Medicaid Waivers

This is the revised bill that was passed by the Maryland General assembly in the 2003 session. This bill prohibits the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene from denying an individual access to a home- and community-based services waiver due to a lack of funding for the waiver services for several different circumstances.

This is a Kentucky bill that was passed when a parent/advocate took her son onto the floor of the Senate and lobbied for its passage - this parent is one of the members of the Real Choices Consumer Advisory Committee. The bill defines self-determined funding and allows for a pilot project for individualized and self-determined funding.

CMS letter allowing coverage of transition costs under 1915 (c) waivers. This letter clarifies some methods by which HCBS waivers under section 1915(c) may aid in the transitioning of individuals from institutional settings to their own home in the community through coverage of one-time transitional expenses. This clarification was promised in the HHS New Freedom Report to the President.

The United States General Accounting Office study conducted on home and community based long-term care that is supported by Medicaid waivers. The population that they focused upon was older adults. The reasons for the study were to look at trends in uses of Medicaid waiver programs, to review quality assurance approaches used by states in their administration of the waivers, and to determine the adequacy of federal oversight of the waivers.

A number of CMS grantees are working on quality assurance and improvement initiatives as part of their Community Living Grant activities. This audio conference was organized specifically to meet the needs of grantees who expressed great interest in hearing about what CMS requires for quality in community-based services, about promising practices and quality assurance and quality improvement and overall CMS goals for quality services.

This purpose of this teleconference was to discuss options for combining Medicaid long term care funding and expanding the scope of long term care services. The call was organized in response to a need identified by a grantee and included states that were available and had relevant experience with the questions being raised.

These slides were presented at the 2nd Annual Training Institute for State Mental Health Olmstead Coordinators (9/30/2002 - 10/2/2002). They provide a brief overview of the FY01 and FY02 Systems Change Grants, including charts depicting which states are focusing their efforts in areas such as housing, mental health, nursing facility transition, etc.

The Compendium contains basic information about each of the Systems Change Grantees. Each section is alphabetical by state. Information for each state includes: the name of the grantee organization, the title of the grant, the type of grant, the amount awarded and fiscal year awarded, the primary contacts for each grant, the target populations to be served under the grant, the primary goals and activities of each grant project, and a brief description of the grant activities.

The Formative Evaluation of the Real Choice Systems Change Grants evaluates how the Systems Change grantees are progressing towards meeting their goals. The Formative Evaluation identifies problems faced by the grantees and ways that they deal with the problems. This document provides summary information about each of the FY2002 Grantees.

This report provides a thumbnail sketch of long-term care budgets, legislation and planning in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The goal of the project is to obtain insights into recent state long-term care public policy reforms,as evidenced by their proposed or recently enacted legislation, task forces and budgets.