Long-Term Care Options Counseling

We provide counseling about options available to meet long-term care needs as well as factors to consider in making long-term care decisions. Options counseling is a person-centered, interactive decision-support process that typically includes a face-to-face interaction.

Options counseling is more in-depth than just providing a list of service providers or programs for you to choose from. Information provided during options counseling is timely, accurate, thorough, unbiased, and appropriate to your situation. Information about choices you have when making decisions about where to live, what kind of help you need, where to get help and how to pay for help is often provided. Options counseling is tailored to meet your needs.

As part of the options counseling process, you may learn about Wisconsin’s long-term care programs. We perform the Wisconsin Adult Long-term Care Functional Screen, which is used to collect information about your ability to complete daily activities of living, health, and need for assistance for various programs. The functional screen is one determinate of eligibility for Wisconsin’s long-term care programs. La Crosse County has two publicly funded long-term care programs:

• Family Care is administered by manage care organizations (MCO) which provide care managers to assist eligible persons with a needs assessment and creation of a care plan, including selecting providers for the services in their plan.
• IRIS (Include, Respect, I Self-Direct) is a self-directed manage care option.