';
CLOSE
Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities

0 915
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

The Specialty Telehealth and Assessment Team (STAT) is a 24/7 telehealth service that provides health assessments. The service is consultative and provides disability specific advice of when to best seek additional or in-person medical treatment for the participants. This is a service that occurs in the participant’s private home or residential home to help assess their need for medical attention.

This service does not duplicate any service that is available through the state plan, and, very importantly, this service is not intended to replace in-person exams. The goal is not to prevent people from going to the emergency room or seeing a physician in person when needed. It is a support that can help to alleviate the burden of going to the emergency department or urgent care when it is not absolutely necessary for the individual to be seen in person.

The STAT waiver service is provided as a monthly service and billed in monthly units. One unit equals one month at 55 dollars a unit. All individuals that are involved in an ID/A waiver, Person/Family Directed Support (PFDS) waiver, Community Living waiver, and the Consolidated waiver are eligible for this service. The STAT waiver service is available for individuals of all ages and all living situations as long as they are enrolled in one of the ID/A waivers. In order to access this service, STAT must be added to the ISP via a critical revision or at the time of the annual ISP and must be authorized by the administrative entity prior to the service being used. STAT costs are included in the annual limit for P/FDS and Community Living waivers.

STAT is a unique and specialized service. The physicians that provide this service are educated in the guidelines for the provision of health care to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. All staff who render the service have completed a specialized training curriculum on how to provide medical assessment, treatment interventions, and recommendations regarding the health care needs of individuals with intellectual disabilities, developmental disabilities, or autism. This service is provided and overseen by physicians who are licensed to practice medicine in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania or have appropriate reciprocity.

The STAT waiver service has been available since March of 2024 and has grown steadily since. There are currently over 5,500 individuals using the service with two providers available, StationMD and Senacare. The service has maintained approximately a 94% treat in place rate since it became available, saving time and resources by avoiding unnecessary Emergency Department and urgent care visits.

We encourage SCs to provide education to individuals, families, and teams about how the STAT service can help.

0 438

The Office of Long-Term Living (OLTL) has released the agenda and call information for the February 4, 2026, Long-Term Services and Supports (LTSS) Subcommittee meeting. This meeting will be held via webinar/remote streaming only from 10:00 am – 1:00 pm.

Comments and questions for this meeting should be sent electronically.

The conference line for the meeting is:
Bridge Number: 1 (914) 614-3221 PIN: 938-224-090#
Webinar Link
Remote Streaming Link

For additional information about this meeting, visit the LTSS Subcommittee website.

0 2150

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released a revised Medicare Learning Network (MLN) booklet that contains revisions to telehealth and remote monitoring. Specific changes noted in this publication include:

  • The addition of a resource link for the latest telehealth information;
  • Additional information on how to suppress a practitioner’s home address in PECOS;
  • The removal of telehealth frequency limitations for subsequent inpatient, nursing facility, and critical care consultations;
  • Permanently allowing teaching and supervising physicians to supervise through virtual presence;
  • Continued payment to Rural Health Clinics (RHC) and Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) for medical telehealth services through December 31, 2026;
  • Starting in CY 2026, only adding services to the Medicare telehealth services list on a permanent basis;
  • The addition of 5 new CPT and HCPCS codes to the Medicare telehealth services list; and
  • For CY 2026, updates to the:
    • Medicare Economic Index; and
    • Originating site fee.

Members are encouraged to review the booklet for more details on these changes.

0 753

The Office of Developmental Programs (ODP) has been made aware that this week’s SCO waiver payments were impacted by Pay for Performance (P4P) payments. P4P Technology and Credentialing payments were included in the same remittance advice as waiver payments. Presently, the Treasury is conducting a post-audit of these transactions. As soon as the Treasury’s audit is completed, payments on the January 12, 2026, remittance advices will be released. Payments on subsequent RAs that do not include P4P payments are expected to pay in the usual time frames.

0 947
Photo by Markus Winkler from Pexels

The Venango Training & Development Center, Inc. is pleased to announce that Joanne McGuire has been appointed Chief Program Officer for Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD).

With over 20 years of experience in both direct care and management within the special needs field, Joanne brings a broad range of professional and programmatic expertise to her new role. After spending 14 years as a co-owner and program operator of an IDD residential program, she joined VTDC in 2022.

As a testament to her dedication to the individuals VTDC serves, Joanne chose to return to her roots in direct care, beginning her tenure at VTDC as a Community Employment Program Specialist. In this role, she supported individuals with intellectual, mental health, and physical disabilities in obtaining competitive employment through personalized coaching supports.

VTDC quickly recognized Joanne’s strengths and leadership abilities. Over the past four years, she advanced through several supervisory positions that capitalized on her organizational, programmatic, and administrative skills.

In response to the evolving landscape of the human services field, VTDC recently reorganized to enhance support for its IDD and employment programs. As part of this initiative, the position of IDD Chief Program Officer was created within the Executive Management Team.

VTDC is excited to welcome Joanne into this leadership role and looks forward to her continued collaboration with the community to ensure high-quality programming, stability, and growth.

0 572

Please share these important workshops and support groups with your networks! Register for upcoming events at PA Family Network’s website.

Good Life Group, Support Groups

LifeCourse Workshops

Waiver Workshops

0 501

Bringing America Greatness — Serving the Disability Community With Cultural Competency/Do No Harm
February 19, 2026
10:00 am – 1:00 pm
Register Here

Session Description:

Cultural Competency is necessary for every American, regardless of age, race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, economic status, disability, or handicap. Being different does not guarantee the ability to relate positively to our diversity, in a personal or professional way. This training will help develop skills that focus on living-working-playing-learning together. These skills must be practiced and learned across all sectors of our society. Emphasis will be placed on equity as a right for all Americans embraced by leaders of people everywhere from birth to adulthood. Thus, cultural competency as a skill set is both beyond but essential to diversity and inclusion efforts, providing a chemistry for “greatness” in America.

The session is free, but registration is required, and attendance is on a first-come, first-served basis.

Please review the flyer for additional details.

The session will be offered virtually via the Zoom platform. The Zoom link for joining the session will be sent to the email you used to register. This link will be unique to your registration. Please do not share this link.

Send questions on registration electronically.

0 503

The Office of Developmental Programs (ODP) and Temple University have developed a new online training lesson that provides an additional learning opportunity designed to enhance investigatory skills and supplies helpful resources to Certified Investigators (CI), Administrative Review Committee members, CI Peer Reviewers, Incident Management (IM) Reps, and others involved in the incident investigation process.

The Using Root Cause Analysis in the Development of Corrective Actions lesson has been added to the “Additional Learning Opportunities” section on the MyODP, PA ODP Certified Investigator Program Home page.

Please view ODPANN 26-012 for more details.

Prev1...789...309Next Page 8 of 309
© 2021 - Rehabilitation & Community Providers Association