Your Support in Action: Providing a Higher Level of Care for Vulnerable Seniors

VNA is uniquely positioned to offer a full continuum of care for older adults in North Texas. Having served hungry, homebound seniors with Meals on Wheels since 1973, and provided compassionate hospice care since 1978, VNA now offers the first Medicare-sponsored, home-based palliative care program in the region.

With 4,500 hungry, homebound seniors currently receiving meals each day, VNA is aware these clients have an extremely difficult time navigating resources, especially when experiencing serious illness. Many clients lack a family caregiver to advocate for their needs and struggle to access the complex socioeconomic and clinical resources available. VNA has the knowledge and expertise to help these vulnerable clients.

Having helped establish the Medicare hospice benefit in the early 1980s, VNA was selected to participate in the Medicare Care Choices Model (MCCM), which initially launched in January 2016. As part of the second cohort in the pilot, VNA Care Choices began in January 2018. In early 2019, VNA expanded the program criteria to provide the same level of care for those who do not meet the strict CMS eligibility requirements—a mission-driven decision ensuring a full spectrum of care is available to address the clinical and social needs of vulnerable seniors.

More Than Food

VNA Meals on Wheels provides nutritious, hot, home-delivered meals five days a week to homebound seniors and disabled adults who, due to illness, advanced age or disability, are unable to obtain or prepare their own meals.

Our clients are the hidden hungry—homebound, aging and unable to access resources like food pantries and grocery stores. VNA's approach to deliver more than just a meal, but also a connection to the outside world, creates a safety net, reducing medical costs and allowing seniors to live a more fully nourished life.

Combining Two Programs

It is with VNA's history of innovation that these two programs have been merged to offer additional home-based support to isolated Meals on Wheels clients. Utilizing an RN Nurse Navigator whose clinical expertise and critical assessment skills guide the process, VNA is seeking funding to provide care navigation to Meals on Wheels clients who do not meet the limited CMS criteria, but are in desperate need of additional support in the home to help them safely age in place.

VNA's low-income and homebound Meals on Wheels clients have an extremely difficult time navigating resources, especially when experiencing serious illness. In efforts to provide these clients with the additional care they need, VNA hired two RN Nurse Navigators to work with clients and assess whether they would benefit from a higher level of care in the home, including home-based palliative care or hospice care if needed.

Generous support from dedicated donors, like you, is vital for VNA to be able to offer this benefit. We are seeking community support to help extend VNA's continuum of care linking the social services provided by Meals on Wheels with the expert clinical services VNA has provided for 85 years. To learn more about how you can support this and other VNA programs, contact Chris Culak at (214) 689-2601 or culakc@vnatexas.org.