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Authors Posts by Carol Ferenz

Carol Ferenz

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ANCOR Urges All Members to Take the Following Action:

The Ask: Use our action tool to insist that your members of Congress fully fund the $400 billion investment in Medicaid Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) in the budget reconciliation package.

The Details: Congress is currently negotiating its budget reconciliation bill, which could include an investment of billions of dollars in the HCBS program. The House version of the bill included $190 billion in the HCBS program, falling far short of the promise President Biden made in his American Jobs Plan to invest $400 billion in HCBS and failing to meet the funding level outlined in the Better Care Better Jobs Act.

While we celebrate this historic investment in the HCBS program, the level of financing is insufficient to sustain access and stabilize the direct care workforce. The dire conditions facing our nation’s direct care workforce demand a greater investment.

Why It Matters: A $400 billion investment in dedicated support for HCBS is essential for building a sustainable HCBS infrastructure that can begin addressing the magnitude of unmet need in our communities, and frankly, increased funding for HCBS can’t wait any longer. Not only does investing in this program enjoy wide bipartisan support—81% of voters want to see this funding in the reconciliation bill—but ANCOR’s recent research shows how badly community services need resources to stabilize a workforce in crisis.

Our new report, The State of America’s Direct Support Workforce Crisis 2021, reveals deep concerns from our providers, including:

  • 92% of providers report that the pandemic continues to inhibit their ability to recruit and retain workers; the majority of these respondents point to the fact that industries that previously paid comparable wages now pay employees more than they can afford to do.
  • 77% of providers have had to stop accepting new referrals due to high turnover or lack of staff.
  • 58% of providers have had to discontinue programs or services due to high turnover or lack of staff.
  • 84% of providers have had to delay the launch of new programs or the opening of new homes due to high turnover or lack of staff.
  • 81% of providers report difficulties achieving required quality standards due to high turnover or lack of staff.

The findings of this survey reveal the significant need for an immediate federal response. As the House and Senate continue to move this historic legislation and enter negotiations on the final package, it’s essential that every member of Congress hears from you now.

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Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash

2021 Pennsylvania Autism Training Conference
#PATCIntegrate2021
October 5 – October 7, 2021

Watch this short promo video  

REGISTRATION INFORMATION:
Full admission is $10.00 for professionals and allows access to all conference sessions over all three days. Admission is cost-free for individuals with developmental disabilities and their families.

To register, go to this link and fill out the registration form. Payment can be made by credit card or check. Payment instructions can be found at the bottom of the registration form. For additional information about the conference, and access to resources, personal stories, and other features during the conference, please visit this page on MyODP.

Please see the flyer for additional information.

General questions can be sent here.

Questions about registration?
Email | Telephone: 610.494.8044

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Message from ANCOR:

New research finds COVID-19 pandemic further decimating a direct care workforce in crisis.

Like you, we have long understood that the direct support workforce crisis our community has grappled with for years can be traced directly to long-standing underinvestment in community-based I/DD services. We have also long suspected—though couldn’t say for certain—that the onset of new pressures and hazards wrought by the pandemic has significantly exacerbated challenges related to recruitment and retention. 

Unfortunately, we now have stark evidence to confirm what we believed was true: the direct support workforce crisis has been made much, much worse by the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is a key takeaway from ANCOR’s newest research, which we published this morning.

The State of America’s Direct Support Workforce Crisis 2021 summarizes the findings of ANCOR’s survey of providers, which we fielded for a five-week period beginning in August 2021. The survey, which followed up on our 2020 research, garnered 449 responses and sought to understand the human and financial impact of the direct support workforce crisis. The survey measured the same dimensions we asked about in 2020, along with additional measures targeted specifically to the impact of COVID-19 on DSP hiring and retention.

Key findings from ANCOR’s 2021 State of America’s Direct Support Workforce Crisis survey include that:

  • 77% of providers are turning away new referrals, a 16.7% increase since the beginning of the pandemic.
  • 58% of providers are discontinuing programs and services, a 70.6% increase since the beginning of the pandemic.
  • 81% of providers are struggling to achieve quality standards, a 17.4% increase since the beginning of the pandemic.
  • Nearly 3 in 10 providers report spending at least $500,000 annually on costs associated with high turnover and vacancy rates.
  • 92% of providers report that the COVID-19 pandemic continues to complicate their ability to recruit and retain qualified direct support professionals.

To say the least, these results are troubling. But for those of us committed to moving beyond the direct care workforce crisis once and for all, it is imperative that we understand the true impacts of the crisis and the ways in which it is colliding with the COVID-19 pandemic. For these reasons, we invite you to download The State of America’s Direct Support Workforce Crisis 2021 and read lead author Lydia Dawson’s analysis today.

Download the State of America’s Direct Support Workforce 2021 issue brief today.

