I strongly oppose DMAS eliminating independent Services Facilitators from Virginia’s consumer-directed waiver services.

For families like mine, a Services Facilitator is not an unnecessary middleman. Our facilitator provides essential, hands on support that helps us understand and successfully navigate a complicated Medicaid waiver system. They help families understand requirements, maintain services, complete necessary paperwork, address problems with attendants and service authorizations, communicate with the appropriate agencies, and make sure we understand what is required to remain compliant.

Most importantly, an independent Services Facilitator gives families someone they know and trust someone who understands the individual receiving services and the family’s circumstances.

Families caring for people with serious disabilities already carry an enormous responsibility. We should not have to lose a trusted professional who knows our situation and replace that relationship with a larger agency or unfamiliar system where we may have to repeatedly explain our circumstances to different people.

Removing independent Services Facilitators could create gaps in care, confusion, missed requirements, difficulty hiring and maintaining attendants, and unnecessary stress for families who are already doing everything possible to keep their loved ones safely in the community.

This is also about choice. Consumer-directed services are supposed to give individuals and families greater control over their care. Eliminating independent facilitators takes an important choice away from the very people this program was created to serve.

My facilitator has provided guidance, advocacy, consistency, accessibility, and personal support that cannot simply be replaced by transferring these responsibilities to a larger organization. Small independent providers such as Miss Jada Meredith, LLC have built relationships with the families they serve. Eliminating this model could force trusted providers out of business and leave families without the people who have helped them successfully navigate these services.

Please consider the real-world consequences before making this change. A policy that may appear administratively efficient on paper can have a very different impact on a disabled person or caregiver trying to keep essential services in place.

DMAS should strengthen independent Services Facilitation—not eliminate it.

Please preserve the right of individuals and families participating in consumer-directed services to choose a qualified independent Services Facilitator. Do not take away a support system that is already working for the families who depend upon it.