I am strongly opposed to the proposed changes.  First of all, any of us in a School System are here for the children.  This proposal could and would have an effect on our students because of the time it would demand and the cut of funding due to the loss of reimbursements from Medicaid.  The time that would be taken away from the students to obtain ALL of the information that is mentioned in this proposal is a phenomenal amount of time that needs to be focused more on the care of the students rather than trying to obtain the impossible.  Our job is to provide services to the children and any need that child may have must be met and these changes could really have an impact on the quality of services that we can provide because the funds that are received from Medicaid play a vital role in fulfilling those needs.  The disability rate keeps growing and with that, the time and funding to provide for these children with special needs is also rising.

Our County borders other states and many of our students are treated by physicians in these states.  Students that have multiple disabilities tend to have several providers so therefore they have multiple Plans of Care.  We can only do our part to make sure that the child's needs are met but we can not demand that the, for the most part short staffed, medical facilities to be compliant.  After spending hours of trying to obtain the proposed paperwork and still not receive what is needed to implement these strong proposed guidelines, we have wasted time and money.  Also, IF the medical facilities provide the paperwork with the needed signatures "according to this proposal" and register with the  ORP database and then the need of the child changes or the medication changes then the entire process would have to start over.  I feel that the paperwork that is required by our special needs providers is substantial at this point and to add to that would be detrimental.