Enter the Olmstead Anniversary Competition and Win Prizes!
SEND ALL ENTRIES TO: stevegoldada@SteveGoldADA.com
June 22, 2009, marks the 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Olmstead
decision, holding unnecessary institutionalization violated the Americans
with Disabilities Act. The decision requires states to move people, who
want to live in the community, out of institutions.
I am sponsoring a national contest to determine which States have best
implemented the 1999 Olmstead mandate. Points will be awarded for each of
the following categories. A nationally renown panel has been assembled
to judge all entries. Here are the categories:
1. Ask your State Medicaid director for a year by year breakdown of the
number of people whom the State has assisted to leave a nursing home.
If data is not available for each of the past ten years, points will be
prorated depending on the number of years for which you obtain the
information. Additional points will be awarded if you learn where the
people moved to, e.g., own home or apartment, a relative's home,
assisted living, etc., after they left the nursing home.
2. Find out the amount of Medicaid savings on average for each person who
moved from the nursing home institution to the community.
3. For each year since Olmstead, find out the Medicaid average per diem
rates paid to nursing homes and the Medicaid average per diem rates
paid to home and community-based services.
4. Ask for your State's written guidelines/criteria for assessing what
services an institutionalized person may need in the community. Does
your state have their own staff make the assessment or does it rely on
the nursing home's staff?
5. Although not part of the contest, extra points will be awarded if you
also obtain the written criteria your State uses to determine if and
when a person in the community is at "imminent risk" of becoming be
institutionalized and if based on the criteria, your State will provide
services to avoid unnecessary institutionalization.
6. Find out if your State recognizes the right of persons with a
disability in a nursing home, who have mental capacity, to decide they
will take a "risk" in the community rather than continue to be
institutionalized. If your State does recognize this right, how does
your State enforce it?
7. Has your State publicized its successes, and if it has, provide some of
the success stories?
8. No entry emailed or posted later than August 1, 2009, will be accepted.
Sorry. If it is necessary to file a "Records Request" or "Freedom of
Information Request" to obtain this information, we will permit an
entry later than August 1, 2009, with appropriate substantiating
documentation. Texas has filed an early (partial) entry to win!
The Texas applicant states that 18,000 Texans have been moved from nursing
homes to the community. Texas does track where the people moved to. It is
cheaper to serve the people in the community. Yes, Texas has both
an "imminent risk" form, as well as an individual responsibility agreement
assuming risks. Last, the applicant's referred us to
http://www.dads.state.tx.us/services/pi/olmstead where former residents
tell their own stories.
SEND ALL ENTRIES TO: stevegoldada@SteveGoldADA.com
Steve Gold, The Disability Odyssey continues
