PACE: Live at Home. Your Goal. Our Priority!

McGregor Helps Advocate for PACE Expansion in 2023

Updated news…..as of December 15

We are pleased to report that the Ohio Senate passed the PACE expansion language with the full $50 million federal ARPA appropriation, followed by Ohio House concurrence on the language. The next and final step will be for Governor DeWine to sign the bill. McGregor worked with ten providers to expand PACE to 3,000 seniors is Ohio, 80% of whom will have access to PACE.

Our PACE language was folded into a broader package of items in Substitute House Bill 45. Amazingly, this was literally the very last bill of the entire General Assembly before they adjourned for the year. Rep. Bill Roemer and Sen. Matt Dolan, among others, proved to be excellent champions for our efforts and were instrumental in this language passing. The PACE programs will be launched in Lorain, Toledo, Dayton, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Akron by the end of 2024.

Community Engagement For Pace

Here is where McGregor stands out. We are the only senior living community in Ohio that is in partnership with PACE which can assist qualifying residents with healthcare finances when they need it.

PACE, which allows nursing home-eligible individuals to instead receive care while living at home, is currently only available in one county in Ohio — Cuyahoga County. Program advocates are seeking legislation to require the Ohio

Department of Aging (ODA) to expand PACE into Franklin, Hamilton, Montgomery, Lorain, Lucas, and Summit counties. McGregor PACE in Cleveland is currently the only provider of such services in the state of Ohio. According to statistics provided by the Expand PACE Ohio Coalition, only 16.2 percent of the state’s PACE eligible population lives within the service area. The coalition is made up of care providers that cover a total of 110,000 Ohio seniors, as well as state and federal advocates of the program.

A Compelling Case For Pace In Lorain County

Local leaders in the aging network of Lorain County would welcome and support a PACE expansion into Lorain County. Lauren Ksiazek, Director of the Lorain County Office on Aging, says she “would be over the moon” if the PACE program could come to Lorain County. Adding “I love the PACE model”. She has visited the McGregor PACE program in Cuyahoga County and talked with its leaders and staff.

Lorain County is well suited for an expansion of the PACE program https://mcgregoramasa.org/2022/08/16/toledo-among-cities-that-could-see-senior-care-expansion-through-pace/

Many older adults have concerns about accessing services to support them as they age, including those that live in Lorain County. Over half of residents indicate they do not want to be placed in a long-term care facility and more than a third worry that people will not think they can take care of themselves. Just under thirty percent are worried about losing control of their lives. All of these concerns speak to the worries and anxieties that many feel as their health and mobility decline and are unsure of how their care will be coordinated. The very design of PACE eases those anxieties through the patient centered care coordination teams.

Currently, over a quarter of the residents, approximately 76,000 individuals, are aged 60 and older and that number is expected to grow by twenty percent over the next five years. Lorain County Office on Aging conducted a needs assessment in 2021 to gain a better understanding of the needs and desires of those 76,000 older adults. The needs assessment utilized both secondary data from sources including the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and primary sources including a randomized survey and focus groups. The needs assessment results indicate both a strong desire of older adults to stay within the county as they age and a high need for additional aging services, particularly those that serve the dual eligible population. In the randomized survey, eighty percent of residents indicated that it is important for them to remain in the county even if they did not remain in their current homes.