Posts Tagged ‘Governor’

Domestic Violence Awareness Month

October 26th, 2012

Every day at least 3 women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in the U.S.  October is set aside to help bring awareness to the issue – across the country domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women aged 15-44. In Arizona last year, 108 individuals lost their lives to domestic violence; so far this year there have been 68 documented domestic violence related deaths.  It doesn’t matter what race, age, sexual orientation, religion, gender or socioeconomic background you are, you can be a victim.  Domestic violence happens among married couples, couples living together and those who are dating.   Domestic violence can be physical, sexual, emotional, economic or psychological.  

Survivors can find help from a number of resources through ADHS, the Governor’s Office for Children, Youth and Families and the Department of Economic Security.  At ADHS we have the Rural Safe Home Network and the Sexual Assault Prevention Education Program. The Rural Safe Home Network funds 7 shelters in rural communities that provide temporary emergency overnight accommodations and support services to women and children impacted by domestic violence.  Last year alone, these 7 shelters answered 9,430 crisis calls and provided 23,564 emergency beds to women, children and men.  These programs and project activities support the Department’s Strategic Map Health Outcome to Promote and Protect Public Health and Safety.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, there is help, call the National Domestic Violence Crisis line at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) to find a shelter near you. The Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence has a legal hot-line that provides information, referrals, and explanations about domestic violence and legal issues, 1-800-782-6400.

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Posted in General, Prevention

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Affordable Care Act Info

August 7th, 2012

Now that the Supreme Court has spoken regarding the Affordable Care Act- States have a lot more clarity around the decisions they’ll need to make and what they need to do to implement the law.  The Governor kicked off a process to review the options and engage Stakeholders for their input this week. Additional meetings are being scheduled in the coming weeks including public meetings toward the end of August and into September.  You can see the PowerPoint Presentation to Stakeholders and the AHCCCS Cost Summary on the AHCCCS website. 

Those of you that work in behavioral health (and anybody in the Agency really) should take some time to review the PowerPoint- as it provides a sketch of the background information.  There are clearly lots of decisions yet to be made- but the materials provide some interesting insight.

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Posted in Behavioral Health

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Public Health Budget

May 9th, 2012
 The Governor signed the budget this week – here’s a look at how some of it affects public health:

Behavioral Health Services for folks that don’t Qualify for Medicaid

The budget that was just signed includes about $39M in new funding for services for folks with a serious mental illness that don’t qualify for Medicaid.  With it, we’ll be able to provide some services like supported employment and housing, peer and family support, living skills training, and health promotion to help folks along their Recovery journey.  We’ll also be expanding the list of medications for the folks with a serious mental illness so it matches the list for folks that qualify for Medicaid.  Our behavioral health team has already begun working closely with the RBHAs, providers, and members/families to plan for the most effective use of this funding.

Newborn Screening

Our newborn screening program has been running in the red for the last couple of years- despite the fact that we’ve squeezed just about every efficiency out of the program and are collecting more than 95% of our service fees.  The current screening fee is $30 for the 1st (hospital) screen and $40 for the 2nd (which happens in the pediatric office a couple of weeks after birth).  These fees haven’t been raised in several years- meanwhile the instruments and reagents we use have become increasingly expensive.  We’ve been supplementing the program with Title V funds that really should be used for other more effective purposes. The budget that was just signed allows us to set new fees for the 2nd screen in Rule…  and we’ll be starting that process shortly.

County Contribution toward Hospital Patients and Residents

The “Budget Reconciliation Bill” or BRBs included specific instructions regarding how much counties are obligated to pay (50%) for the patients and residents at the Hospital and ACPTC (the sexually violent person’s unit).

ASH Administration building

Hospital Operating Fund

Despite all our efforts to reduce overtime, cut shift overlap, streamline services and other efficiency measures- our hospital operating fund was headed for big trouble next fiscal year- partly because the Hospital Fund (which had provided funds to operate the Hospital) went dry. The state budget that was just signed rescued us from needing to cut our staffing ratio’s to below Licensing standards (which would have put us in jeopardy of losing Medicare and Medicaid funds).  Whew.

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Personnel Reform

March 29th, 2012

The Personnel Reform bill made some headway this week in the State Legislature.  It’s a complicated bill and hasn’t been through the full process yet- but I know there’s a lot of interest in it around these parts- so I’ll try to distill the current version down a little bit for our agency.

Basically, if you’re Grade 19 or above or are a Supervisor you’d become “Uncovered” on September 29th.  If you’re Grade 18 or under (and haven’t had a break in service) then you’d be able to stay covered by the Merit System- or you could elect to go Uncovered voluntarily.  All new ADHS hires would be Uncovered.  Also, all employees that accept a promotion would be Uncovered.   The system would also include some protections for Uncovered folks like require a comprehensive HR policy such as reviews for all employees.  Of course, all this assumes that the bill stays in its current form, is passed by the State House and Senate and is signed by the Governor. The proposed 5% raise for Uncovered folks is a separate proposal that’s part of the budget negotiations.

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Midwifery & the Democratic Process

March 28th, 2012

Here’s a short story about using the democratic process to get things done.  Some of you might remember a protest last December in front of our 150 Building.  About 100 folks or so were carrying placards in front of our building asking us to make it easier to have a home-birth in AZ. 

