Empowered Patient Podcast Consumer-Directed Care Model Helps Address Health Disparities in Underserved Communities with Maria Perrin PPL
Maria Perrin, President and Chief Strategy Officer at PPL, is focused on expanding access to self-directed and whole person care allowing people to stay in their homes and receive the services they need to maintain a good quality of life. Consumer-directed care programs funded by Medicaid allows disabled and the aged populations to choose their own caregivers they know and trust to provide personal services like meals, dressing, and transportation. PPL provides training, technology, quality assurance, and other support to help consumers and their caregivers participate in these programs.
Maria explains, "So the programs differ from state to state. If someone needs care in their home, say they had an injury or they need help because of a disability or certain access, they can get help for people to, for example, come in, prepare meals, help them get dressed, and for bathing. Or if they're relatively healthy and can do that themselves, some programs support things like meal services, transportation, occupational assistance, and other goods and services they may need to thrive."
"We see a lot of health disparities. I know that many people who work in healthcare talk about this, and you have communities that are underserved. They don't have enough home health workers in their community to serve them. Often, they don't have facilities that speak the language they speak or consider their religious or cultural implications. Therefore, the consumer-directed care program allows people to choose the caregiver that meets their needs and to have them deliver the services within their home."
"That's a little different than, for example, a home health agency model whereby the agency will choose the caregiver they get, and that person may or may not be trusted by the individual consumer. They may not speak the same language as the individual consumer. So this elevates the care that the consumer is getting to what they specifically need and establishes trust by enabling them to choose the caregiver. A caregiver may be a family member, it might be a church member, a friend of the family, someone who's in the community who they already know and trust, and who can best serve that particular consumer."
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