Fw: (NOEWAIT) States that have excellent systems for seamless delivery of HCBS services

[Guest guest]

Sounds familiar!

Ellen

Ellen Garber Bronfeld

egskb@...

(NOEWAIT) States that have excellent systems for seamless delivery of

HCBS services

States that have excellent systems for seamless delivery of HCBS and other

Services??

Colorado may be redesigning its DDD delivery system. For those of you who have

HCBS services, which states seem to have a " seamless " delivery system, where

there is not a lot of confusion, and one can have minimal contact with numerous

" case managers " and " resource coordinators " etc., to effect HCBS and other

services.

Here is a description of current Colorado Services:

The Colorado Department of Human Services (CDHS) and Health Care Policy and

Financing (HCPF) are considering moving the Division of Developmental

Disabilities (DDD) from CDHS to HCPF, along with other changes..

Parents and families with an individual with developmental disabilities (IWD)

who are seeking services have extreme difficulty navigating their way through a

tremendously complex bureaucracy of disjointed services. For example:

• IWD’s are evaluated as to need by the Supports Intensity Scale, which

gives inconsistent results from location to location and evaluator to evaluator,

and fails to consider the differences in supports and resources available from

family to family..

• Families must evaluate, choose and apply for one of many different and

complex waivers, housed in two completely different state departments, CDHS and

HCPF, with entirely different application processes.

• Applications must be completed to other agencies for Home Care Allowance and

other programs.

• Families must learn about, understand and apply for programs such as CDASS

(Consumer Directed Attendant Support Services) and Family Caregiver Act (FCGA).

• Other programs requiring education and application are county mill levy

funds, Section 8 housing, SSI, sometimes SSDI, the Colorado State Medicaid Plan

and many others, each through different processes and agencies..

Parents travel from agency to agency, each with incomplete information, and

discuss endlessly the complex programs on listservs and in meetings. All this

leads to waste of money in the system and tremendous aggravation and waste of

time and energy for families, parents and individuals with disabilities.