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Mental health services for nursing home residents: What will it cost?

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Abstract

The Nursing Home Reform Act of 1987 requires nursing homes to provide basic mental health services for all residents and to give active mental health treatment, a set of specialized mental health services, to those residents who are admitted with a serious mental illness. This article examines the potential size of the nursing home population who will require mental health services, its demographic composition, and the facilities in which these individuals reside using the Institutional Population Component of the National Medical Expenditure Survey. Estimates of the potential costs of providing monthly psychotherapy and pharmacological management to this population in nursing homes indicate that the mandate will have significant financial effects on nursing facilities. Conclusions about how the requirements for maintaining the mental and psychosocial well-being of nursing home residents may affect the future of nursing home care and mental health care are considered.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pennsylvania State University, 115 Henderson Building, 16802, University Park, PA

    Dennis G. Shea Ph.D. (Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Administration) & Michael A. Smyer Ph.D. (Professor of Human Development and Family Studies, Pennsylvania State University)

  2. College of Health and Human Development at Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania, USA

    Andrea Streit M.H.A.

Authors
  1. Dennis G. Shea Ph.D.
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  2. Michael A. Smyer Ph.D.
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  3. Andrea Streit M.H.A.
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Additional information

Andrea Streit's work on this project was supported in part by grant No. 3-T32AG00048-13 to the Pennsylvania State University from the National Institute on Aging.

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Shea, D.G., Smyer, M.A. & Streit, A. Mental health services for nursing home residents: What will it cost?. The Journal of Mental Health Administration 20, 223–235 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02518691

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