Electronic Video Monitoring in Medicaid Home and Community ‐Based Services Waivers for People With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

Abstract While the number of available caregivers for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) is reducing, the number of people who need care and support is steadily increasing, effectively creating a vacuum of care. In response to this increasing problem, and as a result of advances in technology, telecare, and remote monitoring in the long‐term support of people who are aging or have I/DD are becoming more prominent. Despite noted benefits, telecare and other forms of technological surveillance are relatively new for caregivers in service to people with I/DD. Medicaid Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) Section 1915(c) waivers are a critical funding stream for people with I/DDs and long‐term support needs in the United States. In order to examine the implementation of electronic monitoring technology for people with I/DD, we examined which HCBS waivers were providing electronic monitoring services and how they were doing so. Ninety‐nine I/DD‐related HCBS 1915(c) waivers (44 states and the District of Columbia) were collected for fiscal year (FY) 2013 from the U. S. CMS Medicaid.gov website. We then examined this data to determine, if applicable, the electronic monitoring services provided, the projected number of users, and the average cost of each unit of service. We also examined the electronic monitoring service definitions to determine themes across services. We found seven out of the 99 HCBS FY 2013 waivers (7.1%) provided electronic...
Source: Journal of Policy and Practice in Intellectual Disabilities - Category: Disability Authors: Tags: Original Article Source Type: research