AB 453

This bill requires the Department of Health Services (DHS) to expand the

Family Care and IRIS programs to Rock County. 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, 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 Rock County:

contract with a resource center such that its services are available to residents before

July 1, 2016; contract with a CMO to administer the Family Care benefit such that

the benefit is available to residents on July 1, 2016; and provide services under IRIS

such that services are available to residents on July 1, 2016. For the contract with

a CMO, the bill exempts DHS from soliciting the contract under a competitive sealed

proposal process. Under the bill, DHS is not required to obtain approval from JCF

to enter these contracts or provide these services to residents of Rock County.