CMS Moves to Pull Services for People with Mental Illness, Others

We received this email from SPADD on Wednesday:

From: Tiffany Neff
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2007 10:41 AM
Subject: FW: Members may want to read this.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that in August, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) issued a proposed regulation that would eliminate federal funding through Medicaid for states to provide community-based and school-based rehabilitative services intended to enable individuals with disabilities to improve their mental and physical well-being outside of an institutional setting.

The National Governor's Association (NGA) recently called on CMS to withdraw the proposed regulation, calling it a significant departure from states' authority to provide health-related services to Medicaid beneficiaries. For the report.

Unsure what this meant, we emailed folks at DHR yesterday and received this response yesterday from the Office of DD:

>>> Stephen Hall 10/25/2007 2:53:50 PM >>> This is about the rehab option, not DD. Thanks

And then a response from Chris Gault early this morning:

Attached is the letter that we wrote. Much has already been changed in Georgia as a result of CMS dis allowances in the TRIS program. CMS is supposed to post all the feedback they received during the public comment period, which ended on Oct 12. I tried to check just now to see if they are posted but their site is down. Try www.cms.hhs.gov/eRulemaking later and you might see the comments. The reference to the proposed rule is 2261-P.
Chris

We hope that his information is helpful and would love your comments.