4/4/2014 2:01 pm Date / Time filed with the Register of Regulations | VA.R. Document Number: R____-______ |
Virginia Register Publication Information
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Transmittal Sheet: Response to Petition for Rulemaking
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Initial Agency Notice
Agency Decision
Promulgating Board: | Board of Medical Assistance Services |
Regulatory Coordinator: | Brian McCormick (804)371-8856 Brian.McCormick@dmas.virginia.gov |
Agency Contact: | Brian McCormick Regulatory Coordinator (803)371-8856 Brian.McCormick@dmas.virginia.gov |
Contact Address: | Department of Medical Assistance Services DMAS, Policy Division 600 E. Broad Street, Suite 1300 Richmond, VA 23219 |
Chapter Affected: | |
12 vac 30 - 120: | Waivered Services |
Statutory Authority: |
State: COV 32.1-325 et seq. Federal: Title XIX of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1396) |
Date Petition Received | 04/04/2014 |
Petitioner | Michele Frances Jackson |
Per this document http://townhall.virginia.gov/UM/chartpetitionpublic.pdf I would
like to use the Code of Virginia 12.3-45 and Code of Virginia Section 2.2-4007 to
request that DMAS change the regulations relating to the Medicaid Elderly or Disabled
with Consumer-Direction (EDCD) Waiver.
1) Repeal all Medicaid Elderly or Disabled with Consumer Direction Waiver regulations
into one regulation that assertively promotes the home and community presence and
participation of persons with disabilities. For example, the EDCD Waiver should seek
to encourage disabled people eating in restaurants with wait staff and flying airplanes
to national and international destinations.
Repeal 12VAC30-120-900, 12VAC30-120-980, 12VAC30-120-930, 12VAC30-120-920, 12VAC30-110
and 12VAC30-20-500 through 12VAC30-20-560, 12VAC30-120-758, 12VAC30-120-762, 12VAC30-120-2000,
12VAC30-120-2010 and any other regulation about the EDCD Waiver into one regulation
that clearly and completely explains the program.
2) Change the EDCD Waiver regulation to increase $11.47 hourly personal attendant
wage by multiples, so that the personal attendants who are often family of the disabled
individual will have the freedom of choice to purchase their own charitable contributions,
housing, utilities, car, food, clothing, medical, entertainment, travel and other
needs and wants. Persons with disabilities and their caretakers should have the income
to eat in restaurants with wait staff, to fly and to participate in other good and
enjoyable things. This is a love, truth and disability rights issue. Many personal
attendants are family members and friends of persons with disabilities who do not
want their family and friends to end up in foster care, nursing facilities, assisted-living
facilities, other mental health institutions, group homes, etc. Freedom of choice
allows family and friends, the best people, the biggest lovers of persons with disabilities
(after God and persons with disabilities,) to be caregivers for persons with disabilities.
3) Change the EDCD Waiver regulation to include an annual cost of living increase
for the personal attendants.
4) Change the EDCD Waiver regulation, so that personal attendants and the employer
of record can be the same person. Single parents need to be able to be both the personal
attendant and the employer of record. Many single parents go through obtaining custody
and child support for the disabled child because the noncustodial parent refuses to
provide for the disabled child financially and in other ways. Married couples also
benefit when a personal attendant and the employer of record are the same person.
For example, a husband who is primarily the employer of record and a wife who is primarily
the personal attendant can switch roles allowing the husband to serve as the personal
attendant. Some personal attendants work more than 40 hours weekly and need rest.
All personal attendants should be paid. Some family have more than one elderly or
disabled member and also need flexibility of personal attendants and the employer
of record being the same person.
5) Change the EDCD Waiver regulation, so that an individual age 18 and older can
be a personal attendant including parents of minor disabled children, spouses of disabled
individuals, all biological/adoptive family members and others. Encourage family
to be personal attendants.
6) Change EDCD Waiver regulation, so that an individual age 17 and younger who is
the mother/father of a disabled individual can serve as a personal attendant/employer
of record.
7) Repeal EDCD Waiver regulation implementing periodic authorization. There should
be one evaluation to qualify for the EDCD Waiver and no further authorizations. Disabilities
like autism and Down Syndrome are life-long. Also institutions have a long history
of discriminating against persons with disabilities.
8) Change EDCD Waiver regulation, so that disabled individuals have compliments or
complaints handled by the EDCD program head. Disabled individuals or their representatives
are not to go through the Medicaid appeals process. EDCD Waiver is to handle compliments/complaints
as an opportunity to improve the EDCD Waiver service not as a way to reduce or deny
benefits/income to disabled individuals and their personal attendants. EDCD Waiver
should strive to ensure that personal attendants are continuously paid and providing
service to elderly or disabled individual from day one of birth and older until end
of disability or death.
9) Change EDCD Waiver regulation, so that service facilitators are visiting disabled
individual and their representatives once annually to inform them about the EDCD Waiver,
check that the personal attendants are being paid continuously and to trouble shoot
payment problems.
10) Repeal EDCD Waiver regulation where service facilitator is collecting data on
the disabled individual and their family/personal attendants as it relates to the
periodic authorization. (See point 7 where the periodic authorization is repealed.)
11) Change EDCD Waiver regulation, so that service facilitators are responsible for
informing local medical facilities, mental health facilities, schools and government
agencies about about the EDCD Waiver with the goal that these groups will tell persons
with disabilities and their families and friends about the EDCD Waiver. One of the
goals should be that when parents receive genetic counseling they are also told about
the EDCD Waiver, so that from day one if a disabled individual is born, they are enrolled
in the EDCD Waiver receiving personal attendant and other services. Another goal is
to end situation where some family have disabled members in foster care, nursing facilities,
assisted living facilities, group homes and other institutions not because they want
them there but because they have no knowledge of or little knowledge of the EDCD Waiver.
12) Change EDCD Waiver regulation, so that service facilitators assist a disabled
person holding a Virginia EDCD Waiver with a move to another state and his/her personal
attendant not lose any income.
13) Change EDCD Waiver regulation, so that service facilitators work on problem of
how to help a disabled person with an EDCD Waiver from another state to move to Virginia
without his/her personal attendant losing income.
14) EDCD Waiver should be a tool to empower disabled person to live daily the best
possible life.
Agency Plan
DMAS plans to post this petition for rule making as required by the Code of Virginia.
Publication Date | 05/05/2014 (comment period will also begin on this date) |
Comment End Date | 05/26/2014 |