Strategies

Revise health care processes and provider roles to integrate mental health and substance abuse treatment into primary care; continue to refer patients with severe conditions to specialty care

Use a case management model for frail elderly patients living independently, coordinating aspects of long-term care (LTC) such as status assessment, monitoring, advocacy, care planning, etc.

Provide financial assistance to working parents, or parents attending school, to pay for child care

Implement multi-component efforts that include coordination of health services by multidisciplinary teams of health care professionals, patient self-management, and patient education

Expand refundable earned income tax credits for working individuals and families with low to moderate incomes

Offer participants with low incomes matching funds to purchase healthy foods, especially fresh fruits and vegetables; often called bonus dollars, market bucks, produce coupons, or nutrition incentives

Adopt policies that allow custodial parents who receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) to collect all child support paid by the non-custodial parent; no portion is retained by the state

Modify the school lunch food environment or school lunch schedules by increasing the convenience of healthy foods, providing healthy options, or ensuring students have enough time to eat

Increase healthy options in vending machines by reducing the price of healthy choices, increasing the number of healthy choices compared to unhealthy choices, etc.

Support a collaborative approach by a multidisciplinary team of professionals working to meet the full range of long-term care (LTC) needs for frail elderly patients living in community settings