People with developmental disabilities and their families have been clear about their desire to manage their own supports in a manner that “works for them.” The mission of Works for Me is to empower people with developmental disabilities to lead meaningful and personally satisfying lives of their own choosing by enabling them to fully control their own supports. People develop their own plans to access chosen supports, hire, and supervise their own staff, and purchase approved goods & services, including agency services if wanted.
Also known as “Self-Directed Services”, this model is an alternative to traditionally delivered and managed services, such as an agency delivery model. Self-direction of services allows participants to have the responsibility for managing all aspects of service delivery in a person-centered planning process.
Self-directed Medicaid services means that participants, or their representatives if applicable, have decision-making authority over certain services and take direct responsibility to manage their services with the assistance of a system of available supports.
Self-direction promotes personal choice and control over the delivery of waiver and state plan services, including who provides the services and how services are provided. For example, participants are afforded the decision-making authority to recruit, hire, train and supervise the individuals who furnish their services. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) calls this “employer authority.” Participants may also have decision-making authority over how the Medicaid funds in a budget are spent. CMS refers to this as “budget authority.”
Self-Direction Guidelines
- Person-centered planning process: CMS requires that a person-centered planning process and assessment be used to develop a person-centered plan. The process is directed by the individual, with assistance as needed or desired from a representative of the individual’s choosing. It is intended to identify the strengths, capacities, preferences, needs, and desired measurable outcomes of the individual. The process may include other persons, freely chosen by the individual, who are able to serve as important contributors to the process.The planning process must also include planning for contingencies such as when a needed service is not provided due to the worker being out sick. The contingency or “back-up” plan must become a part of the individual’s person-centered plan. As part of the contingency planning process, an assessment of the risks to the individual must be completed and a discussion about how the risks will be addressed must be held.
- Service plan: A service plan is a written document that specifies the services and supports that are to be furnished to meet the preferences, choices, abilities, and needs of the individual, and that assist the individual to direct those services and supports and remain in the community.
- Individualized budget: An individualized budget is the amount of funds that is under the control and direction of the individual. The budget plan is developed using a person-centered planning process and is individually tailored in accordance with the individual’s needs and preferences as established in the service plan. States must describe the method for calculating the dollar values of individual budgets based on reliable costs and service utilization, define a process for making adjustments to the budget when changes in participants’ person-centered service plans occur, and define a procedure to evaluate participants’ expenditures.
