By Dave Ranney, KHI News Service, May 21, 2008
TOPEKA, May 21 — The state departments on aging and social and rehabilitation services are planning a first-of-its-kind public hearing on Medicaid-funded home and community based services.
“These programs have been run separately for the past 11 years,” said Department on Aging spokeswoman Barb Conant. “We see this as an opportunity to bring consumers to the table to talk about how best to support them and the services they need. It’s all about consumer choice.”
The hearing is tentatively scheduled for 2 p.m. June 26 at the SRS Learning Center, 2600 SW East Circle Drive, Topeka.
The proceedings will be broadcast live via speakerphone to SRS offices in Kansas City, Lawrence, Overland Park, Manhattan, Salina, Emporia, Hutchinson, Newton, Winfield, El Dorado, Chanute, Parsons, Pittsburg, Colby, Dodge City, Garden City, Great Bend, Hays, Liberal, Phillipsburg, Pratt, and Wichita.
The meeting will be open to public comment given in person or via speakerphone.
KDoA Secretary Kathy Greenlee and SRS Secretary Don Jordan will co-host the hearing.
“We really want to focus on the system as a whole rather than as different segments,” said SRS spokeswomen Michelle Ponce.
The hearing is the first step in the departments developing their proposed budgets for fiscal year 2010.
In Kansas, SRS administers home and community based services for the physically and developmentally disabled and for those with traumatic brain injuries. KDoA oversees in-home services for the frail elderly.
Two years ago, SRS proposed and received a federal waiver that gave people with physical and mental disabilities access to Medicaid-funded dental care.
Caught off guard, KDoA had not applied for a similar waiver, creating a disparity in services available to the elderly and to the disabled.
KDoA, in turn, spent several months seeking a similar waiver.
Advocates for home and community based services welcomed news to the two-department summit.
“It’s very positive,” said Shannon Jones, executive director at the Statewide Independent Living Council of Kansas. “We’ve been saying for a long time that access to services shouldn’t depend on a person’s age or label, it should be based on need. If we’d had a common philosophy in place two years ago, the frail elderly wouldn’t have gone a year without dental.”
Dave Ranney is a staff writer for KHI News Service, which specializes in coverage of health issues facing Kansans. He can be reached at dranney@khi.org or at 785-233-5443, ext. 128.