Many of you probably didn’t know that ADHS licenses 60 Midwives who practice in Arizona.  Our licensing rules for Midwives were last revised in the mid 1990’s and are out of date; the application is too complicated.  That day last December, Colby Bower and I met with 2 community folks, Allyson Fernstrom and Sarah Macklin, and 2 midwives including Connie Canada, during the demonstration- and we had a productive discussion.  We set up a dialog so we could come up with a solution together.  Allyson and Sarah followed through with flying colors, built an effective coalition, worked with our team (Colby and Rohno Geppert) and the state legislature- and shepherded a bill through the process that will go a long way toward solving some of the issues they were concerned about. 

The Governor signed the bill yesterday- providing us with exempt rulemaking authority to overhaul our rules for licensing AZ Midwives and setting up an advisory committee and process to review the official “Scope of Practice” for AZ Midwives.  You can check out the final bill online. We’ll also have some information up on our Midwife website shortly that will highlight where we go from here.

It just goes to show you that the democratic process works…  that ordinary folks, like Allyson and Sarah, can get together, organize, and petition their government and elected officials to get things done.  The key is working within the process, staying involved, and applying the most important skill anybody can have- working well with others (the most important grade any of us get in our academic career).  Well done all.

P.S. There was a study published in the British Medical Journal recently suggesting that there’s little difference in complications among the babies of women with low-risk pregnancies who delivered in hospitals vs. those who gave birth at home with a midwife.  Of course- the article is more complicated than that- so visit the journal website.

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Posted in Licensing

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Procurement Keeps our Trains Running on Time

March 2nd, 2012

OK…  everybody knows that we have all sorts of recognition weeks and months for everything from breastfeeding to mental health.  Most folks don’t know that March is Purchasing Month.  But let’s face it- none of us would be able to accomplish anything in this business without our Procurement team! 

Our Procurement shop touches every aspect of our mission… from managing critical agency solicitations and contracts to helping each of us get needed stuff and services, we depend on the Procurement Office to help us do our work.  That’s why it is easy to understand the Governor issuing a Proclamation declaring March as Purchasing Month for the State of Arizona.  The Proclamation recognizes how the purchasing and supply management profession is a significant part of quality, efficiency, profitability, and productivity for private business and government.  Government and business purchasing plays an important internal function and also plays a vital external role helping with the health of our local and national economies.  

Our procurement team is a key force in achieving our “vision” of health and wellness for all Arizonans.  Thanks ADHS Procurement team for your hard work as you help our programs to purchasing goods and services that benefit the citizens of the State while being good stewards of taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars!

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Inside the Governor’s Budget

January 25th, 2012

Dr. Nelson wrote a great blog this week that discusses the behavioral health aspects of the Governor’s

2012 State of the State Address which was followed by the release of her policy agenda called The Four Cornerstones of Reform: Centennial Edition.  Please visit Dr. Nelson’s blog for the details of the Governor’s remarks about behavioral health including information about the FY2013 Executive Budget which proposes almost $39M in additional funding be set aside for certain community-based services for folks struggling with a serious mental illness (who don’t qualify for Medicaid)…  for things like peer and family support, supported employment, supported housing, health promotion, and living skills training.  This is great (and welcome) news. 

There are a number of other elements related to our Agency budget proposal in the budget report- including a provision that would allow us to set appropriate fees for our newborn screening program, which has been running in the red for the last couple of years despite aggressive cost-cutting measures.

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Posted in Behavioral Health

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Update on the Governor’s Budget Proposal Regarding Persons with Serious Mental Illness

January 15th, 2011

On January 15, 2011, Governor Brewer released her proposed budget for next fiscal year (which begins July 1, 2011). One of the budget items would change AHCCCS (Medicaid) eligibility for adults without children (called childless adults). The ADHS currently provides behavioral health services to approximately 5,200 persons with serious mental illnesses that are childless adults. While it may appear, and we were originally concerned, that this would mean that childless adults with a serious mental illness may lose their current benefits if the proposal is implemented, we think there’s a way to ensure that more than 80% of these folks can maintain their current benefits under a different Medicaid category.

We believe that most of the childless adults that have a serious mental illness and are currently receiving services from the ADHS could still qualify for their full benefits including behavioral health services under a different federal category for the disabled (called Supplemental Security Income Medical Assistance Only). Qualifying for this new category requires a review of each person’s medical condition to see whether they meet the standard. We believe that more than 80% of the childless adults with a serious mental illness that are receiving behavioral health services can qualify under the Supplemental Security Income Medical Assistance Only category. This means they would maintain their current benefits.

In order to help these individuals retain coverage, we are instructing our Regional Behavioral Health Authorities and our behavioral health providers to immediately implement a coordinated approach to screen every single childless adult with a serious mental illness that is currently receiving services from the ADHS for eligibility under the Supplemental Security Income Medical Assistance Only category.

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Posted in Behavioral Health

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AZ Developmental Disability Planning Council Grant Opportunity

July 9th, 2010

The Arizona Developmental Disabilities Planning Council  was established by the Governor in September 2009.  It’s part of the Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act of 2000.  I’m on the Council.  Our mission is to represent the interests and needs of persons with developmental disabilities throughout Arizona- especially people that are underserved.  We support capacity building and systems change with the goal of increasing inclusion and involvement in the community.  We also promote self-determination, independence, productivity and integration to support persons with developmental disabilities and their families in all facets of community life.

 The Council has some federal funds that we’re supposed to use to support the implementation of our State Plan.  We just announced a brand new grant opportunity for applicants that want to work toward our goals.  We posted our Notice on our Council website  this week.  The grant opportunity includes elements to help work toward our Housing goals (up to $150K); Health and Wellness (up to $200K) and Advocacy (up to $200K).  We’ll be accepting applications from interested organizations through August 2.  Please forward this to parties that might be interested in helping- as the wider we cast our net the more likely we will be to get good ideas and applications.

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