1. Provide a basic description of PACE. How did it get started? What is its goal? Whom does it serve? How is a typical PACE program organized? What types of services does it offer? ETC.

In the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, PACE became a permanent provider type under Medicare, and states were granted the option of paying a capitation rate for PACE services under Medicaid. PACE or Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly is a program that has been developed as a alternative to long-term services offered by Medicare and Medicaid. The PACE prog

Case management is another aspect of PACE we should examine. Case management is designed to optimize the patient and the outcomes. There are five main components of case management they are: case identification, assessment/evaluation, care plan development, implementation/coordination, and follow-up. Case identification begins with efforts to define and target the desired population. Assessment determines the needs and provides information to develop an individualized care plan. Care plan is for addressing the problems. Service coordination is arranging how the services are delivered. Follow-up is to ensure quality of care and continuity of care (Evashwick).

To participate in PACE, there are several requirements. To qualify as a PACE participant, you must be age 55 or older, meet a Nursing Facility level of care, and live in the PACE service area. The goal of a PACE program is to provide more services than regular Medicare or Medicaid while saving the government more money than a traditional program. The other goals of PACE are to maintain function and decrease morbidity through timely detection of acute diseases (Eng). This is one of the main aspects of PACE and it is called preventative health services. These services include immunization to making sure of a higher compliance of use of medication. Also, they screen annually for depression and periodic nutritional assessment of PACE. Another goal of PACE is prevention of premature utilization of institution Care. PACE accomplishes this shifting care from institutional care to community services such as adult-day health and home care. The average length of stay in 1995 was 4.9 days per admission. On the other hand, Medicare has an average length of care of 7.6 days per admission. Pace also allows less time in nursing homes. While the average age for a PACE enrollee is 80 years old, only 5% of total capitation days are nursing home days.

I believe that this kind of combination case management works because of the different types of needs all PACE's patients have. With this case management they can fully optimize a patients needs, risks, and they can manage chronic conditions. With this system, a patient is fully covered from hospital care to the mental care of the patient. This broad system allows PACE to provide and to be prepared for everything a patient can throw at them (Evashwick).

I believe the best place to locate PACE in Kansas City, since the population is diversely located, would be right in the center of the city with a lot of access to all of the major roads of Kansas City. This would ensure that one could optimize his or her range of patients that they could service in the area. In addition, one would want to locate near his or her sponsor. This would be vital also because their sponsor will help the program out and may provide many services to patients. The location of one's sponsor could be a key factor in patients deciding whether or not they are going to use your services or someone else's services.

If someone plans to start a PACE program one needs to realize that the program is financially risky. The risk is that PACE consumes full responsibility of all medical treatment for a patient. This means that the PACE program takes full responsibility without limit of how much money they give their patients or duration once they are in the program. While being developed, the staff must be recruited, trained, and educated on benefits of PACE.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2898
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)