Friday Night News

November 22, 2019

It has been a very busy week:

We attended portions of both the House Appropriations Committee and the Senate Finance Committee Annual Retreats this week to listen to the presentations (and more importantly the member’s questions) on the state of the Virginia economy in general, the overview of the Medicaid budget in detail and the general pressures that will be in play during the Session. It was important to hear the outgoing “R” majority caution the incoming “D” majority to be conservative in their spending to protect the AAA bond rating and bank as much as possible against the inevitable recession.
We also have been collecting data to support the argument that Waiver rates will need to grow to offset any minimum wage increase – so far the data clearly supports the following:

Print these “Talking Points” to use when you meet your legislators

We are making preparations for the meeting to discuss the Redesign of Community Behavioral Health Services – at this point we may have more questions than they have answers.
DLA-20 trainings are being scheduled; please get in touch if you are interested in having your behavioral health staff trained.
We continue to work with a variety of stakeholders to keep the issue of children who are in need of behavioral health services, but have been denied service or have lost services, in the public discussion.
We recognize that DMAS seems to be trying to communicate and engage providers; we will continue to work with other provider associations to make the communication as meaningful as possible.
And legislation is being introduced for discussion at the 2020 Session at a furious pace – stay tuned!