Jim Johnson Receives Citizen of the Year Award

Jim Johnson, Executive Director of Sunflower Diversified in Great Bend, recently was awarded the 2015 Citizen of the Year Award from the Great Bend Chamber of Commerce & Economic Development.

Jim received the award for his 42 years of diligent work advocating for an under-served portion of the area population.  He has been a leader in the industry and a mentor to many.  Jim has dedicated his entire life serving those with I/DD.

Please join us in congratulating Jim on receiving this well-deserved award.

Goals for the Remaining Days of this Shortened Session

We want to answer and debunk the legislature's efficiency study which proposes stealing $1 million in CDDO administrative funding, and closing 7 CDDOs.  We think the plan merely spreads the work over the remaining CDDOs for no compensating funding enhancement. It's not an efficiency move; it's a move toward more insufficiency!

We hope to fix the step therapy bill (SB 341) to protect mental health and seizure prescriptions from being arbitrarily altered by State and MCO cost cutting moves.
We intend to keep up the testimony and commentary along with many other groups, to educate lawmakers on the need to slow the State's rush toward the integrated waiver model, without additional legislative scrutiny.

We hope to protect the integrity of early childhood programs by making sure no one does an end run around the current legislative position to retain tiny-K's place in KDHE.
And we hope for additional education opportunities to inform legislators about the negative impact of low reimbursement rates, and make recommendations about improving the practices and policies of the State's vocational Rehabilitation programs.

It is important that advocates stay engaged with legislators, because when communication is ongoing, we are far more able to stave off some of the mischief that   is inflicted on unsuspecting programs who may have gone to sleep. And maybe, just maybe, legislators may do a few good things for us before they go home.

InterHab testimony for Seclusion and Restraint bill

February 10, 2016

TO: House Committee on Children and Seniors

FR: Tom Laing, Executive Director, InterHab

RE: Support for House Bill 2534 

We have appreciated the collaborative efforts of school officials and advocates in generating the language you are considering in HB 2534, as introduced, and we support that work product.  We know of only one issue* on which the stakeholder group could not agree, and that is the "sunset provision" that some are now promoting.

We oppose a sunset provision for this bill, and strongly urge that you NOT add it.

Sunset provisions are appropriate when statutes are written which are considered to be time-limited in need, or a "test run" of a new idea.  We understand some laws may later be deemed unneeded or impractical.  That is NOT the case in this instance. 

We believe that laws to create safer and more secure classrooms for our children are necessary. If anyone suggests it is somehow impractical to adhere to laws to assure a child's safety, that attitude in itself should be proof of the need for this law to become permanent.  

The push for a sunset provision comes from some of the same groups that opposed this law for a decade, and therefore our experience and yours should tell us that the sunset provision in this case is NOT a strategy to improve the law, but an effort to run the clock out on the law in hopes that it will not come back.  

The inappropriate use of seclusion and restraint would be considered an act of battery or worse, if the victim was an adult. Would we ever consider sun-setting laws against battery? Of course not.  Children's safety should be protected.  There should be no sunset on the right of a child to be safe. 

Please consider these thoughts, and act in accordance with the needs of our state's children, and please call if you have questions. 

Sincerely, 

Tom Laing, Executive Director, InterHab 

(NOTE: We have been advised that efforts are underway now to slow down the bill to add new regulatory language from the Department of Education. We believe that such language if important, should have already been offered, and in any case, can be added later, and should not slow down your consideration of the bill to which stakeholders had already agreed. Considering the accelerated pace of the legislature this year, delays to this bill may ultimately cause this bill to die. Do not let that happen.)

Final vote on Step Therapy Bill today

SB 341, step therapy for prescriptions, is still alive and will receive a final Senate vote today.

The bill allows MCOs to deny prescriptions recommended by a physician, if there is a cheaper drug available that could first be tried. (The bill would apply to prescriptions written starting July 1, 2016, effectively grandfathering in all prescriptions written before then).  So the greatest impact will be on newly eligible persons or newly diagnosed medical needs, on and after July 1.

SB 341 is maybe the clearest policy signal we have seen in our new managed care world that the medical interests of persons served take a back seat to budget considerations. In effect, a decision is made in this bill that will hurt those with the most complex prescription needs, and it is going forward because they need to cut the budget to compensate for their poor planning and fiscal decision making.

The effort is to make the sun shine in Kansas, even if it means darkening the future for persons in need.

SB 341 does not specifically protect mental health drugs, whether used for MH diagnoses or used for seizure prevention. It does require that prior to implementing step therapy policies for MH drugs that such policies would be required to go through an existing medical review panel which was set up last year. This is a modest assurance, but not an ironclad protection.

This process is complicated by the possibility that the bill cannot be fixed in the House  because it will NOT be worked in a House committee. Instead, the tentative plan is to add SB 341 into another bill (not yet determined) to avoid a House debate on step therapy .. partly because they might lose such a debate, partly because they do NOT want a bill on the House floor which might be a vehicle for Medicaid expansion.

Contact your Senator ASAP, and ask that when they go to the floor today at 2:30 p.m., that they vote to protect the interests of Kansans. If you know your Senator's name - Click here to look up their contact information.

If you do not know who represents you, you can look up your elected officials here.

Bill aims to give insurance companies control over patient medications

Senate Bill 341 is an attempt to give greater prescription authority to MCOs by granting the use of "step therapy" in which a prescription regimen can be ordered by the MCO that requires a client to start with lower-priced drugs, only moving up when it is demonstrated that the lower-priced drug is not working.

State officials have said:

• Mental health drugs are exempt from this.  
• This will not effect prescriptions already in place for persons served. 
• Psychotropics used for seizure controls will be treated as mental health drugs. 

However, none of these promises are in the bill, and if the bill is passed as is, we would have to rely on rules and regulations, and then on the operational practices of the MCOs to assure these promises will be kept.

The senate convenes at 2:30 p.m. today to vote on this bill. Read the bill here.