If someone you love relies on Medicaid funding to live in an assisted living community in North Carolina, you need to be aware of changes that may affect their Medicaid reimbursements.

To help our residents and their families better understand these changes, Ridge Care has created a document entitled How Changes in Medicaid Might Affect My Loved One  which provides some brief background and discusses potential impacts to our residents.

The North Carolina Assisted Living Association website has more details information and can be accessed by clicking here.

Want to get involved? Here a some sample letters that might help you formulate your own letter to your representatives in the North Carolina General Assembly:

Dear Representative ________,

We recently received a devastating letter stating that our <mother/father/loved one> will no longer qualify for care in care in an Adult Care Home starting January 1 due to catastrophic changes in the state Medicaid plan. We urgently need your help and support. Without it, our <mother/father/loved one> will lose their home and care after January 1, 2013.

My <mother/father/loved one one> worked hard, paid taxes, and after retirement, lived modestly on what savings <he/she> managed to accumulate. Today, <he/she> can no longer live alone, has no assets left or home to return to, and desperately needs assistance in order to remain in <his/her>  Adult Care Home.

We have looked high and low, and cannot find a home with the care to meet <his/her> needs.  We can’t simply shut our <mom/dad/loved one> away in a homeless shelter or housing complex and hope for the best.  Even if we found a place to live – how would <he/she> receive the care necessary to live?  

Please help us and help our <mother/father/loved one>. We need you to act quickly to ensure that Medicaid eligibility standards are changed, so that my <mother/father/loved one>, and thousands of other frail seniors in North Carolina, can stay in their homes and continue to receive the care they need after January 1.

Please put yourself in our shoes. Imagine if it were your mother or father that this was happening to. Please – take action today to avert this crisis before it is too late.

Dear Representative _______,

Alzheimer’s dealt our family a blow when our <mother/father/loved one> was diagnosed with the disease. And now, the state of North Carolina has dealt us another blow by slashing the funding that pays for the secure Special Care Unit care our <mother/father/loved one> so desperately needs.

We understand that CMS has denied the state’s Medicaid reimbursement plan for people with Alzheimer’s who receive state assistance. We also know that the General Assembly has refused to act.  If it wants to, the General Assembly can allow these most vulnerable of our seniors to access state funding – funding approved in the budget for their Special Care Unit care – to continue their care during this emergency. 

We and 4,000 other North Carolina families just like us urgently need your help.  Unless a resolution is reached soon, our <mother/father/loved one> and 4,000 others will be turned away from their Adult Care Homes after January 1, 2013.  Our <mom/dad/loved one> can no longer live with us at home, not safely and without risking <his/her> health and wellbeing.

We implore you to take action today. Please act immediately to fund care and services for our <mom/dad/loved one> with Alzheimer’s using money already in the budget while North Carolina and the federal government work this out. The alternative – seniors with Alzheimer’s warehoused in institutions or wandering away from their homes at night – is too awful to contemplate. Please act now to provide this temporary funding by January 1 before it is too late.