Virginia Advocacy Alerts
Help us protect community-based services for persons with disabilities.
November 17, 2020
In April 2020, we asked you to contact your Virginia state representatives, encouraging them to urge the Governor to approve retainer payments for community-based service providers. These advocacy efforts resulted in the General Assembly presenting a budget inclusive of these payments. However, the Governor is now threatening to veto action taken in special session. This action would exclude the retainer payments and threaten the viability of needed disability resources.
Please use the email language found in the attached PDF to ensure the Virginia Governor office constituents fight for vital programs that serve people with disabilities and uphold the Special Session budget allocation.
August 28, 2020
Disability service providers, like ServiceSource, continue to request support to protect community-based services for people with disabilities in Virginia. We are requesting that Virginia adopt a budget which continues service preservation payments for Developmental Disability Waiver, community engagement and community coaching services through December 31, 2020. We are also requesting they add supported employment services and in-home residential and nursing services to the budget. The funding for these services is essential to ensure that disability service providers in Virginia can weather the ongoing pandemic as the course of the situation remains unknown. If Virginia does not approve these payments, a sizeable percentage of providers may need to close essential programs serving the disability community.
To help support this advocacy effort, please contact your Virginia delegate and state senator to ensure that Virginia’s budget provides these service preservation payments to disability service providers.
Click here for more information on how to reach your representatives. You can also visit https://whosmy.virginiageneralassembly.gov/
April 21, 2020
UPDATE: Virginia’s Department of Medicaid Assistance recently informed us that the Governor is planning to submit an Appendix K to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid which includes retainer payments for community-based providers. Thank you to all the employees, participants, and families who contacted their legislators advocating for this necessary action. ServiceSource will continue monitoring the situation to ensure that retainer payments are approved, but we are heartened by the progress that has been made thus far.
ServiceSource has an urgent request to protect community-based services for persons with disabilities in Virginia. We need you to contact your Virginia state representatives, encouraging them to urge the Governor to approve retainer payments for community-based service providers.
Read the attached letter about how you can help.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has hit community-based service providers especially hard as most programs have had to close for the foreseeable future. Community-based providers continue to remain responsible for significant fixed costs despite bringing in no revenue for closed services. All providers – including ServiceSource – face financial difficulty as a result. Smaller providers could be forced to close, and community-based services for vulnerable individuals with disabilities will be more limited than ever when the lockdown is lifted. All providers will incur significant additional costs when services return associated with providing services in a long-term care setting prior to an approved vaccine.
The Commonwealth of Virginia could help providers by requesting retainer payments for community-based service providers in an Appendix K application to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services (CMS), as some 27 states have already done.
Please contact your state representatives and discuss with them the urgency of this issue. Please read the attached letter for more information on how to reach your representatives
