In December 2024, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) started a project to improve quality of home and community-based services (HCBS). DHHS is working with a group called Alvarez and Marsal (A&M). This project is meant to help many groups that interact with HCBS, including the people who provide residential services such as home and community support for people who have an intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorder, or other related conditions.
Some key terms you might hear during this project are:
- Quality Assurance: The process of ensuring that programs meet standards and deliver services safely and effectively.
- Incidents: This includes Reportable Events, which is when something bad happens, like an injury or a mistake with medicine. This also includes Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation.
- Incident Management: How DHHS tracks and addresses these kinds of problems.
One of the things this project will examine is how DHHS works together with providers to identify, respond to, resolve, and prevent incidents from happening in HCBS settings. One of the goals is to strengthen the partnership between DHHS and providers to create good outcomes. This is part of a larger effort to meet new Medicaid rules from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
We Want to Hear from You!
A&M will be joining the January HCBS Provider meeting series to share information and listen to your ideas. A&M will explain the project and ask for your feedback. Your input will help DHHS understand what's working and what needs improvement. This is your chance to share what support would enhance your unique and important position in the incident management system!
In this town hall, A&M will talk about:
- The HCBS Quality Assurance project scope and goals.
- Providers' important role in incident management.
- Opportunities to share providers' feedback and ideas in additional forums.
- Listening session with targeted questions about providers' experiences, feedback, and ideas about working with DHHS to prevent incidents and promote positive outcomes.
Important Details:
- When: Wednesday, January 22, 2025, from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM
- Who: HCBS Providers
- Where: Online (monthly zoom meeting)
If you can't join the live session, recordings will be available on the DHHS website here: https://www.maine.gov/dhhs/oads/about-us/initiatives/hcbs/training-and-resources#PreviousHCBSProviderMeetingsSlidesandRecordings.
You can also send your feedback by email to HCBS.DHHS@maine.gov.
Link to meeting:
https://mainestate.zoom.us/j/84948570093?pwd=QnNiYk0rOWQrSnhsdUg2VUJ2YmQ5Zz09
Meeting ID: 849 4857 0093
Passcode: 94666993
Your Feedback is Essential!
In addition to listening to your ideas and experiences in the town hall, DHHS also wants to collect your feedback through a survey. Many groups, including providers, are encouraged to complete the survey. This survey will not collect any identifying information, such as name or email address, from respondents. This survey will ask questions related to how DHHS works with providers to make services safer and better. Your answers could help DHHS strengthen its support of providers in creating positive outcomes!
This survey will ask if you are interested in participating in a smaller focus group after the town hall. If you would like to share more about your experiences and ideas in a more targeted setting, the survey will ask for your name and email address so you can be invited to a provider focus group. More information will come from DHHS about registering for the focus groups after initial participation interest is gathered!
The survey will be open until Friday, January 31st, 2025. Please complete the survey as quickly as possible to ensure DHHS gets your feedback!
We hope you'll join us! Together, we can make home and community services better for everyone.
Please note there are other ongoing town halls related to the Access Rule that may touch on incident management topics. This session will focus on how OADS manages reportable events in certain waiver programs, specifically:
- Section 21 (Home and Community Benefits for Members with Intellectual Disabilities or Autism Spectrum Disorder) and
- Section 29 (Support Services for Adults with Intellectual Disabilities or Autism Spectrum Disorder).
If you require accommodation, such as real-time transcription and captioning (CART), American Sign Language (ASL), or other language interpretation, please contact April Keyes at april.keyes@maine.gov.
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