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Photo by Alena Shekhovtcova from Pexels

Message from Office of Developmental Programs (ODP):

Good Morning ODP Stakeholder:

On Friday, September 24, 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued the recommendation for Comirnaty Pfizer-BioNTech booster doses for the following populations, at least six months following the second dose of their Pfizer primary series:

  1. People 65 years and older and residents in long-term care settings aged 18 and above should receive a booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech Vx;
  2. People aged 50–64 years with underlying medical conditions should receive a booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech Vx;
  3. People aged 18–49 years with underlying medical conditions may receive a booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech Vx, based on their individual benefits and risks. The underlying medical conditions identified by the CDC include:
    • Cancer
    • Chronic kidney disease
    • Chronic lung diseases, including COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), asthma (moderate-to-severe), interstitial lung disease, cystic fibrosis, and pulmonary hypertension
    • Dementia or other neurological conditions
    • Diabetes (type 1 or type 2)
    • Down syndrome
    • Heart conditions (such as heart failure, coronary artery disease, cardiomyopathies or hypertension)
    • HIV infection
    • Immunocompromised state (weakened immune system)
    • Liver disease
    • Overweight and obesity
    • Pregnancy
    • Sickle cell disease or thalassemia
    • Smoking, current or former
    • Solid organ or blood stem cell transplant
    • Stroke or cerebrovascular disease, which affects blood flow to the brain
    • Substance use disorders; and
  1. People aged 18-64 years who are at increased risk for COVID-19 exposure and transmission because of occupational or institutional setting may receive a booster shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech Vx, based on their individual benefits and risks. This includes all residents of ICFs and licensed community homes, all direct service professionals, provider staff and supports coordinators.

Following this recommendation, eligible individuals should be able to begin scheduling appointments and receiving booster doses today.

The flowchart developed by the PA Department of Health titled, “Are you eligible for an additional COVID-19 dose or booster?” will assist in determining those who are currently eligible to receive a vaccine booster. Your healthcare practitioner can also assist in the determination should you have additional questions.

Preparedness checklist for long-term care facilities:

  • Evaluate the needs of your population.If your residents received the Comirnaty Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, they are likely eligible for their booster dose beginning 6 months after their second dose.
  • Consider eligible healthcare staffas potential recipients of booster doses (or a primary series if not yet vaccinated) as well.
  • Work with local pharmacies and providersto hold Pfizer booster clinics administer doses in your facility if possible. Any long-term or congregate care facility that does not have a provider/pharmacy partner to supply and/or administer COVID-19 vaccines should respond to this survey as soon as possible.

The dosage and medicine of the Comirnaty Pfizer BioNTech vaccine are the same in the primary doses, the additional doses for people with compromised immune systems, and the booster doses for people over age 65 and at high risk for COVID-19.

Please await further public health guidance regarding booster doses for individuals who received the Moderna or Janssen (ie. Johnson & Johnson) vaccines for their primary series. The publicly available evidence for booster doses of the Moderna and Janssen vaccines to date is encouraging, and the Department of Health awaits the FDA and CDC’s decisions.

Thank you for all you have done and will continue to do to protect Pennsylvanians from COVID-19.

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Message from the Office of Developmental Programs (ODP):

Good Afternoon AAW Stakeholder:

The purpose of this email is to inform all interested parties that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has granted the Office of Developmental Programs a second 90-day extension on the currently approved Adult Autism Waiver through December 27, 2021.

Questions about the extension can be directed to ODP.

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Capitol hill building in the morning with colorful cloud , Washington DC.

Message from ANCOR: 

Dear ANCOR Members,

The to-do list for Congress this week is quite massive and hugely significant. Speaker Pelosi’s list includes passing the bipartisan infrastructure package, the reconciliation, and a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government. We wanted to give you a Monday overview of what we are following, planning and how you can help in the coming days!

First up, the Continuing Resolution or CR: If you’ll recall, the House did pass a CR, but it included provisions to raise the debt limit, disaster relief funding and Afghanistan refugee resettlement funding. The Senate is not going to pass the CR with all of that attached. There should be a party line vote today, primarily with Republicans refusing to raise the debt limit. (This is a drama that plays out in Congress all the time, no matter the party in power…haven’t we all seen this movie before?) Once that Senate vote fails today, both chambers will need to go back to the drawing board in order to pass a “clean” CR that can be signed by President Biden by midnight on September 30 to avoid a government shutdown.

Next up, the Bipartisan (hard) Infrastructure Package: Speaker Pelosi announced the House will vote on this package Thursday, September 30. Originally the date was set for a vote on both this package and the human infrastructure package TODAY in hopes of keeping both the progressive and moderate sides of her caucus satisfied, but things haven’t gone exactly to plan. The risk for Speaker Pelosi is that the progressive caucus has threatened to vote no on the bipartisan infrastructure package without significant progress toward the reconciliation package (where our HCBS funding lives). Speaker Pelosi has promised a “framework” for the reconciliation package in hopes that will be enough to bring the progressives on board to pass the bipartisan package first, but the vote is anything but certain.

Last but not least, the Human Infrastructure Package/Reconciliation: On Sunday, the House Budget Committee (after the markups) packaged the reconciliation bill and moved it to the House Rules Committee. As expected House and Senate Democrats are actively negotiating to develop an overarching framework and legislative text. Leadership is developing a reconciliation package for a potential vote on Thursday in hopes of moving the progressive Democrats to vote on the bipartisan package (see above).  Needless to say, this is a tall order to get this done by Thursday with so many disagreements among Democrats on what should and shouldn’t be included. One thing for sure, whatever happens this week with the reconciliation will not be the last step. There will still be plenty of time for change.

LASTLY, WHAT CAN WE DO TO HELP?

  • Recent polling shows over 80% of Americans support the HCBS provisions of the bill, even if they don’t agree with other parts of it.
  • Congress is hearing from a LOT of their constituents back home supporting HCBS. Keep it up! This is clearly not a partisan issue.
  • Tell your stories!
  • Take Action Alerts!

On Wednesday, ahead of the vote(s) in the House…we will be releasing a summary brief of our recent Workforce Impact Survey, along with a NEW Action Alert. Please be on the lookout for that, rally your groups and prepare for this important DAY OF ACTION. 

Thank you, everyone! Happy Monday!
——————————
Shannon McCracken
Vice President of Government Relations
ANCOR
606.271.3555
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