive, technology-driven life prolonging care.
Sample Navigation Markers:
- Baby boomers buy long term care insurance in mass.
- Lifestyle fitness, brain fitness and nutrition go mainstream.
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