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What is PACE? How can it help me stay independent?

August 5, 2021

What is PACE, and how can it help me stay well and independent?

Too often, elders and their caregivers struggle to get the help they need in their homes. Maybe you’re experiencing this challenge yourself. If so, you may not realize that WelbeHealth provides an affordable alternative to nursing home care, called PACE. PACE is a program that keeps seniors with complex health conditions living safely in their homes and gives families the support they need. But, what exactly is PACE? What are the benefits of the program? Below, we’ll explain.

What is PACE?

PACE (Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly) is a healthcare option for seniors whose health issues may affect their independence. This program is a great alternative to nursing home care and gives seniors the support they need to continue living safely in their homes.

WelbeHealth provides PACE in a way that participants and their families often say seems almost “too good to be true.” We are committed to unlocking the full potential of seniors through our courage to love, pioneering spirit and shared intent. The program is funded by the federal government, and WelbeHealth is a licensed PACE provider in the state of California. When you enroll in PACE with WelbeHealth, we provide your care, and are also financially responsible for your care. Essentially, the program is your health care provider and health insurance combined.

Fun Fact: As of June 2021, 139 PACE programs were operating in 30 states, serving nearly 56,000 older Americans.

What does the PACE program do?

Once enrolled in the program, participants get access to preventive, coordinated care. A personalized care plan is tailored to each participant’s unique physical and emotional needs. Most coordinated care is administered at the day center. Here are some of the healthcare services provided by the program:

Transportation

For seniors who no longer drive, transportation can be a hassle and a burden for families. PACE provides transportation from your home to the day center and to medical appointments. Rides are wheelchair accessible and comfortable. In addition to taking you from place to place, the highly trained drivers deliver medication and medical supplies to your home when needed.

Dental, Vision and Hearing

Hearing aids, eyeglasses, and dentures are not always covered by Medicare. Participants of PACE receive these medically necessary items at no cost. As a program participant, you’ll have access to a dentist, mental health specialist, ophthalmologist, and more.

If the PACE care team determines that you need to see a specialist to treat a complex medical condition, they will coordinate the visit. Treatment for COPD, dementia, kidney disease, diabetes, and heart disease are all accessible through the program’s network of specialty physicians. And all the transportation is coordinated for you!

FYI: The average PACE participant has 6 chronic conditions. The PACE team is experienced in caring for seniors who have multiple diagnoses.

Social Engagement

Science has proven that social interaction does wonders for our mental and physical health. That’s why PACE has a team of activity specialists who coordinates social activities. Whether it’s board games at the day center, themed meals, or group exercises, there is always plenty going on at the PACE center.

In-Home Assistance

Upon enrollment, we will do a safety assessment in your home. We’ll look for trip hazards, like cluttered walkways and loose rugs. Next, we will make improvements to your home to make it safer, such as installing wheelchair ramps and grab bars if needed. Educating seniors and their caregivers is an important step in preventing falls.

If your PACE care team determines that it is medically necessary, you may also receive medical care in your home from registered nurses and certified nursing assistants. This may include incontinence care, injections and blood draws, as well as wound care.

Telemedicine

PACE participants gain access to telehealth services. You’ll be given a tablet that allows you to access your care team on-demand. Many participants enjoy the comfort of knowing someone is always available if an emergency should occur. Via telehealth, participants can check in with nurses, track their vitals and medications, and participate in virtual activities.

Medication Management

Over 20 percent of older adults report not taking medication as prescribed due to the high cost of their medication. Did you know cutting pills and skipping doses can actually worsen health conditions? When enrolled, your team of healthcare professionals will make sure you take the right medication at the right time each day, which keeps you healthy and living independently.

Additionally, PACE offers Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage. Once you become a program participant, you’ll get your Part D-covered drugs and all other necessary medication from PACE.

Will I have to change my doctor?

Upon enrolling in the program, you’ll begin seeing a doctor at the PACE center. All your healthcare services will be provided by PACE. The doctors and medical staff are highly experienced in caring for seniors with complex medical conditions, so you can trust you’re in good hands.

What are the benefits of PACE?

Interdisciplinary Team

Many parts work together to keep a car running well. Likewise, you need many healthcare providers working together to keep you living well. The PACE interdisciplinary team (IDT) is made up of senior healthcare experts whose top priority is providing you with personalized, coordinated care. They work together, meeting regularly to make sure your needs are met.

The PACE care team consists of:

Primary care physician
Nurses
Physical and occupational therapists
Dietitian
Social worker
Recreational therapist
Home care coordinator
Transportation professional

Caregiver Support

Because the interdisciplinary team handles all the complicated details of your care, family members and caregivers are relieved from many stressors. Transportation, refilling medications, and coordinating appointments are all done by PACE, significantly reducing caregiver burden. Caregiver training, support groups, and respite care also keep family members supported and educated.

