The ADvantage Waiver Program is designed to help seniors and adults with disabilities live at home. It aims to keep people living at home, rather than in a nursing home or similar types of adult care.
Donald Maisch’s exit is at least the fourth high-ranking health department employee to leave the agency since Monday.
I am begging them. They need to compromise.” — Jill Young, program chief of outpatient services for Family & Children’s Services
For Family & Children’s Services, the cuts would be “catastrophic.” The organization provides treatment for almost 18,000 adults with serious mental illness and 4,200 children with behavioral disorders health every year.
“He said, ‘Look, I have a couple of them in my area. Would you mind exempting them?’ ” recalled Republican Rep. Dale Derby, who sponsored the bill. “I wasn’t aware that he was on the board. I wouldn’t have done it.”
The new report found facility deficiencies only at a “standard” level, which are typically considered to be minor. This means the Health Department now recognizes the facility to be in compliance with agency standards.
Whether the report’s findings will affect the facility’s prospects of getting its Medicaid contract back is unclear.
The lawsuit alleges CAAIR and Simmons Food violated the Fair Labor Standards Act, Oklahoma Protection of Labor Act, Oklahoma Minimum Wage Act and Oklahoma’s Human Trafficking statutes.
The department may eliminate walk-in clinics and instead make them appointment-only, regionalize some clinic services to the larger counties, and reduce the number of days the clinics are open.
