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Community-Based Long-Term Services & Supports

The Affordable Care Act includes a number of program and funding improvements to help ensure that people can receive long-term care services and supports in their home or the community. The law improves existing tools and creates new options and financial incentives for states to provide home and community-based services and supports.

Home and Community-Based Services State Plan Option: The Affordable Care Act includes changes that enable states to target home and community-based services to particular groups of people, to services accessible to more individuals, and to ensure the quality of the services provided.

Community First Choice: Providing enhanced federal funding to states that elect to provide person-centered home and community-based attendant services and supports to help increase individuals with disabilities' ability to live the community.

State Balancing Incentive Payments Program: Authorizing grants to states to increase access to non-institutional long-term services and supports (LTSS), as of October 1, 2011. The program offers states that undertake structural reforms to increase access to non-institutional LTSS a targeted increase in the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) tied to the percentage of a state's non-institutional LTSS spending, with lower FMAP increases going to states with a less-significant need for reforms.

Money Follows the Person (MFP): Providing individuals with long-term services and supports that enable them to move out of institutions and into their own homes or other community-based settings. The MFP program was set to expire in Fiscal Year 2011, but was extended by the Affordable Care Act for an additional five years and offers states an approximate 50 percent increase in federal matching for one year.

Demonstration Grant for Testing Experience and Functional Assessment Tools (TEFT):  

On August 24, 2012 the Centers for Medicaid and Medicaid Services (CMS) released a four year funding opportunity announcement to states and territories  funded by Section 2701 of the Affordable Care Act. CMS will offer $45 million to ten qualified state applicants over four years. The grant program, known and TEFT (Demonstration Grant for Testing Experience and Functional Assessment Tools (TEFT) in Community-Based Long Term Services and Supports) is designed to test quality measurement tools and demonstrate e-health in Medicaid long term services and supports. The TEFT initiative also includes contracts for technical assistance and evaluation, and two Interagency Agreements with the Department of Defense and the Office of the National Coordinator. For more information on TEFT, and to see the grant solicitation, go to the following link

Second Applicant Teleconference:

When:October 9, 2012

Time:  2:00PM - 3:00 PM EST

Phone: 1-877-267-1577  Meeting ID: 5022

Purpose of Call: Focus on HIT/HIE Components of TEFT Grant Solicitation