The Governor's Task Force on Caregiving met virtually last week and continued reviewing work group proposals to potentially include in the final report to the governor this fall.
Among the work group proposals that received favorable feedback by the full task force and will be considered at a future meeting this summer for inclusion in the final report:
- Reviewing the caregiver background check policies and recommend that the background check criteria be applied similarly across all adult long-term care programs. According to the work group that developed this proposal, IRIS caregivers face more scrutiny in their background checks compared to other state long-term care program caregivers.
- Making nursing home and fee-for-service personal care payment reform to make the reimbursement rate directly tied to the cost of providing the care.
- Reforming Office of Inspector General (OIG) recoupment policies to limit recoupment to instances where there was proof that a service was not provided or fraud was committed, not for minor clerical or charting mistakes. This proposal also calls for the development of a resolution process that OIG would have to use before initiating a recoupment/recovery.
- Providing more funding to Aging and Disability Resource Centers (ADRCs) to fully fund them to meet their existing duties.
- Providing annual increases to the direct-care workforce funding initiative that was included in the last state budget.
- Supporting Medicaid expansion.
- Allowing an earnings disregard for direct-support professionals when determining eligibility for designated benefits and/or subsidies. This will allow caregivers to disregard a specified amount of their income when applying for BadgerCare benefits or Wisconsin Shares child care subsidies. The disregard amount is to be determined.
In addition, the task force discussed the creation of a statewide caregiver registry. One option is to participate in the newly launched
ConnectToCareJobs.com
website, which matches nursing homes, assisted living facilities, residential care facilities, and long-term acute care hospitals with workers.
