HCA thanks Senator David Carlucci for casting light on the root causes, health and human impact, and solutions to address eating disorders during a hearing earlier this month.
Eating disorders remain gravely misunderstood and a major life-altering, life-threatening condition. Those who suffer or seek to recover from these disorders often feel stigmatized and at a loss for how to get help.
Home care providers stand ready to support the state’s treatment and care-transitions efforts to overcome these challenges. In testimony, HCA called for expanded use of the state’s Comprehensive Care Centers for Eating Disorders (CCCED) initiative, which provides a full continuum of services to treat these eating disorders through three regional partnership centers. We also recommended an amendment to the program that would directly incorporate home care agencies in the CCCED’s mission as a vehicle for in-home care and support for individuals.
In a letter to Senator Carlucci, HCA shared a bill, drafted by HCA, which would leverage home care support for CCCEDs – and for eating disorder treatment broadly – through care-transitions, education and clinical interventions by home care providers.
The draft bill would specifically include home care as a component of the CCCED program “where beneficial, ordered by the physician and coordinated with the CCCED.” Home care’s inclusion would provide an option for “primary, preventive, transitional or continuity of care” through providers already sanctioned and regulated under Article 36.
“Through this amendment, in-home intervention could be initiated at key points of need, and timed for an individual who without these services risks an emergency or acute episode, or relapse,” writes HCA President Al Cardillo, noting that cost-effective home care can also help manage conditions resourcefully amid the state’s budget deficit by preventing higher-cost utilization.
Home care providers work in a coordinated fashion with similar centralized models of care management. They are well-equipped to provide cost-effective, tailored supports in conjunction with CCCEDs as well other models of care that HCA has been exploring in our outreach to the state Office of Mental Health (OMH) and individual home care providers when it comes to eating disorders and a range of conditions for which home care can offer support.
HCA looks forward to working with Senator Carlucci on solutions through our legislative proposal and other means.