Advocacy Road Trip

2725 Heritage Trace Parkway,Fort Worth TX 76177

02 November, 2022

Description

We hope you will join us at a time and location convenient for you. We will discuss the three major concerns listed below plus others as time allows. We will continue to share information about important bills throughout the Session. Community-Based Services for People with IDD Improve access, delivery and quality of community-based services and supports for Texans with IDD. Texans with IDD overwhelmingly choose to live in the communities where they call home. Many Texans lead independent and self-determined lives with the cost effective services and supports provided by Medicaid home and community-based waiver programs, yet the service delivery model has not kept pace with the demand. The Arc of DFW Area supports innovative, best practice approaches that prioritize community-based supports and shift Texas’ institutional spending bias to meet the needs of the hundreds of thousands of Texans with IDD waiting for Medicaid community-based waiver services. Without the system of community-based support that Texas has built over many years, individuals would be forced to live in costly, restrictive facilities. Texas must invest in a system that delivers positive outcomes for people with IDD, reduces gaps in services and prevents unnecessary institutionalization. Personal Care Attendant Wages The current, unprecedented shortage of Personal Care Attendants is driven by the critically low wages mandated by Medicaid Waivers. •Increase Attendant wages to a minimum rate of $20 in CLASS and MDCP for Consumer Direct Services Model and Provider Agencies. The shortage for staff is common in all levels of health care: hospitals, nursing facilities, LIDDAs, HCS Providers, and other Agency Providers, all due to the low payment rates by HHSC. Managed Care Initiatives •Extend the time-frame for long-term services and supports in the Medicaid community-based waivers to be carved into a managed care model. Fix the current managed care system before carving in more services. •Redesign the managed care complaint system to streamline the complaint process and collect better complaint data. The complaint system must be easy to use and accessible to people with disabilities. •Establish greater transparency with managed care services. Require HHSC to publicly report service approval and utilization data for each service delivered by a managed care organization as it currently does in the fee- for-service model. •Reduce the burden and administrative red tape of accessing services through the managed care system. Establish a list of commonly used services that do not require MCO prior authorization to ensure Texans with disabilities receive all necessary services. •Maintain Network adequacy, having sufficient providers to serve the geographic area for that given population. Meet time limits to access appropriate providers, established by the MCO’s contract with HHSC. •As Medicare-Medicaid Duals are placed under the MCOs, ensure that resulting D-SNP Advantage plans are PPO rather than HMO, to have enough specialty providers especially in rural area. MCOs also need to coordinate with private insurers that adults are grandfather into, especially those with military plans. Interest List=Wait List •Invest in community infrastructure and provide funding that adequately supports individuals in the community without an unreasonable wait time and enhances capacity of community based intellectual and developmental disability services. •Provide funding to reduce the Medicaid community-based waiver interest list. Last session, theLegislature did not allocate funding which forced Texans with disabilities to wait even longer than the average 15 plus years before receiving lifesaving services like personal attendant care, nursing, residentialsupports and employment services. •Responsibly re-balance the IDD service system. Develop a realignment commission to study the impact of state supported living centers (SSLC) on Texas’ IDD service system. The commission will make recommendations on how Texas can improve the SSLC and IDD service system and provide services to more Texans with IDD. •Protect those who have been on the interest list for years, some up to 15 years or more, waiting for services. Changing to a severity of need selection process would bring many issues with it, first of all, who would determine that severity of need. FOR ADDITIONAL ISSUES PLEASE SEE OUR WEBSITE https://thearcofdfw.org/