Join the HCAOA Arizona State Chapter for an in-person meeting on Wednesday, August 18 from 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. MST at Home Assist Health in Phoenix. The chapter is excited to welcome guest speaker Gary Covert, Executive Advisory and Coaching, who will guide attendees through repositioning your business as a thriving agency post-COVID. Register here.
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Several of HCAOA’s State Chapters took action this week, sending letters to their State Medicaid Directors to offer suggestions about how to use the available 10% FMAP increase for Medicaid home and community-based services. CMS recently provided guidance to states about how they can use the federal funds to supplement, not supplant, existing state funds for Medicaid effective April 1, 2021. In the letter, HCAOA Chapters state the industry’s biggest concern and primary suggestion is use the funds to increase Medicaid reimbursement rates for personal care services and private duty nursing so agencies can adequately recruit and retain essential workers to provide critical care at home to patients and clients The letter offers several other suggestions to enhance, expand, or strengthen Medicaid HCBS, including hazard pay, overtime pay, and shift differential pay for home care workers, new or additional Medicaid HCBS services especially during the pandemic, and support for family caregivers. To date, the Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Florida, Virginia, Wisconsin, Arizona, South Carolina and Connecticut Chapters have sent letters, with others to follow.
You can read one of the full letters here. It is critical that the Arizona Legislature hear from the Elderly and Physically Disabled (EPD) home and community-based services industry in support of additional direct care workforce funding. In order to keep up with demand and ensure industry wages rise to levels sufficient to recruit and retain direct care workers, the HCAOA Arizona Chapter is teaming up with the Elderly and Physically Disabled Provider Alliance (EPDPA) to request consideration of a minimum of $15 million total ongoing state general fund investment for EPD ALTCS services for FY 2022. In total, the EPD Long Term Care system requires an investment of $30 million in the upcoming fiscal year to restore reimbursement rates to levels equal to those in place prior to the Great Recession. read more Arizona Governor Doug Ducey recently signed Senate Bill 1377 after a push from Republican legislators to limit civil liability exposure for “Good Samaritans” who have worked to protect and provide for Arizonans during the COVID-19 health crisis. The new law provides a shield from civil liability for certain individuals and institutions that act in good faith to protect others from injury, death, or loss resulting from the pandemic. Read more Arizona voters adopted Proposition 207, which legalizes the possession and use of marijuana by adults age 21 and over for recreational or non-medicinal use. The initiative passed with roughly a 20% margin.
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