Friday Update: July 2, 2004   

HAVE A HAPPY AND SAFE 4TH OF JULY!!    

July 4th Weekend is a Great Opportunity to Meet Local Legislators
The 2004 General Elections are approaching quickly.  Candidates for Wisconsin’s state senate and assembly are campaigning hard.  The July 4th celebrations and parades are likely places to find your local legislators.  Wisconsin legislators attend these events this weekend to meet their constituents and to hear what you have to say.  So, if you are out-and-about this weekend, attending a July 4th parade or community cookout – take a minute to see if your State Senator and\or Assembly Representative is around – introduce yourself and say hello.  Most importantly, tell your local elected officials about what you do; the type of people you provide care and services for; and, tell them how important it is that they provide funding increases for long-term care.  Funding increases are necessary to maintain quality care and to provide caregivers a living wage.

Governor Doyle Orders State Agencies to Cut 10% from Agency Budgets
Faced with an impending $224 million Medicaid shortfall in the current budget and a structural deficit for the 2005-07 budget approaching an additional $740 Million, Governor Doyle is requiring each agency to cut 10% of their operations in their budget requests.  Wisconsin state agencies are required by state statute to submit their respective 2005-07 budgets\budget requests to the Department of Administration (DOA) by September 15th.  The Agency budgets are then used by the DOA to create the Governor’s 2005-07 Budget, which will likely be introduced in mid-February 2005.


DHFS Releases Reorganization Plan for
Long-Term Support of Division of Disability and Elder Services (Organization Charts Attached)
After several months in the working, DHFS has released the overall organizational plan.  

New: Bureau of Aging and Disability Resources
Donna McDowell, Bureau Director
- Office for the Blind and Visually Impaired that includes all the current programs and staff of the Bureau for the Blind;
- Office for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing that includes all the current programs and staff of the current Office;
- Office on Aging that will include the Older American Act program and several related programs; and
- Office for Independence and Employment that includes Pathways to Independence and its several initiatives as well as the functions of the Office for Persons with Physical Disabilities.  The focal point on physical disabilities issues will be carried out by a Coordinator of Physical Disability Services located in this office.
- In addition, the Bureau will include the Aging and Disability Resource Center initiative that will work to expand Resource Centers statewide. Donna has also agreed to take a leadership role in Prevention and Healthy Aging issues that are among the Department’s key policy goals.

New Bureau of Long-Term Support
Chuck Wilhelm, Bureau Director
- Community Options Section that will manage COP and COP-waiver programs as well as other activities to be identified;
- Managed Care Section that will manage Family Care, the Wisconsin Partnership Program, and other activities associated with our managed long-term care strategies;
- Developmental Disabilities Services Section that will manage and oversee the quality of the CIP-waiver programs, serve as a focal point on developmental disabilities issues and include a major Community Integration Initiative that will support efforts to downsize ICFs-MR, including the state Centers; and
- Children’s Services Section that will manage the new children’s waivers and related programs, such as Birth to 3, Family Support and Katie Beckett.

New Bureau of Center Operations
Ted Bunck, Bureau Director
- Continue to serve as director of Central Wisconsin Center.
- Bureau will be responsible for coordinating operations among the three centers and participating as a full partner in the Community Integration Initiative.


Wisconsin Supreme Court Decisions Impacting 980 Protective Placement Rights

No Sentence Credit for Time Spent at the Wisconsin Resource Center:
Michael J. Thorson v. David H. Schwards
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Michael Thorson is not entitled to sentence credit for time spent at the Wisconsin Resource Center while awaiting evaluation and trail on a petition to commit him as a sexually violent person.  Meaning that detention at the Wisconsin Resource Center under Chapter 980 satisfies neither the “in custody” nor “in connection with” requirements of state law.
Supreme Court Decision: <http://www.wicourts.gov/sc/opinions/02/pdf/02-3380.pdf>

Miranda Warnings are not Required in 980 Pre-Petition Evaluations:
State v. Joseph A. Lombard
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Joseph Lombard Fifth Amendment Right were not violated and therefore did not have the right to Miranda warnings during his pre-petition interview with a State psychologist.  
Supreme Court Decision: <http://www.wicourts.gov/sc/opinions/00/pdf/00-3318.pdf>




LEGISLATIVE HEARING NOTICES

Assembly Health Committee
Tuesday, July 6, 2004  10:00 AM  State Capitol, Room 417-North
An informational hearing on health care costs, drug pricing and health care service investments in safety technologies.  The hearing will focus on issues raised by the following LRB's:
LRB-4538/1. Changes of healthcare providers, retail prices of prescription drugs, hospital estimates of charges, independent review of charges that exceed estimates.
LRB-4544/1. Requires hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers to disclose the manner and degree of implementation of patient safety practices.
LRB-4545/1. Requires hospitals to disclose readmission rates and the names of any other hospitals from which patients were discharged before readmission.

Senate Health, Children, Families, Aging and Long Term Care
Thursday, July 8, 2004   9:00 AM   State Capitol, Room 411-South
Public Hearing on SSI Managed Care.  Mandatory enrollment in managed care plans for MA recipients who receive SSI. (The 2003-05 budget directed DHFS to require adults who are eligible for SSI to enroll in managed care plans. Invited speakers include individuals from DHFS, HMOs, advocacy groups and the LFB.)



IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER

Residential Services Association (RSA)
July 14, 2004  9:00 AM  RSA Board Meeting (Appleton)

Community Alliance of Providers of Wisconsin (CAPOW)
July 15, 2004 10:00 AM CAPOW Legislative Committee Meeting (Milwaukee)
July 28, 2004 12:00 PM CAPOW Board Meeting (Wisconsin Dells – Wintergreen Resort)

Wisconsin Council on Long-Term Care
July 9, 2004
August 13, 2004
September 10, 2004
October 8, 2004
November 12, 2004
December 10, 2004

Wisconsin Council on Long-Term Care
Residential Options Task Force
July 16, 2004
August 20, 2004
September 17, 2004
October 15, 2004
November 19, 2004
December TBA, 2004

2004 Wisconsin Elections
September 14, 2004: Partisan Primary (state elections)
November 2, 2004: Presidential and General Elections (federal and state-wide elections)


LONG-TERM CARE IN THE NEWS...


Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (July 1, 2004)
Legislators take surplus from child welfare programs
Moving money around hours before the end of a state budget year, legislators grabbed a temporary $2.9 million surplus in Milwaukee County's child welfare programs Wednesday and used it to cover deficits in foster care and adoption programs statewide.
<http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/jun04/240518.asp>

Park Falls Herald (June 30, 2004)
Park Manor wins after long battle
Federal appeals board hands nursing home final, total victory in case that began in March 2001 after 35 citations were issued
A three-member U.S. Department of Health and Human Services appeals board has given Park Manor Nursing Home in Park Falls a total and final victory in the last unresolved case against the nursing home by decisively overturning a March 31, 2003, federal administrative law judge’s ruling that Park Manor was not in “substantial compliance” with a federal requirement for patient care from March 22 through June 10, 2001.
<http://www.parkfallswi.com/placed/index.php?sect_rank=1&story_id=176889>

Green Bay News-Chronicle (June 30, 2004)
Legislators meet with advocates of funding for disabled
People with developmental disabilities and their allies spoke out for more state and federal aid for a program that helps people with disabilities live and work outside of an institution during a listening session with state legislators on Tuesday.  The daily rates counties are paying to help people with disabilities live and work in communities through the Community Integration Program 1B waiver are far behind increases in the rate of inflation, said Anne Medeiros, a political consultant for Rehabilitation for Wisconsin Inc., a nonprofit association of more than 50 rehabilitation providers across the state.
<http://www.greenbaynewschron.com/page.html?article=126490>

Ironwood Daily Globe (June 30, 2004)
Feingold backs local plan
U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold pledged support here Monday for a plan to develop a group home for developmentally disabled people in Iron County.  Iron County Human Services Department director Carolyn Kolson-Janov explained to Feingold that some developmentally disabled county residents currently have to be sent to the opposite end of the state to be housed, at a great expense to county taxpayers.
http://www.ironwooddailyglobe.com/0629fein.htm

Sheboygan Press (June 29, 2004)
Changes in store for developmentally disabled
New law would mean more use of group homes
For dozens of developmentally disabled Sheboygan County residents, major long-term care changes are coming.  A change in state law will require developmentally disabled people to be placed in care facilities in a “most integrated setting,” to put them put them in surroundings where they would interact with people without disabilities “to the fullest extent possible.”  That means the 37 residents of Woodland Village, a $6 million wing built two years ago at the Rocky Knoll Health Care Center in Plymouth, could be moving into licensed private group homes in the county, based on assessment reviews of each resident.
<http://www.wisinfo.com/sheboyganpress/news/archive/local_16708413.shtml>

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (June 27, 2004)
Communities, say neighbors, benefit from group homes
There is a big, old farmhouse that sits not 25 yards off the edge of ever-busier Highway NN in the Town of Cedarburg and the rooms are empty and the gardens, too.  Baumgartner wants to turn the farmhouse into what the state calls a community-based residential facility. The psychiatric nurse says he wants to open it to folks with developmental disabilities or mental illness of the chronic sort.  Chronic, here, meaning "lifelong."  Lots of people don't like this idea.  Some are asking questions, which is logical. And others are signing petitions and many are just outright opposed. Or fearful, worried in ways that seem out-of-kilter in places where group homes have existed for years.
<http://www.jsonline.com/news/ozwash/jun04/238994.asp>

Marshfield News Herald (June 27, 2004)
Rise of Medicare, Medicaid admissions alarms some
The proportion of patients in central Wisconsin hospitals covered by government health care programs is growing, and it's posing a financial challenge for the health facilities. Medicare and Medicaid accounted for more than half of Wisconsin hospital admissions in 2003, according to the Wisconsin Hospital Association.
Marshfield News Herald: <http://www.wisinfo.com/newsherald/mnhlocal/282467456041518.shtml>
Stevens Point Journal: <http://www.wisinfo.com/journal/spjlocal/287390270842950.shtml>
Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune: <http://www.wisinfo.com/dailytribune/wrdtlocal/282467460115324.shtml>

Duluth-Superior News Tribune (June 27, 2004)
Hospitals, Milwaukee County in standoff over mental health issue
Doctors, hospitals and nurses unions are asking Milwaukee County to reopen inpatient mental health beds to cope with increasing numbers of patients being held temporarily in hospital emergency rooms.  The county's overcrowded facility has repeatedly delayed accepting transfers of involuntary mental patients from area hospitals in recent months, forcing people to go without psychiatric care for hours or days.
<http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/9027277.htm>

Milwaukee Business Journal (June 25, 2004)
Health care bonds reach record highs: Hospitals issue $930 million in 2004
Wisconsin hospitals and health care organizations issued a record level of bonds totaling $930 million during the current fiscal year, meaning construction and development activity will be strong for the foreseeable future.   Of those issues, about $707 million constitutes new debt to support construction, while $223 million was used to refinance existing, higher-priced debt for the fiscal year that ends June 30, said Larry Nines, executive director of the Wisconsin Health and Educational Facilities Authority, Brookfield.
<http://milwaukee.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/stories/2004/06/28/story3.html>
MSNBC: <http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5297897/>

Reorganization of Long-Term Support of Division of Disability and Elder Services