SB 491

Under current law, the Department of Health Services (DHS) contracts with an

aging and disability resource center (resource center) to provide information and

referral services in areas where the Family Care program is operating. The resource

center currently must provide information about its services to all older persons and

persons with a physical disability who reside in a nursing home, community-based

residential facility, adult family home, or residential care apartment complex

(collectively "facility"). The resource center also screens individuals to determine

whether they are eligible for the Family Care program. The resource center must

perform a functional screening and a financial and cost-sharing screening for older

persons and persons with a physical disability who are residents or prospective

residents of a facility and who request a screening. The resource center must then

assist an individual who chooses to enroll in a care management organization, which

administers benefits under the Family Care program.

Currently, DHS also administers the self-directed services option, known as

IRIS. This self-directed services option operates under a waiver of federal Medicaid

laws and allows elderly and physically and developmentally disabled individuals to

direct how their benefit is spent and select their own providers.

This bill requires the resource center to provide information about the

self-directed services option and expands the people to whom information must be

given to include adults with developmental disabilities. The bill specifies that the

resource center needs to provide the information only to facility residents who are

residents at the time when the Family Care benefit becomes available in the county

where the facility is located. The bill also requires the resource center to assist those

residents who choose to enroll in the self-directed services option.

For further information, see the

Notes

provided by the Law Revision

Committee of the Joint Legislative Council.