Disability advocates sharply critical of plan to ease testing. Current regulations allow students with the severe cognitive disabilities to take alternate assessments as opposed to the general, grade-level tests required of most students. Only 1 percent of all students — or roughly 10 percent of those with disabilities — can be counted as proficient by schools for taking these less-complex exams. (Disability Scoop, Jan. 23)
States will get more money for school-based health services. Announced quietly and unexpectedly last month by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), a recent federal policy reversal will allow public schools to receive Medicaid money for health services they provide to eligible students for the first time since 1997. (Governing, Jan. 22)
To collect debts, nursing homes are seizing control over patients. Few people are aware that a nursing home can take such a step. But the Palermo case is no aberration. Interviews with veterans of the system and a review of guardianship court data conducted by researchers at Hunter College show the practice has become routine, underscoring the growing power nursing homes wield over residents and families amid changes in the financing of long-term care. (The New York Times, Jan. 25)
Autism tracking device proposal gets renewed push. Attorney General Eric Holder said last year that the Justice Department would allow local police departments to seek existing grant money through the agency’s Byrne program in order to distribute tracking devices to children with autism who are at risk of wandering. However, Schumer said that Byrne funds are insufficient to provide tracking devices on a broad scale and legislation is needed to establish a dedicated funding source. (Disability Scoop, Jan. 20)
Health department to cut $7 million in nursing home funding. New Hampshire nursing homes could lose $7 million in expected Medicaid reimbursements as part of a plan to close a $58 million budget hole in the state’s Department of Health and Human Services. Members of a joint legislative fiscal committee strongly opposed the cuts, but the changes do not require approval from legislators. (AP, Jan. 23)
Branstad plan to shut mental hospitals called illegal. Sen. Rich Taylor told about 100 people at a community forum that state law specifically requires Iowa to have mental health institutions at Mount Pleasant, Independence, Clarinda and Cherokee. (The Des Moines Register, Jan. 24)
Blog: Iowan not alone in home-health concerns. A West Des Moines quadriplegic’s complaint this month of being abandoned by a home-health care agency gave rise to new complaints to the Watchdog — and underscored a worsening national problem in a notoriously low-wage industry. (Reader’s Watchdog blog, The Des Moines Register, Jan. 25)
Virginia lawmakers move to regulate school seclusion and restraint. Amid testimony of young children traumatized by hours trapped in small rooms and parents left in the dark about their treatment, Virginia lawmakers advanced a bill Monday to restrict the use of seclusion and restraint in public schools. (The Washington Post, Jan. 19)
California strike highlights larger issues with mental health system. What might be happening now, as far as patient wait times, is a result of campaigns that have sought to reduce stigma around mental health services. Some of that seems to have worked and more people with mental health problems are coming forward. (NPR, Jan. 18)
Home sensor technology helps older adults and people with disabilities live independently in their homes. “They can actually monitor themselves and this comes back to enabling people to monitor their own independence and their own health status,” says David Hansen, CEO of the Australian eHealth Research Center at CSIRO. (ABC News Australia, Jan. 15)
HBO to air autism documentary. “This is a film not only for the many whose lives are touched in some way by autism, but also for anyone who can relate to the fraught experience of growing up and trying to understand adulthood,” said director Alexandra Shiva. (Disability Scoop, Jan. 15)
More real estate listing services adding accessibility features. According to the National Association of Realtors, 23 of the country’s largest multiple listing services support the effort to standardize accessibility terms. Now smaller services are signing on too, adding such common terms as low-profile carpeting, swing-in doors, entry slopes that are less than one foot, doorbells that flash the lights inside the house, higher toilets and lower light switches. (Chicago Tribune, Dec. 15)