Fast Fact: 97.5 percent of family caregivers would recommend PACE to someone in a similar situation.

What are the PACE eligibility requirements?

Prospective participants must meet the following criteria to be eligible for the PACE program:

55+ years of age
Live in the designated service area
You are certified by the state as meeting the need for nursing home level of care
You can safely live in the community when you join

How much does PACE cost?

What you pay depends on your financial situation.

If you are:	Cost (out-of-pocket):
Eligible for Medicaid	No cost
Eligible for Medicare and Medicaid	No cost
Eligible for Medicare only	Pay Medicaid portion, plus monthly premium for Medicare Part D
Not eligible for Medicaid or Medicare	Self-pay rate

90 percent are dually eligible for Medicaid and Medicare
9 percent are eligible for Medicaid only
1 percent pay a premium

PACE focuses on you and your care.

The goal of PACE is to provide vulnerable seniors in our communities with the care, medical treatment, and support they need to safely live in their homes for as long as possible. Seniors benefit from personalized, coordinated care, as do their caregivers. With many healthcare services and benefits to the program, it’s a good alternative for many seniors who want to safely age in their homes and community. To learn more, contact us today.

mHealthIntelligence: California Provider Sees Telehealth as an Integral Part of PACE Programs

June 7, 2021

WelbeHealth President Matt Patterson says COVID-19 has taught the industry a good lesson on how to use telehealth, and it should be a permanent part of the senior care service.

By Eric Wicklund

May 27, 2021 – A California-based healthcare provider is integrating telehealth into its PACE programs, saying the connected health platform improves its ability to provide value-based care for seniors in their own homes.

While the focus of PACE programs has been on in-person care, the coronavirus pandemic prompted many to shift to connected health to maintain contact with their patients. For WelbeHealth, that meant partnering with Grandpad to equip patients with senior-friendly mHealth tablets that allow them to connect with caregivers on-demand and access health and wellness resources online.

“COVID-19 introduced the need for us to pivot to telehealth,” says WelbeHealth President Matt Patterson. “And in the process, we have saved lives.”

WelbeHealth is one of hundreds of providers focused on the senior care market, many of which participate in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) program. Developed by CMS roughly 30 years ago as a capitated model of care for dual-eligible beneficiaries (ninety percent are dual-eligible), it provides all necessary medical care, therapies, long-term care and services, meals, socialization, transportation, day center services, and activities.

There are currently 135 PACE programs in 31 states, enrolling between 50 and 3,000 patients, for a total of more than 54,000 seniors served. The programs are based in a care center and feature an interdisciplinary care team (IDT) of primary care physicians, nurses, therapists, social workers, dieticians, home care professionals, and others and offers a variety of services on-site and in the home.

PACE programs have traditionally shied away from telehealth, but COVID-19 changed that line of thinking. Now Patterson and his team are at the forefront of a new wave of care providers who want to make telehealth an integral part of the program.

“It’s an exciting opportunity to extend the reach of PACE (and) do more to improve and enrich the lives of our participants,” says Patterson, a former naval surgeon who served as president of digital health pioneer AirStrip before moving into the senior care space.

Telehealth gives PACE programs with WelbeHealth’s the ability to be there for seniors at any time, and to address issues that might not be addressed during in-person visits. That’s important at a time when, mostly due to COVID-19 restrictions, seniors are experiencing high rates of depression, anxiety, stress and substance abuse.

That point has been proven in the Grandpad project. According to a case study, seniors in the WelbeHealth program logged nearly 34,000 hours on the tablets – using both synchronous and asynchronous services – between March of 2020 and March of 2021, including more than 1,500 hours accessing mental health treatment. They also used the tablets to access medical care and exercises aimed at treating cognitive decline.

Patterson says emergency measures adopted by both state and federal governments during the COVID-19 public health emergency have enabled PACE programs to use telehealth more freely. He and his company have been lobbying state officials to make those freedoms permanent.

On the federal level, a bill introduced in March and now before Congress would ensure permanent coverage for audio-only telehealth services for Medicare Advantage and PACE programs, giving providers like WelbeHealth the freedom to incorporate phone calls and non-video telehealth platforms into care plans.

The benefits of connected care are numerous. On-demand access to care providers means seniors can go about their day knowing there’s someone always available should an emergency occur. They have instant access to health and wellness resources that go beyond what they’re getting when the nurse comes by for a visit. They can also collaborate more often on medication management, keep track of daily vital signs, or just talk to someone if they’re lonely or depressed.

Patterson says the pandemic is giving WelbeHealth and others the time to prove the value of connected health and to gather data and experiences to support permanent coverage.

That will be important. CMS has traditionally been very reluctant to expand telehealth coverage and has long argued that it needs evidence that these tools and platforms improve clinical outcomes and reduce wasteful expenses and unnecessary treatments. In short, they want proof.

“PACE is an ideal model for integrating high-touch and virtual care,” Patterson counters. And he wants to do more of that.

