Consumer/Participant Direction

The Center for Health Policy and Research at the University of Massachusetts Medical School produces a quarterly newsletter entitled “Disability Issues”. The newsletter, which has been published for 25 years, discusses current issues surrounding disabilities in Massachusetts and beyond. The newsletter includes articles, information briefs, Q&A’s and more.

Hire Abilities Hawaii, Hawaii’s MIG program, produced multiple fact sheets in 2007, informing consumers with disabilities of the services available to them through State programs. The fact sheets address topics such as One-Stop Career Centers, Career Development, Working While Maintaining Benefits, Tips for Filing and Free Tax Preparation, and Information for People with Disabilities entering the job market. The fact sheets also identify resources like the Hawaii Disability Rights Center.

This policy primer focuses on consumer-directed care for people with physical and mental disabilities. Although the primer is targeted to an Arizona readership, people in other states should find much of the content useful. Sections related to Consumer-Directed include definitions, history, factors driving expansion, challenges, liability, managed long-term care, and other policy and practice issues.

The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 adds a new section 1937 to the Social Security Act (the Act). Under section 1937 a state may amend its State plan to provide alternative benefit packages to some of its recipients without regard to comparability, statewideness, freedom of choice, or certain other traditional Medicaid requirements. This paper looks briefly at how Section 1937 might be used by a state to develop a LIFE Account model.

This report provides an overview of 35 states’ initiatives to improve their LTC systems and includes lessons learned and recommendations that can guide states undertaking similar initiatives. Despite accomplishments and improvements, Grantees described continuing barriers including insufficient funding for home and community services; workforce shortages; lack of affordable and accessible housing and transportation; and outdated or inflexible administrative, statutory, and regulatory provisions.

These Person Centered Planning (PCP) presentations discuss how PCP allows consumers to plan for their preferences and do this throughout their lifespan. Presentations focus of the individual within his/her family and community and the relationships that affect PCP. The focus throughout is to identify personal preferences and to develop the plan for the future.

The Georgia QA/QI Real Choice Systems Change grant employed a variety of person centered planning (PCP) techniques in order to change services to fit the needs of consumers. This document is a variety of flyers and notices that the grantee used in order to recruit consumers to participate in its PCP focus and planning groups.

States are increasingly interested in the individual budget model for older Medicaid beneficiaries as a mechanism to improve responsiveness of benefits to beneficiaries’ needs and preferences and to increase their ability to remain outside or leave nursing homes. This report describes 10 operating individual budget model programs that serve older persons and identifies four areas of program design that are of particular importance to the success of the individual budget model.

This Issue Brief by the Alliance for Health Reform provides a short overview of the Cash & Counseling program. Sections include How the program came about, Access, health outcomes, and satisfaction with service, Five steps in getting started, Cost comparisons, Outstanding issues, Fast facts and Expert sources.

A new Health Services Research Journal is a dedicated issue to Cash & Counseling. Review the summary of 15 articles; topics include public/private partnerships, research design and methodological issues, evaluation, consumer enrollment and experiences, costs, worker issues and case histories. Also find two commentaries on Cash & Counseling, one on the international context and the other about social experimentation.