Arkansas

States’ efforts to expand consumer-directed long-term care service programs, are often hindered by challenges related to costs, staffing and organizational issues, infrastructure requirements, and resistance from stakeholders. Yet states have developed a number of successful strategies for overcoming these challenges. Their experiences offer valuable insights, guidance, and encouragement to other states considering CDS. The abstract (free) and full report (subscription required) are available.

The results of a survey on the interest of managed care organizations in developing a Cash & Counseling option for delivering long-term personal assistance services.

This article describes two primary interactions between key policy implementation instruments and internal and external stakeholders that made New York's participation in CCDE not possible. This case study also provides some lessons for other states interested in developing Cash & Counseling models. The abstract for this article is available here.

This presentation by Thomson Medstat was given on a July 25, 2006 TA call with state grantees. The presentation outlines available technical assistance, trends in waiver quality, and the different components to quality management.

This webcast was given for Area Agencies on Aging throughout the country. The text transcript, presentations, agenda, and link to the archived webcast are available.

These stories, from Arkansas, Florida & New Jersey, are based on in-depth interviews with Cash and Counseling Demonstration and Evaluation (CCDE) clients, their families and caregivers, and program consultants. The research team developed a User's Guide to help the user navigate through the Reports easily and find information quickly and effectively. In addition, a detailed key word index exists for each Report to help the user locate specific information.

This article focuses on the effect of Arkansas' Cash & Counseling demonstration on nursing facility use and expenditures. The results are compared to traditional Medicaid PCS and the affect on total Medicaid costs are examined. The abstract (free) and full report (subscription required) are available.

A primary original intent of the Medicaid Infrastructure Grant program was to ensure that states could learn from each other as they pursued their individual employment initiatives. With this in mind, George Washington University released this report, outlining options for raising the unearned income limit for the Arkansas Medicaid Buy-In, with projections of increased enrollment. Also included is a separate report explaining the methodology.

Working to improve coordination of services between state agencies is essential to achieving employment goals for individuals in need. In this memorandum of understanding, Arkansas Rehabilitation Services (ARS) and the Division of Developmental Disabilities Services (DDS), agree to coordinate their supported employment services.

This report describes the design and implementation of IndependentChoices, Arkansas' model of Cash & Counseling. Lessons learned in Arkansas are discussed, and cover topics including outreach and enrollment, program features, counseling and fiscal services and program structure.