The Ninth Insured Long-Term Care Service Plans

Abstract

With regard to Basic Guidelines, municipalities and prefectures are required to provide the Municipal Insured Long-Term Care Service Plan and Prefectural Insured Long-Term Care Service Plan by specifying three years as one term under the Long-Term Care Insurance Act.

These are offered for an efficient implementation of insurance benefits. The Municipal Insured Long-Term Care Service Plan sets out the prospective quantities of service by type covered by long-term care benefits as well as the details of and targets for the initiatives to prevent long-term frailty. The municipality sets the long-term care insurance premium. Prefectures are required to support municipalities as insurers. The content of and goals for support for municipalities must be set forth in a Prefectural Insured Long-Term Care Service Plan.

The long-term care insurance system began in FY2000, and the three-year period starting FY2024 constitutes the ninth period. The plan period includes the year 2025, when all baby boomers will be 75 years of age or older. We have been working on establishing a community-based integrated care system and other initiatives toward 2025. Looking ahead to 2040, when the elderly population is expected to peak, it is necessary to consider measures to address a further decline in the birth rate and population aging, as well as measures that are more tailored to local conditions, such as those to address the substantial regional differences in the aging process.

In light of this, Insured Long-Term Care Service Plans for the ninth period require the following three major responses. 1. Systematic development of a long-term care service infrastructure, 2. Efforts to deepen and promote community-based integrated care system, and 3. Maintain sufficient manpower to support the community-based integrated care system and improving productivity in long-term care. Over the next three years, efforts will be required to build long-term care service infrastructures and the human resources to support them in accordance with local conditions, strengthen the management of long-term care insurance, and realize a community-based inclusive society.

In addition, the number of older adults with complex medical and nursing care needs is expected to increase; hence, cooperation between medical and long-term care services is more important. This is the year in which medical plans are also be formulated, and prefectures are required to ensure the volume of long-term care services through the Insured Long-Term Care Service Plans, including establishing community-based integrated care system and developing home medical care under medical plans, including regional medical plans. Therefore, a close cooperation between prefectures and municipalities must be promoted.

While the number of older adults requiring nursing care is expected to increase, the working-age population is expected to rapidly decline. Therefore, to sustain the system, planning and implementing measures from a medium- to long-term perspective are necessary.