Submit Your Comments on Home and Community-Based Waivers; Due by June 14, 2011
Submit Your Comments on Home and Community-Based Waivers; Due by June 14, 2011
Friends -Help support positive changes for home and community-based waiver services. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued draft regulations for comment that:- Allow more than one target population per waiver;
- Require service plans to be developed using a person-centered process;
- Require that waiver services take place only in home and community-based, integrated settings;
- Do not allow retroactive approvals of waiver amendments with significant changes;
- Require a public input process for changes to a waiver; and
- Establish more ways for CMS to ensure state compliance with waiver requirements.
The Disability Rights Network of Pennsylvania (DRN) supports these regulations because they take an important step in promoting community and person-centeredness. Unfortunately, a number of groups that support institutionalization are opposing the regulations in their comments to CMS. CMS needs to hear support for these regulations. If you support a community and person-centered approach and integrated waiver settings, please send in positive comments. Your comments will make a difference no matter how brief they are. Numbers do count!
Click here to review the draft regulations. Comments are due by June 14, 2011 and may be submitted electronically to http://www.regulations.gov or by mail to: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Department of Health and Human Services, Attention: CMS-2296-P, P.O. Box 8016, Baltimore, Maryland 21244-1850.
Here are some points you may want to include in your comments:
- We support the regulation that requires plans to be developed using a person-centered process.
- We support the regulation that requires services to be provided in home and community-based, integrated settings, as this regulation will further individuals’ opportunities for community living in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and Olmstead. We applaud CMS for prohibiting settings that have the “qualities of an institutional setting” but urge CMS to clearly outline these qualities in the regulation.
- We support the regulation that prohibits retroactive approvals of amendments that include substantial changes.
- We support the regulation that requires a public input process for changes to a waiver’s services, operations, and rate setting processes. We especially appreciate the requirement for the process to “ensure meaningful opportunities for input for individuals served.”
If you have questions, please contact Chava Kintisch, Staff Attorney, Disability Rights Network of Pennsylvania, at 215-238-8070, ext. 210, or [email protected].
Thank you,
Chava Kintisch
Staff Attorney
Disability Rights Network of Pennsylvania