Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Dear Legislator

Make Managed Care Your Legislator's No. 1 Priority!


The first day of the legislative session has already passed and in a blink of an eye the first week will be over! Take this opportunity to show your concern for managed care and contact your legislators today!  Below is an excerpt from e-mail message that you’ll find on the Invisible Kansans website.  We encourage you to use the content that’s provided and customize it to make it your own.  Act now to send this note to your legislators, Governor Brownback and even your local newspaper!


Maintaining quality services for Kansans with intellectual and developmental disabilities is very important to me.  I am very concerned that the State is planning to include long-term care services for persons with developmental disabilities in its managed care plan for Kansas. Managed care models were designed to help contain costs associated with acute medical needs.  


Long-term care for persons with significant intellectual or developmental disabilities is neither acute nor medical.  It is a spectrum of life-long, person-focused supports that enable a person to live as independently as possible in the community of their choosing.  Attempting to force DD long-term care services into a managed care model is the epitome of forcing a square peg into a round hole.


The fact that DD long-term care services are a bad fit for managed care can be seen in the vast majority of states that have chosen to specifically exclude, or 'carve out', these services for this population from their managed care plans.  Only four states in the union have even attempted applying managed care to DD long-term care services.  None of the DD systems in those states are comparable to the robust supports we have here in Kansas.  Further, each of those states proceeded cautiously, taking years to incorporate DD long-term care into their managed care plans.


Visit the Invisible Kansans website to continue reading this message and send your e-mail today! 

No comments:

Post a Comment