Originally published: . Volume 10, No. 7. Source pages: 1, 5.
Representative White's effort to help 35,000 individuals with disabilities maintain access to quality healthcare services was signed into law by the Governor as Act 381, as the "Disability Services Sustainability Act." White believes that private providers are essential for helping those with disabilities, and access to these providers is threatened and dwindling.
In an effort to maintain quality services for individuals with disabilities, Representative White's bill notes:
(1) Access to quality services for persons with developmental, intellectual, adult-onset, or physical disabilities furnished by private providers is essential for the health, safety, and well being of those persons.
(2) Reliable and sufficient Medicaid reimbursement rates for private providers are necessary to create and maintain a sustainable statewide system of services for eligible individuals with disabilities.
(3) A statewide system of services is sustainable only if reimbursement rates are sufficient to enlist providers in numbers great enough to allow eligible individuals a choice among different providers who are capable of delivering quality services that will meet the assessed needs of those individuals in a timely manner.
The measure declared that the state "must take steps to foster and maintain a robust network that attracts and retains quality providers which are capable of maintaining a stable workforce and are sufficient in number to allow for meaningful choices among providers by individuals eligible to receive disability services."
The law requires "The department shall maintain reliable data in a form that permits ongoing monitoring of trending factors that may affect the sufficiency of rates. Such factors may include, without limitation, trends in cost of living and other economic indexes, wage rates, and changes in regulatory and policy requirements affecting provider costs.
"The department may require reasonable, periodic financial reports from providers as needed to ensure the availability of reliable cost data. The department shall consult and collaborate with providers to develop reasonable financial reporting requirements."
"The department may conduct annual reviews of all rates by service category and shall make a determination of the level of sufficiency of each rate based on a review of all pertinent data."
Act 381 requires that any reduction in disability rates to providers must be approved by the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget.
The state health department is to submit an annual report concerning disability service provider rates with any changes within the previous twelve months to the Medicaid rate methodology for disability services and the current Medicaid rates for those services.
Representative White (Center) asks the state to study quality and access to services for those with disabilities. She said she is concerned about losing private providers from the public health care roles.
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