Triage: overcoming organizational and financial barriers to care for the elderly.

Triage is a model designed to overcome organizational and financial problems inhibiting the provision of appropriate care to the elderly. The model is being evaluated by the functioning status of the elderly, use of services, and health care costs of a group of elderly people served by Triage and one served by the conventional system. Preliminary results show, for the Triage group, improved mental functioning, less use of institutional services, and lower spending on conventional Medicare services.