News

The Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) is renewing the Family Care and Family Care Partnership waivers. A waiver is a special set of rules that allows us to have Medicaid programs like Family Care. For Family Care, it includes the 1915(b) and 1915(c) waivers. With them, we can fund more services and supports to help Family Care and Family Care Partnership members stay in their homes and communities.

We must renew the waivers every five years. This is a chance for us to make Family Care and Family Care Partnership better between 2025 and 2030. We can improve policy, services, and other things that can make the programs better for members.

How can I get involved?


Take our survey! We want Family Care and Family Care Partnership members, families, caregivers, providers, managed care organizations, advocates, and other partners to share their thoughts.

We want to know how Family Care and Family Care Partnership can better serve our members. This is a chance to share your ideas about services, supports, and other areas of care. It should only take 10 minutes. It’s available in English, Hmong, and Spanish. Please submit your responses by August 1.

Take the survey

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 The Wisconsin Department of Health Services is initiating an Independent Living Supports Pilot program, aimed at providing resources to eligible residents, enabling them to live independently at home. The program is designed to offer short-term services and support to older adults and individuals with disabilities.

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In today's world, technology plays a major role in almost every facet of every company. As we know, technology also enables people who have different abilities to be able to be productive in the workplace. This is a good article explaining why employers need to make sure that employees with disabilities have the accessible technology they need to be able to succeed in the workplace.

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Hiking is becoming a very popular summer activity. Until recent years, there were many accessible hiking trails. More and more trails are being made to be accessible to everyone.The New York Times put together a a guide to accessible hiking trails in the US.

View guide

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As part of its commitment to advancing health equity and access to care for underserved populations, CMS released a set of resources addressing the needs of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) living with and cared for by aging parents or guardians. The release includes resources for state Medicaid and partner agencies to provide new or additional support to adults living with I/DD and their caregivers as they age and experience life transitions.

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U.S. News & World Report recently surveyed 2,000 U.S. adults aged 55 and older who shared why they are or aren’t using assistive health-related technologies, what their goals were of aging in place, which technologies they use the most and what their experiences were.

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 Inside a Waterford warehouse is a unique exercise class. "Uniquely Abled" is a CrossFit class for people with disabilities. It helps people feel more comfortable and confident in their own bodies.

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Already, states have disenrolled more than a million Medicaid beneficiaries, according to data from Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), a nonprofit that conducts health policy research. In many cases, people are being cut off because they didn’t complete the renewal process, KFF found, with so-called “procedural disenrollments” accounting for as many as 89% of Medicaid terminations in some states.

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SSA Funding Opportunity on Employment of People with Disabilities

Applications due July 31, 2023
The Social Security Administration (SSA) has announced a new funding opportunity for conducting interventional research to support its programs. They seek applications for research to be conducted under five priority areas:
  • Eliminating the structural barriers for people with disabilities in the labor market, particularly for people of color and other underserved communities, that increase the likelihood of people receiving or applying for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI).
  • Increasing employment and self-sufficiency of individuals with disabilities, including people of color and underserved communities (whether beneficiaries, applicants, or potential applicants of the SSDI or SSI programs).
  • Coordinating planning between private and public human services agencies to improve the administration and effectiveness of the SSDI, SSI, and related programs.
  • Assisting claimants in underserved communities to apply for or appeal decisions on claims for SSDI and SSI benefits.
  • Conducting outreach to people with disabilities who are potentially eligible to receive SSI.
SSA intends the projects to have a project period of up to five years, with the first year intended to put any necessary data agreements into place, recruit additional partners, and conduct any other implementation planning activities. If the project is able to meet these milestones in the first year, funding may be continued to field and evaluate the project for up to four years.
If you have difficulty accessing the full announcement electronically, please contact Grants.gov at 800-518-4726 or support@grants.gov.
Learn more about this funding opportunity
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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released a collection of resources designed to support state Medicaid and partner agencies in developing the supports and services being delivered to adults with I/DD and their aging caregivers. These resources detail ways that agencies can anticipate and meet the needs of aging caregivers and adults with I/DD, design person-centered planning processes across the lifespan, develop policies to support aging caregiver needs, and demonstrate innovative strategies that states are using in key focus areas. The materials can be used by state agencies, providers, and aging and disability networks to engage stakeholders and plan for the design and implementation of future services and supports using data to identify current and future service demands, develop interagency partnerships and relationships, and focus on assessment, early identification, and training to help families better navigate support as their needs change across the lifespan. 
 
The resources are especially important because the number of people with I/DD receiving Medicaid home and community-based services and living with family has increased by 143% between 1998 and 2018. An estimated 1 million households in the U.S. include an adult with I/DD living with and supported by an aging caregiver, and this number is growing. 
 
As the federal agency leading the implementation of the National Strategy to Support Family Caregivers (the Strategy), ACL is pleased to share resources that can advance implementation of the Strategy and emphasize the importance of ensuring that family caregivers are appropriately recognized and supported. The advisory councils created by the Recognize, Assist, Include, Support, and Engage (RAISE) Family Caregivers Act and the Supporting Grandparents Raising Grandchildren (SGRG) Act jointly developed the Strategy in collaboration with ACL and other federal partners with extensive input from the public (including family caregivers and the people they support). 
 
The ACL programs included in the set of CMS resources are:
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