State officials say they’re having a hard time contacting disabled people who have expressed interest in receiving Medicaid-funded services designed to help them live in community-based settings.
Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services Secretary Kari Bruffett on Friday said that between Jan. 1 and Dec. 15, the agency had reached out to 1,627 people on its waiting list for services for people with physical disabilities.
More than 830 of these individuals are now receiving services.
In November, agency officials renewed their attempt to contact individuals thought to still be on the waiting list. So far, those efforts have generated only another 150 responses.
“We’ve had a challenge in getting responses,” Bruffett said, acknowledging that the agency may not yet have valid addresses and telephone numbers for many of the would-be recipients.
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In the past 11 months, 667 people have been dropped from the waiting lists because KDADS workers couldn’t find them, or because they have refused services or have been declared ineligible.
KDADS employees, Bruffett said, will continue reaching out to people — or their families — who have expressed an interest in obtaining services.
Eventually, she said, the department should be able to achieve significant reductions in the waiting lists for people with physical and developmental disabilities.
Last week, 2,058 Kansans with physical disabilities were known to be waiting for services as were 3,134 people with developmental disabilities.
Rosie Cooper, executive director of the Kansas Association of Centers for Independent Living, said problems remain with the KDADS list. The association is a coalition of regional programs that help people with physical disabilities navigate the state’s service delivery system.
“On Thursday, I let KDADS know about a lady who’d gotten a ‘notice of action’ letter saying that she was being removed from the waiting list,” Cooper said. “She got the letter the day before Thanksgiving even though the date on the letter was Nov. 7. No one had ever contacted her with an offer.”
The woman has been on the waiting list since July 2011, Cooper said, and has made several calls to her local KDADS office since receiving her cut-off letter. As of Monday afternoon, she said, the woman’s calls had not been returned.
“I don’t want to say KDADS numbers are wrong,” she said. “I just don’t know how they came up with them. There seems to be a lot of confusion.”
Bruffett spoke Friday during the department’s annual forum on KanCare, which is the state’s privatized Medicaid program that is administered by three for-profit managed care companies.
Angela de Rocha, a KDADS spokesperson, said people on the waiting list between 2009 and 2013 who have not responded to the contact letter should email hcbs-ks@kdads.ks.gov with the subject line “PD waiting list inquiry.” Those who do not have email, she said, are encouraged to send a letter to HCBS – KDADS, 503 S. Kansas, 3rd Floor, Topeka, KS 66603.
Approximately 30 people attended the hourlong meeting hosted by KDADS and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. About half of the people in the audience were KDHE or KDADS employees.
During the meeting’s question-and-answer session, most of the questions had to do with advocates’ concerns with KDADS-proposed changes in the waivers that define the state’s approach to helping people with disabilities and frail elders living in community-based settings rather than in nursing homes. KDADS collected public comment on the changes through Dec. 20.
The proposed changes are subject to federal approval. Bruffett said KDADS plans to file its proposed changes with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) regional office in Kansas City, Mo., by Jan. 1.
Concerns raised during the public comment session, which began in mid-November, will be addressed in the department’s plan, she said.
Responding the audience’s questions, Bruffett and other KDADS officials said:
- They were aware of that some of the proposed changes could lead to a pay cut for attendant care workers.
- The final version of the waiver affecting services for people with traumatic brain injuries probably would not be open to a second round of public comment before being forwarded to CMS.
- Issues having to do with the state’s response to a federal rule that attendant care workers</a> have to be paid minimum wage and overtime after Jan. 1 remain unresolved.
- The managed care companies appear to be having more success in reducing turnover among their front-line workers in recent months.
Dave Ranney is a reporter for KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team.
