Wisconsin expands Family Care options for the disabled, elderly in Dane and 8 other counties

In nine central Wisconsin counties, people in the state's Family Care program will soon have more choices in who helps manage their long-term care.

Family Care is a state Medicaid program that serves nearly 53,000 people with disabilities or elderly people who need help with everyday tasks like eating and going to the bathroom. Funded by state and federal dollars, the program pays for the caregivers and other help its members need to go about their everyday lives and live as independently as possible.

Beginning in January, Family Care members in nine counties — Adams, Columbia, Dane, Dodge, Green Lake, Jefferson, Marquette, Rock and Waushara — will be able to choose from any of the four companies that run the Family Care program, according to a press release issued by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Those companies are involved in critical decisions about what kind of long-term care their members get, like how many hours of caregiver help will be paid for.

"We're giving Wisconsin Medicaid members more choices to find the care that's best for them," Wisconsin Medicaid Director Bill Hanna said in Tuesday's release.

Previously, Family Care members in all of those counties but Dane had a choice between only Inclusa and My Choice Wisconsin , the two companies acquired last year by for-profit, national health insurance corporations Humana and Molina, respectively. Now, the members in those counties will also be able to choose from the two other companies, Community Care, Inc. and Lakeland Care, Inc., both Wisconsin-based nonprofits.

While those acquisitions were being finalized last year, some aging and disability advocates voiced concerns about both Molina's and Humana subsidiary iCare's growing presence in Wisconsin's long-term care field and about whether the national health insurers would provide the same level of supports to Family Care members as their locally based precursors. They noted that Family Care members in some counties would only have a choice between the Molina and Humana-acquired companies for managing their long-term care.

Family Care and a smaller, alternative program called Family Care Partnership have nearly 8,000 members in those nine counties , according to the state health department.

People in five of the counties also will have the option — for the first time — to participate in Family Care Partnership, which is offered only in certain counties. Partnership is different from Family Care in that it integrates both medical and long-term care.

The counties where Partnership will be offered for the first time beginning next year are Adams, Green Lake, Marquette, Rock and Waushara, according to the release.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin expands Family Care options for the disabled, elderly in Dane and 8 other counties