March
6, 2003
The
Social Services budget committee gave it's report to the Appropriations
committee today. Some of the recommendations include, but are not limited
to:
- Review of the disparity between reimbursement rates for Self Direct and non
Self Direct on FE Waiver. (The language in here is awesome). "It is the
public policy of the State of Kansas to support independence and dignity of
people with disabilities to control their own lives and self-direct their own
care if they choose."
They will review greater equalization of all waiver rates.
- They will review provisions of Case Management for all waivers and discuss
development of a regional peer review system for quality assurance purposes
among providers along with more global talks about how the quality of case
management can be improved statewide.
- Addresses NF reimbursement rates.
- Look at One Waiver concept.
- Look at ways to combine Health Care to get services to more people.
- SRS and Aging report back on establishing regulations to allow dollars to
follow clients as they move from institutions to community based programs and
guarantee excess dollars from those clients remain in the waiver program.
- Review shifting Adult Protective services from SRS to Aging.
- Review raising PASSAR (their words, not mine, I think they mean level of care
scores) from 26 to 40 and grandfather those currently in service. All
savings from doing this would go to fund waiting lists. They want the
agencies to ask the Feds for waiver to allow using a lower LOC score in
community than in NF's.( So, for example, the LOC score for HCBS services may
be 40, but to get into an NF, you'd need a LOC of 50).
Look at creating incentives for purchasing Long Term Care Insurance.
The last section is statement concerning the impact of budget cuts on Frail
Elderly and that any new dollars should address the needs of vulnerable
Kansans. Further, they recommend that Aging and SRS budgets should be exempt
form any further reductions, should they be necessary.
Look for similar language when the SRS report comes out. Not bad,
considering the times.
More to come.
Gina