The expected growth of the senior citizen’s population requires not only a substantive but also an economic change in Medicaid and Medicare responsive to the ever-changing patterns of need and cost issues. According to a 2012 report by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), 15% of Americans rely on Medicare for health security (Multack & Flowers, 2012). Moreover, enrollment of Medicare by persons above the age of sixty-five will hit the sixty-four million and eighty million mark in the year 2020 and 2030 respectively(Multack & Flowers, 2012). The high numbers in enrollment is a clear testament that the elderly care about their health. Therefore, some changes need to be made to cater for the elderly and formulate a positive future.
Healthcare for the elderly needs to change in three significant ways. Firstly, cuts should be reversed to social care budgets. Most seniors are stuck either partly admitted due to low responsiveness or waiting for community step-down services. Secondly, managing care to prevent hospital admissions. The current American health and social care system is not aligned to the needs of the elderly. The elderly require a correctly structured social and health care system as they have either established frailty or become frail. Lastly, the provision of quality healthcare services in care homes. According to a recent study by Alzheimer’s Society, dementia patients in care homes struggle to access mental health and physiotherapy, which are secondary care services (Prince, Comas-Herrera, Knapp, Guerchet, & Karagiannidou, 2016). Providing access to such services is known to prevent hospital admissions at crisis points.
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Future generations should critically look at the current outlook of the elderly healthcare provision and improvise ways to make it better. The cost of healthcare for the elderly should form the basis of the futuristic outlook. Making Medicare and Medicaid affordable forms an integral aspect of making the health of the elderly a priority. The future should ensure that mental health and physiotherapy services are provided in care homes. The government should develop policies that will make it mandatory for insurance companies to enroll the elderly in their various insurance pools. The future of healthcare for the elderly is bright if all the aspects are put in place.
References
Multack, M., & Flowers, L. (2012). Racial and ethnic disparities in influenza and pneumococcal immunization rates among medicare beneficiaries . AARP Public Policy Institute.
Prince, M., Comas-Herrera, A., Knapp, M., Guerchet, M., & Karagiannidou, M. (2016). World Alzheimer report 2016: improving healthcare for people living with dementia: coverage, quality, and costs now and in the future. Retrieved from www.ise.ac.uk
