GOCCNJ News to Share with NJPCAPNC
Posted over 1 year ago by Janine Goulet
This announcement has 1 attachment:
Dear Members, Board and Followers of NJPCAPNC,
Our president Ellen wanted to share with you the following works of GOCCNJ. This is what the membership dollars are helping with. Good stuff. Thank you. First here is a letter from an email sent by Lori Feldstein, the CEO & Executive Director of Goals of Care Coalition of New Jersey. Please, also look at the PDF attached to read more.
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Dear Friends,
Many of you will remember that during the Goals of Care Coalition of New Jersey (GOCCNJ) member meeting in June, we urged Asw. McKnight to hold a hearing in her Aging & Senior Services Committee about unmet needs in caring for seniors living at home with advanced illness. Earlier this week, Asw. McKnight did just that and invited GOCCNJ and several of you, as well as other statewide experts in senior care, to testify at the State House concerning in-home care for NJ’s older adults.
Dr. Barile and I shared our perspective on the gaps in care for seniors living at home, often for many years, with complex medical needs, and the benefits of community-based palliative care, both with regard to quality and cost. We delivered the message that every state can afford to offer community-based palliative care through their Medicaid programs and that NJ can’t afford not to!
Other topics discussed included: nursing in the home; palliative care; community services that enable aging in place; and the challenges of aging at home. The committee’s expressed goal was to develop a better understanding of the policy initiatives that exist, and that need to be implemented, to support aging in place with dignity. Many facts and ideas were shared yesterday by experts close to these issues, but we were struck by the universality of our shared experiences with members of the Assembly Committee with regard to aging family members and our roles as caregivers. It was clear to all of us that there is not only a genuine interest in wanting to tackle these issues from a legislative/regulatory perspective, but also an honest and sincere intent to act!
We are grateful to the members of our Palliative Care Task Force including Greg Rokosz, Theresa Edelstein, Nancy Fitterer, Linda Schwimmer, Cathy Rowe and Jill Chevlin for helping us to prepare for the hearing and deliver a strong statement. The members of this task force have been working to define palliative care, identify the population in need, and determine the gaps in our current MLTSS/revised 1115 waiver and our Medicaid programs so that a set of baseline services can be proposed as a potential Medical benefit. Our work will continue throughout 2023, perhaps with technical assistance from the National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP) through their grant program to improve serious illness care. More to come on that in the future if our application to NASHP’s Serious Illness Institute is accepted.
In the meantime, we will be following up with Chairwoman McKnight, Vice Chair Tully, and each of the members of the Aging & Senior Services Committee to offer our support in advancing policy recommendations and legislation to improve in-home care for seniors, and specifically to discuss how we can make meaningful progress in our aim to secure a Medicaid benefit for community-based palliative care. If we are successful in this endeavor, we will not only improve advanced illness care for our most vulnerable and underserved in NJ, we will also contribute to the growing body of evidence being considered by CMS in support of a community-based palliative care benefit for Medicare beneficiaries with serious illness!
Attached please find a copy of our written testimony.
A recording of the testimony provided is below:
We would like to thank all of you, the members of our Coalition who have supported this important initiative by participating in our meetings, asking questions, and providing counsel. We couldn’t achieve our goals without the support of our members.
With gratitude,
Lori
Lori Feldstein
CEO & Executive Director
Goals of Care Coalition of New Jersey
(609) 468-4882