On December 10th, Director Fenton invited The Arc to a meeting with his staff and staff from Health Care & Family Services to discuss the revisions to the Illinois Home & Community Based Services Statewide Transition Plan. I have shared with you some of the revisions and how to comment on the Transition Plan. At the Director’s meeting, I requested a summary of the revisions and that summary is below.
I am in the process of making my comments and recommend that you also comment on the plan highlighting the need for:
- Employment Services
- Creative Community Living Options such as supported living, etc…
- Self-Directed Services
- Meaningful Day Services
You can share your comments on the Statewide Transition Plan here.
Tony
Summary of Revisions to Illinois’ Home- and Community-Based Services Statewide Transition Plan
On March 16, 2015, the State of Illinois submitted to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) its Home and Community-Based Services Statewide Transition Plan (STP) for review, in accordance with the new federal rule regarding home and community based settings. On July 30, 2015, CMS responded, and Illinois updated the STP to address the points CMS made. Illinois is currently soliciting public comments on the second draft of the STP, and will incorporate public comments prior to our next submission to CMS in March 2016.
To provide clarity around the numerous changes that have occurred from the first draft submitted in March and the second draft currently under public review, the Department of Healthcare and Family Services (HFS) created this summary guide.
Minor stylistic and typographical changes are interspersed throughout the document, and revised dates appear in the appendices to correct conflicts CMS noted in its letter. The first significant update appears at the top of page 5 of the revised STP. This change explains the means by which the State plans to reach 100% site survey responsiveness.
On page 6, starting with the paragraph “In addition, settings were asked to indentify…”, in response to a specific question from CMS, the State has clarified that settings that self-identify as farmsteads, gated or secured communities whose residents may not leave, or other specific types of sites, will be categorized as a Category 3 setting and subjected to heightened scrutiny.
The new first full paragraph on page 7 explains the State’s use of the five point Likert Scale to measure level of resident autonomy.
Page 8 contains new paragraphs to further explain the process by which the State will conduct onsite survey validation visits.
On page 13, in the section that discusses system wide compliance and remediation strategies, the State added language to further detail its compliance process for settings found to be out of compliance with the federal rule.
The last substantive modifications to the plan appear in the Monitoring of Ongoing Compliance section on page 15, which now includes additional details.
Tony Paulauski
Executive Director
The Arc of Illinois
20901 S. LaGrange Rd. Suite 209
Frankfort, IL 60423
815-464-1832 (OFFICE)
815-464-1832 (CELL)
Tony@thearcofil.org