Persons with Severe Mental Illness: How Do They Fit Into Long-Term Care?

This report examines the issues involved in seeking to address the long-term care service needs of persons with severe mental illness (SMI) in a generic long-term care financing and service delivery system, as was proposed in the home and community-based services provisions of the Health Security Act. SMI, as defined by the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS), is any psychiatric disorder present during the past year that seriously interfered with one or more aspects of a person's daily life. A key issue addressed in this report is whether a common set of eligibility criteria and benefits can apply across populations regardless of age and the underlying diagnoses or conditions responsible for the disability or whether some specialized eligibility criteria and benefits need to be defined for particular subpopulations, such as persons with SMI. [38 PDF pages]