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Virginia Regulatory Town Hall
Agency
Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services
 
Board
State Board of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services
 
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2/20/25  12:39 pm
Commenter: Anonymous

115 comments
 

1. 12VAC35-115-90 Access to and amendment of service records

 

            While we agree the release of medical or mental health information to an individual should be done so limiting the risk of harm, we as a private provider organization are not able to enforce this upon any licensed medical professional or licensed mental health professional. The provisions for such release of documents are managed by and regulated via HIPAA. HIPAA is federal law and a federal standard therefore OHR would not be able to enforce such requirements on medical or mental health professionals either.

 

2. 12VAC35-115-260 Provider and department responsibilities

 

            Private providers are required to provide competency-based training initially and annually thereafter in several areas, but specifically for the purpose of this comment, abuse and neglect investigations are covered in the annual human rights training. Per the regulation staff are required to achieve a score of 80% or higher as evidenced by testing and certification in order to successfully complete said training. The proposed requirement to have competency-based training initially and annually provided by DBHDS is not attainable. The department does not have the bandwidth to sustain such training and only provides a certain amount of training; has limited trainers (one currently); and does not allow for the appropriate number of staff to be trained at hire and annually thereafter.

 

3. 12VAC35-115-175 F Investigations

 

            Each private provider organization is required to have designated staff complete OHR approved investigation training. As such, the Director or designee has the ability and knowledge to conduct all investigations and determine findings related to those investigations. These findings are then reported into the CHRIS system within the allotted 10-day timeframe at which point OHR reviews and has the ability to determine appropriate next steps, based on each individual case. Citations are then issued related to the review of OHR. Private providers are required to create and implement their own internal policies and procedures regarding investigations as set forth in DBHDS OHR regulation. These internal policies and procedures are reviewed and approved by DBHDS thus there is no additional necessity for the Director or designee to maintain any additional file. The request to have Directors or designees maintain an additional file would not be in alignment with the Governor’s request to reduce regulatory burden by 25%, but would rather increase this burden.

 

 

 

4. 12VAC35-115-146. Authorized Representative

 

            The proposed changes in this section imply that an organization should exhaust all aspects of an individual’s family tree prior to looking at a next friend as an option for an authorized representative appointment. As such, the Director or designee would be required to track all such inquires into the individuals family tree which is often not provided or available. In such circumstances where a next friend appointment is necessary, that process would be significantly slowed by the proposed requirement seeking LHRC a

CommentID: 232963