AB 299

Under current law, in certain counties, Family Care and the self-directed

services option known as IRIS, among other programs, provide community-based,

long-term care services to individuals who meet certain functional and financial

criteria and who are either frail elders or adults with physical or developmental

disabilities. In each geographic area in which the Family Care benefit is available

the Department of Health Services (DHS) contracts with an aging and disability

resource center to provide information and determine eligibility for Family Care and

a care management organization (CMO) to administer the Family Care benefit. DHS

may contract with a county, a long-term care district, a governing body of a tribe or

band or the Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council, a joint association of those entities,

or a private organization to be a CMO. Under current law, if DHS proposes to

contract with an entity to administer the Family Care benefit in geographic areas in

which, in the aggregate, resides more than 29 percent of the state population that

is eligible for the Family Care benefit, DHS must first submit the proposed contract

to the Joint Committee on Finance (JCF). DHS may enter into the proposed contract

only if JCF approves.

This bill requires DHS to do all of the following for residents of any of the

counties of Brown, Door, Kewaunee, Marinette, Menominee, Oconto, and Shawano

that have complied with statutory requirements: contract with a resource center

such that its services are available to residents before July 1, 2014; contract with a

CMO to administer the Family Care benefit such that the benefit is available to

residents on July 1, 2014; and provide services under IRIS such that services are

available to residents on July 1, 2014. Under the bill, DHS is not required to obtain

approval from JCF to enter into these contracts or provide these services to residents

of those seven counties.