Funding 101

Disability Waiver Rate System
Tuesday, October 24, 2017 - 09:31

Download Funding 101 – PDF Handout

Key Points

  • There are numerous funding streams that providers and service recipients can use to support technology use.
  • Minnesota has one of the strongest models for funding the use of technology.
  • Providers, technology suppliers, and individuals should work together to determine the right mixture of services and funding supports.
  • Remote support for residential services under the Disability Waiver Rate System is recognized as a form of supervision on the 6790 and rolled into the service provider daily rate.
  • 24-hour emergency assistance, paid to a service provider, and environmental accessibility adaptations, paid to the technology vendor, are available for people living in their own home.
  • Funding for technology is also available under the CDCS waiver and some items through State Plan services.

*Monitoring technology: 3 supervision/support options. 1) Awake on-site staff 2) Sleep on-site staff 3) Remote monitoring supervision

Download Funding 101 – PDF Handout, or visit the Technology Resource Center and learn more about Funding.

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More Best Practices

Monitoring Technology: Informed Consent and Individual Privacy When utilizing monitoring technology, the issues surrounding informed consent and individual privacy

Assessments for remote monitoring—and technology in general—help teams ask the right questions to identify goals and outcomes technology may assist with. Most technology service vendors and many service providers have their own assessment process to help fine tune outcomes and recommend specific tool options.

While the state of Minnesota boasts one of the richest, most comprehensive funding structures for technology, there continue to be areas in which funding is not available. Lack of formal funding should not deter providers from considering to invest their own dollars in certain solutions which make sense to help improve an organization’s ability to encourage independence of the people we support as well as helping an organization become more effective.

The Phoenix Residence made the decision to invest heavily in new technology when they transitioned from paper records to electronic processing. Their new technology investments not only freed up resources to assist in handling some workforce issues that are common in the disability services industry, but also had the added benefit of allowing their residents to utilize assistive technology devices powered through Wi-Fi to increase independence.

Remote support and the technology it requires is not new, but spreading the word and adapting regulatory and funding rules to take advantage of it has been a slow process. Because “supervision” required the presence of a DSP, funders felt safe tying payment to DSP physical presence, and regulatory language often used “supervision” and “staff ” interchangeably. It all worked, for better or worse, until supervision no longer required the physical presence of a DSP. Minnesota has found a way to adapt funding and regulation to use the new technology tools, and it is starting to catch on.