Quadco Meeting Held Tuesday

At their monthly board meet­ing on Tues­day, Quadco board mem­bers learned more about changes that are being made to the way ser­vices are to be pro­vided to indi­vid­u­als with devel­op­men­tal dis­abil­i­ties who also receive sup­port from Med­ic­aid. The board mem­bers watched por­tions of a video webi­nar about a tran­si­tion plan the Ohio Depart­ment of Devel­op­men­tal Dis­abil­i­ties sub­mit­ted to the Cen­ters on Med­ic­aid and Medicare Ser­vices (CMS) in response to a rule they revised. The rule, pub­lished in March of 2014, revised the way CMS home and community-based waiver ser­vices are to be pro­vided, assur­ing they would be done in the most inte­grated set­ting. The state’s tran­si­tion plan was sub­mit­ted in March of this year and speaks to how the state plans to meet the new stan­dards.

In the webi­nar pro­gram, John Mar­tin, Direc­tor of the Ohio Depart­ment of Devel­op­men­tal Dis­abil­i­ties said that CMS was con­cerned that ser­vices through the waiver were becom­ing insti­tu­tional in nature. So, CMS revised the rule to draw a “bright line between com­mu­nity ser­vices and insti­tu­tional ser­vices.“

After the webi­nar, the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor said he felt it would be a prob­lem for QRC to come into com­pli­ance with the new stan­dards, even by 2019 should CMS not allow for an exten­sion. He noted the state bien­nial bud­get process is still ongo­ing. The Ohio House, con­cluded their bud­get process includ­ing in it a pro­vi­sion that calls for com­mit­tee over­sight on any clos­ing of insti­tu­tions. The annual sum­mer pic­nic was talked about too. A num­ber of activ­i­ties are planned for those who come, includ­ing the serv­ing of the ever-popular root beer floats. The pic­nic is sched­uled to take place on June 12 in Arch­bold. The next joint meet­ing of the boards is sched­uled for June 23 at noon in the Stryker con­fer­ence room.