A little-known type of home providing care for people with serious needs is facing an uncertain future in California due to stagnant reimbursement rates.
Luis Cervantes chose to move home after recovering from a car accident that made him a quadriplegic. But the 29-year-old found it uncomfortable to ask his mother and sister to help him with physical needs. He stopped going with them on outings from their Sylmar home because it was too much work. Cervantes ended up grappling with suicidal thoughts and landed in the hospital again, suffering a urinary tract infection.
He decided against returning home, but was dissatisfied during his months at a nursing facility. By then, he had heard about Laramie House, a little-known kind of home called a congregate living health facility. The six-bed site in Chatsworth provides day-to-day medical care to assist mentally alert people who rely on ventilators, are quadriplegic or have other kinds of serious needs, but in a small setting that feels like a suburban home. 'I've been fighting to get into this place since I found out about it,' said Cervantes, who moved in this fall. Such facilities were born decades ago in the San Fernando Valley, the brainchild of a nurse tending to quadriplegic patients. And for decades, their operators say they have relied on the same level of payments from the state — a situation that they say clouds their future. 'We haven't had a raise in 40 years,' said Sian Welch, chief executive and administrator of New Start CLHFs Independent Training Centers, which operates three facilities including Laramie House. If that continues, she said, 'we'll have to close our doors.' California had been planning to raise reimbursement rates for facilities like Laramie House starting in January, but they were on the losing end after voters approved Proposition 35 in November. The ballot measure aimed to secure funding for Medi-Cal, the California Medicaid program, by making an existing tax on managed care organizations permanent. It was backed by a muscular coalition of healthcare groups including the California Hospital Ass
HEALTHCARE CALIFORNIA MEDICAID CONGREGATE LIVING FUNDING
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
The future of housing: From vacation homes to high-rise modular livingUnit Lab's signature products, 'Unit House' and 'Unit Maker,' offer customizable modular housing with thousands of design combinations.
Read more »
Bolivia's gravity-defying 'suicide homes' have residents living on the edge -- literallyClimate change puts Bolivia's 'suicide home' shamans at risk
Read more »
Irvine neighbors living on edge after several homes targeted in string of burglariesAn Irvine neighborhood is living on edge after several homes were burglarized in a string of recent break ins, which police say are the work of a transnational crime ring.
Read more »
Thousands of Native Americans suing Arizona over sober living homesFord Hatchett joined the ABC15 team as a multimedia journalist in January of 2023.
Read more »
Arizona Lawsuit Alleges State Aided Fraudulent Sober Living Homes Targeting Native AmericansA class-action lawsuit against the State of Arizona accuses the state of knowing about fraudulent activity in sober living homes for years but failing to act. The complaint alleges that the fraudulent bills paid by AHCCCS grew from $43 million in 2020 to $2.8 billion in 2023, and that the state did not properly vet the bills before paying them. The lawsuit represents approximately 7,000 Native Americans, with at least 2,000 going missing or dying.
Read more »
Lawsuit Alleges Arizona State Knew About Fraudulent Sober Living HomesA class-action lawsuit accuses the State of Arizona of knowing about fraudulent activity in sober living homes for years but failing to act. The lawsuit alleges that the state paid billions of dollars in fraudulent bills to these homes, which preys on vulnerable Native Americans.
Read more »