Action Alert: Take Action on Managed Care Waivers Today

Issue

The NC General Assembly and the State DHHS are developing a plan to require all developmental disability services to be managed with mental illness and substance abuse services in a managed care system. The Arc, along with almost every other developmental disability related organization, opposes this move. Services and support for people with developmental disabilities are life long and do not fit in the medical model of managed care.

Last year, we worked with the DHHS and General Assembly to develop a plan allowing the managed care model to expand to two LME's if the state would work with advocates and other stakeholders to study the effect of such a system and to review other possibilities. Now the Council of Community Programs and the DHHS are lobbying the legislature to remove these provisions. They are pushing a plan to allow three LME's to immediately bid to manage over one half of the counties in North Carolina. This plan is being touted as a cost saving measure, but there are more effective and efficient methods to manage the developmental disability system.

We just learned a few hours ago that DHHS will issue a Request for Application today or tomorrow allowing for statewide expansion of the managed care waiver by 2014.

Basically, the focus has become rapid expansion of Managed Care at the expense of positive outcomes for people with developmental disabilities.

The Arc is working with Legislators. We are asking to be involved in plan development and requesting the opportunity to present options that are best suited to manage the developmental disability system. We need your help now!

Please call your legislator with this simple message...

*Please do not place the DD system into a managed care system with mental illness and substance abuse services.

*Bring DD advocates, providers, families and consumers to the table to help design a system that works

*Review proposals by The Arc and others concerning the 1915i option and DD system design.

If legislators ask you for additional information please refer them to our website and tell them we will deliver a packet of information to them and are available for questions.

Find your state legislator here

NC Legislative Building Phone # (919) 733 7926