Monterey, CA Adult Day Care Cuts Impacting Families Caring For Elderly With Alzheimer's And Other Disabilities.

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Both of our Platinum Sponsors, Alliance Home Health (which provides in-home health care) and Family inHome Caregiving (which provides private duty caregiving in the home) see clients on a daily basis whose families are struggling with helping someone with Alzheimer's disease or dementia.  Many of these family caregivers need the respite and count on a private duty caregiver to come help or leaving their loved ones in the care of an Adult Day Care Facility.  But state budget cuts to Medi-Cal have hit impoverished seniors the worst.  Many adult day care and other facilities like the Wisdom Center in Salinas rely on Medi-Cal for a big chunk of their business.  The state tossed out 7,000 of the 35,000 participants earlier in the year and there could be more cuts to come.  Governor Brown is now saying revenues for the state are coming in lower than anticipated.  The Monterey Herald profiled some Adult Day Care Facilities which are struggling to stay afloat because they are caring for some of the 7,000 which were deemed ineligible despite no longer being paid by Medi-Cal.  "They have their sense of community here.  To deny them that, ethically, I couldn't do that," Sonia Garcia from Gardner Adult Day Health Care told the Herald.  That's noble, I applaud them for doing it and hope that they can remain open.  Many of the 7,000 people who were denied Medi-Cal coverage for Adult Day Care are appealing and, if they are successful, the day care centers will be reimbursed retroactively.  I will keep my fingers crossed.