Government Healthcare Policy, Business and Technology

As family members dominate caregiving, outside support is hard to find

Modern Healthcare: Nearly nine out of ten caregivers for older Americans are unpaid, and those individuals work longer hours and receive less government support than their paid counterparts, according to a new study.Approximately 900,000 Medicare beneficiaries received support from 2.3 million caregivers in 2011, according to a study published Wednesday in Health Affairs. The study looked at data from Medicare beneficiaries who lived in community settings and died within one year of study enrollment.That's just the tip of the iceberg. In 2015, roughly 34 million Americans provided unpaid care to an adults ages 50 or older in the last 12 months, according to figures from the National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP.

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