News: State Posts FAQs for CES and SLS Waivers
May 22, 2009
Director’s Message to the Families and Constituents of the DD System,
I am sending this e-mail to on behalf of Sharon Jacksi, Director of the Division for Developmental Disabilities. You are receiving this email because you submitted a question with respect to the Children's Extensive Support (CES) or the Supported Living Services (SLS) Waivers.
I have attached two documents titled "Children’s Extensive Support Waiver_Frequently Asked Questions" and "SLS Waiver_Frequently Asked Questions". These documents provides answers to the questions that have been received with respect to the waiver changes. If you do not see an answer to your specific question, please know that we are still working on a few outstanding questions/issues and will get a second round of responses out as soon as decisions are finalized.
We have also attached a copy of the federal audit as this was requested by many individuals and families. This document is titled "CO_00072 final".
In addition, you will find the final statewide standardized service rates for the Supported Living Services (SLS) and Children’s Extensive Support Medicaid waivers. As you probably know, Colorado is now required by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to use standardized rates for all waiver services across the State.
This has been a very complex and difficult project. The number of changes that are taking place, coupled with a phase in period for some of the changes, has added to the complexity. The Department and Division are very aware of the likely impacts of these changes on many people, however, there is no way to avoid having some amount of increase or decrease to existing rates when establishing a system of statewide standardized service rates. It has been hard to balance the requirement for standardized rates within an existing appropriation while still trying to minimize the impact on thousands of service recipients and hundreds of service providers.
The revised waivers as submitted to federal authorities can be found at the DD website by going to the following link:
http://www.cdhs.state.co.us/ddd/WhatsNew.htm
Finally, in early May, a letter sent out to families from Sharon Jacksi that detailed the upcoming changes. If you did not receive a copy of that letter you can access it at the following link. The letter was sent out on April 27, 2009.
http://www.cdhs.state.co.us/ddd/WhatsNew.htm
If you have any questions, please communicate with our office back through DevelopmentDisabilities.FAQ@state.co.us. We look forward to hearing from you. Thank you.
