{"id":1484,"date":"2024-10-24T13:19:24","date_gmt":"2024-10-24T13:19:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=1484"},"modified":"2024-10-24T13:19:24","modified_gmt":"2024-10-24T13:19:24","slug":"long-term-care-facilities-must-provide-addiction-care-advocates-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=1484","title":{"rendered":"Long-Term Care Facilities Must Provide Addiction Care, Advocates Say"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you think about the opioid crisis, the image of adults in their 20s, 30s, even sometimes those who are middle-aged, may come to mind. Rightly so, since\u00a0most overdose deaths<\/a>\u00a0occur in people between ages 25 and 64.<\/p>\n

But did you know older adults are increasingly at\u00a0risk of overdosing from opioids<\/a>, too?<\/p>\n

In fact, from 2021 to 2022, adults over 65 saw the\u00a0largest increase<\/a>\u00a0\u2014\u00a010 percent<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 in overdose death rates across all age groups.<\/p>\n

Yet their addiction care needs are often overlooked, even in places teeming with medical staff, such as long-term care facilities that primarily serve older patients. My colleague\u00a0Aneri Pattani\u00a0<\/strong>and I dug into the issue.<\/p>\n

One study estimated that older adults were\u00a0the least likely<\/a>\u00a0in 2022 to receive any type of care for opioid use disorder. They were also unlikely to receive medications such as buprenorphine and methadone \u2014 considered the treatment gold standard.<\/p>\n

When people think of who actively uses drugs, \u201cthey don\u2019t want to think about grandma, they don\u2019t think about grandpa, and they certainly don\u2019t want to think about what could be happening at a nursing home,\u201d said\u00a0A. Toni Young<\/strong>, executive director of\u00a0Community Education Group<\/strong>, a nonprofit that advocates on substance use policy.<\/p>\n

But Young\u2019s organization, along with more than\u00a050<\/strong>\u00a0other advocacy groups, is working to bring the issue front and center. In\u00a0a letter<\/a>\u00a0shared exclusively with KFF Health News and the Health Brief, the coalition is urging the\u00a0Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services\u00a0<\/strong>to ensure older patients get the help they need.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany Americans living in residential care facilities may not be in a position to effectively advocate for their own medical interests,\u201d the letter says. \u201cThey must be able to trust you to hold their facility operators accountable to uphold the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Facilities that receive Medicaid and Medicare payments are required to abide by federal laws, including the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Fair Housing Act. The laws bar discrimination due to current or past addiction and mandate appropriate medical care, including\u00a0medications for opioid use disorder<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, without enforcement, the law is just words,\u201d the letter notes.<\/p>\n

To change that, the letter writers urge CMS to \u201cundertake a systematic education, investigation, and enforcement effort, covering all categories of residential care facilities that you oversee.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement to KFF Health News, CMS said its\u00a0updated staffing guidelines<\/a>, released this year, require nursing facilities to ensure they have the staffing and resources to care for patients with serious mental illness or substance use disorder. The agency directs facilities to have care plans in place to \u201cprevent adverse events, such as an overdose.\u201d It has also partnered with other federal agencies to\u00a0create free programs<\/a>\u00a0to boost nursing home care for patients with addiction and mental health concerns.<\/p>\n

The agency did not directly address how such guidelines would be enforced.<\/p>\n

This article is not available for syndication due to republishing restrictions. If you have questions about the availability of this or other content for republication, please contact NewsWeb@kff.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

KFF Health News<\/a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF\u2014an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF<\/a>.<\/p>\n

USE OUR CONTENT<\/h3>\n

This story can be republished for free (details<\/a>).<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When you think about the opioid crisis, the image of adults in their 20s, 30s, even sometimes those who are middle-aged, may come to mind. Rightly so, since\u00a0most overdose deaths\u00a0occur in people between ages 25 and 64. But did you know older adults are increasingly at\u00a0risk of overdosing from opioids, too? In fact, from 2021…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1485,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1484"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}