MEMORANDUM

TO:MARRCH Public Policy Members

FROM:John C. Reich and Thomas J. Hanson

DATE:March 9, 2017

RE:Legislative Update

Purpose

You had asked for a legislative update with regard to MARRCH’s public policy initiatives as well other legislative affecting MARRCH.

Legislative Update

  1. Rate increase (H.F. 872/S.F. 895)
  2. Our rate increase bill is right on track. Both the House bill and the Senate bill have been heard in the House and Senate Health and Human Services Finance Committees. Mike Shicks and Lane Elmer testified to give the provider perspective and were well-received by the committees. Our next step is to continue the grassroots efforts that providers have undertaken while we continue to lobby key legislators in leadership positions.
  3. LADC Loan Forgiveness (H.F. 1403/S.F. 1664)
  4. Our LADC loan forgiveness bills have been introduced in both the House and Senate. In the House, our author is Representative Deb Kiel. Senator Jeff Hayden is our author in the Senate. We continue to pursue a hearing for our LADC Loan Forgiveness legislation. We've been working to get a hearing this week but so far have not been able to secure one. If we're not able to get a hearing by Friday, we will work on a strategy to pursue an amendment to a larger bill.
  5. Paperwork Reduction
  6. Lance Egley has been communication with staff at DHS on this issue. W&W also met with the Assistant Commission (Claire Wilson), ADAD Assistant Director (Brian Zirbes), and DHS Legislative Affairs (Matt Burdick) on Monday (3/6/17), and they floated the idea of a working group over the legislative interim that would explore these issues and work through them.
  7. DHS Reform Package (H.F. 1939/S.F. 1591)
  8. The reform package was included in the governor’s ~600 page budget document, but was also carved out as an independent bill (S.F. 1591, Senator Lourey, H.F. 1938, Rep Baker), since DHS does not believe the Governor’s budget has legs. For future conversations, we will refer to Senator Lourey and Rep Baker’s bill as the “Stakeholder CD Reform Bill”, and DHS’s original proposal in the Governor’s bill as the “DHS CD Reform Bill”, since both are getting introduced, and DHS will likely try and reincorporate some of their language (which we are amending) during reconciliation. Our plan is to continue to converse with DHS regarding our issues while also making the key legislators aware of our particular concerns with the DHS CD Reform bill.
  9. The Industry CD Reform Bill was heard in Senate HHS Finance chaired by Sen. Jim Abeler last Monday. Lane Elmer testified on behalf of MARRCH and in support of the reform package (with caveats on the amendments still required), and also used the opportunity to support S.F. 895 (rate increase), describing how programs need financial relief in order to remain viable while implementing reform. The testimony was well-received. The bill was laid over for possible inclusion in the HHS Omnibus bill.
  10. Please see the table below for specific concerns and amendments on the Reform Package to date:

OBJECTIONS/CONCERNS / STATUS / NOTES
Daily documentation / Removed / Removed from Stakeholder CD Reform Bill
Additional licensing hurdles for IMDs / Removed / Removed from Stakeholder CD Reform Bill
Comprehensive assessment changes / Partially removed, still working / -Requirement for non-residential programs to complete on Day 1 removed through amendment
-Still working to replace “administered by” to “coordinated by” qualified staff (like current R31)
Licensing timeline/process / Future initiative / As there is no change in either bill from current R31, this will likely be a 2018/future endeavor
Discharge summary timeline / Removed / Removed through amendment
Tx plans timeline reduction / Still working to remove / Bill attempts to reduce tx plans from 10 days currently to 3 days for OP and 7 days for Residential

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