PACE (Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly): innovative care for the frail elderly. Comprehensive services enable most participants to remain at home.

PACE--the Program of All Inclusive Care for the Elderly--provides integrated comprehensive healthcare services to the frail elderly on a capitated basis. Begun in the early 1970s in San Francisco's Chinatown, PACE today comprises many individual programs across the nation. PACE's goal is to provide participants with the healthcare services they need for the highest possible level of functioning and autonomy. A typical PACE program is divided into sites, each of which serves 120 to 150 participants. Most participants come several times a week to the site's adult day care center, where they see members of an interdisciplinary team that includes physicians, nurses, social workers, therapists, and others. Home care is provided to participants unable to attend the center. PACE is financed by capitated payments from Medicare and Medicaid, which put providers at full risk for the services used by participants. The flexibility provided by this funding enables PACE to offer a wide variety of services, including supportive housing, which help keep participants out of institutions. Estimates of Medicare savings attributed to PACE are 12 percent and higher.