St. Louis PACE becomes permanent provider. (State News).

Alexian Brothers Community Services St. Louis, operated by the Alexian Brothers Health System, has become the first Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) to attain permanent provider status under Medicare and Medicaid.

Gary A. Bailey, director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Health Plan Benefits Group at the Center for Beneficiary Choices, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), stated that "Permanent provider status is one more indication that the PACE programs have proven themselves as a reliable means to deliver high-quality care to older Americans in need of care and services. It is not a distinction the government grants lightly."

Alexian Brothers joined the PACE demonstration program in August 2000 and now serves about 120 beneficiaries.

PACE is an optional benefit under Medicare and Medicaid that focuses entirely on frail elders who would otherwise be placed in a nursing home. According to the National PACE Association, the average participant is 80 years old, has 7.9 medical conditions, and is limited in approximately three activities of daily living. Forty-nine percent of PACE participants have some degree of dementia. PACE says that despite the high level of care needs, more than 90 percent of its participants are able to continue living in the community.

"I'm a huge fan of PACE, which I think is a great program for elderly people," says CMS Administrator Tom Scully. "It's not that we don't like nursing homes-I just think seniors want to stay at home as long as they can."

To that end, PACE programs coordinate and provide home-based preventive, primary, acute, and long term care services.

There are currently 25 PACE programs operating around the U.S., and the National PACE Association is working on a three-year expansion initiative funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the John A. Hartford Foundation to support health care providers as they develop new PACE programs.