“Telehealth is definitely not a replacement (for in-person care), but it gives us more tools, and we want to use these tools for what our participants desire,” he says. “As an organization, we only do well when our participants do well. And they’re doing well.”

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KSEE 24: WelbeHealth PACE in Fresno vaccinates 500th person against COVID-19

March 18, 2021

Home-based eldercare startup acts as community vaccinator to protect locals.

March 18, 2021 (KSEE) – The team at WelbeHealth PACE in Fresno celebrated on Thursday as they administered the 500th COVID-19 vaccine to a member of the Fresno community.

“I feel good, I feel great. The staff is great too… I will recommend it to anybody,” said Samuel Sousa, their 500th person to be vaccinated.

“We sit kind of in the heart of a lot of the underserved population when it comes to the senior population, so we’re a perfect location for them to come in.”

WelbeHealth has worked hard to reach out to the public by vaccinating communities in all 4 of its locations, frequently offering to help people reach the site. It was among the first PACE operators in the nation to receive COVID-19 vaccines in 2020.

“We’re unique in the sense that we provide transportation. So anybody that is 55 years and older that isn’t able to get a vaccination, they can actually call us, and we’ll go pick them up,” said Nicole Butler, Director of Center Operations for WelbeHealth.

WelbeHealth partnered with Fresno County to serve as a community vaccination site at the start of 2021, with appointments filling up and long lines forming as people waited patiently for the jab.

“And we sit kind of in the heart of a lot of the underserved population when it comes to the senior population, so we’re a perfect location for them to come in,” said Butler.

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Why We Support California Assembly Bill (AB) 523: Because Lifting Regulatory Bottlenecks Saved Lives During Covid-19 Crisis

February 26, 2021

WelbeHealth Administers First Shipment of COVID-19 Vaccines

December 30, 2020

LONG BEACH Dec. 31, 2020 – WelbeHealth is administering its first COVID-19 vaccines to its elderly participants this week, beginning at the organization’s center in Long Beach, California. The first seniors received their vaccinations on Wednesday, and additional vaccines will be administered next week.

WelbeHealth, a healthcare provider delivering integrated home-based care for frail seniors across California, received its first shipment of the vaccine earlier this week and rapidly deployed its plan to administer the injections to its highest-risk participants.

“This is a momentous occasion for our programs and our society. It’s essential that we all get vaccinated, not only for ourselves but for the safety and wellbeing of everyone in our communities,” said WelbeHealth President Matt Patterson, MD. “With each vaccine, we are literally saving the lives of our elders who have given so much to enrich our world.”

WelbeHealth provides care as part of PACE (Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly), a longstanding Medicare and Medicaid program that enables older adults to live in the community instead of a nursing home.

At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, WelbeHealth shifted to a remote home-based care model, providing each participant with an internet-connected WelbeLink computer tablet and delivering care in the home whenever possible. The program has a long track record of positive outcomes, including longer life expectancy and dramatically improved mental health and quality of life. The PACE model has proven dramatically safer for seniors during the pandemic, with 85-95 percent lower infection and mortality rates than nursing homes.

Remote Home Care Model Aims to Protect Seniors

April 1, 2020

WelbeHealth and our PACE (Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly ) centers was recently profiled in the Escalon Times on how we met the COVID-19 crisis head on, quickly making changes to our program model so that we could deliver our senior care services such as medical appointments and meals to our participants’ homes, instead of our centers. We also equipped our participants with WelbeLink tablets so that medical and rehab appointments could be done remotely and to help our seniors combat isolation. Read about our changes to deliver nursing home level of care to our participants.

Remote Home Care Model Aims to Protect Seniors

To learn more about our other PACE services, click here.

WelbeHealth Shifts to Remote Home Care Model – Latino Times

April 1, 2020

WelbeHealth and our PACE (Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly ) centers was received additional coverage from the Latino Times on how we met the COVID-19 crisis head on, quickly making changes to our program model so that we could deliver our senior care services such as medical appointments and meals to our participants’ homes, instead of our centers. We also equipped our participants with WelbeLink tablets so that medical and rehab appointments could be done remotely and to help our seniors combat isolation. Read about our changes to deliver nursing home level of care to our participants here.

To learn more about PACE services, click here.

Stockton PACE Shifts to Remote Home Care Model – Latino Times

April 1, 2020

To learn more about PACE services, click here.

We are WelbeHealth

December 19, 2019

At WelbeHealth, our mission is to unlock the full potential of our most vulnerable seniors with empathy and love. We do it through PACE (Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly), a comprehensive medical and social care model with a decades-long track record of improved quality of life, life expectancy, and personal empowerment for frail seniors. As part of our PACE programs, most participants are able to live safely and independently in their own homes and communities rather than receive care in a nursing home. For more information, please visit welbehealth.com.

We are WelbeHealth Video

To learn more about PACE services, click here.