Updated: Procedures for Implementing Veteran Directed Home and Community Based Services

Image by dianecordell via Flickr
The VD-HCBS program provides veterans the opportunity to receive home and community-based services that enable them to avoid institutionalization and continue to live in their homes and communities. The Procedures for Implementing Veteran Directed Home and Community-Based Services describes requirements and procedures for implementing VD-HCBS locally.

The Miracle Workers - NYTimes.com

Image via CrunchBase
by Jane Gross

Some of the most compelling first-person accounts of family caregiving I’ve ever read come from the “Narrative Matters’’ section of the policy journal Health Affairs. Often these stories are written by medical professionals who have found all of their training and expertise useless when faced with responsibility for a parent or spouse. What they thought they knew they didn’t, and what they did know got lost in the emotional upheaval of caring for a loved one rather than a patient.

Image via Wikipedia

The “Narrative Matters” essay in the current issue, published online on Wednesday, is not about caregiving, but rather struggling to find care for oneself in middle age. It was written not by a medical professional but by a former physics professor who is profoundly disabled by multiple sclerosis. Michael Ogg, 56, lives alone in West Windsor, N.J., and gets by with difficulty, pluck and the assistance of two home health aides, who work for him three hours a day at a cost of $1,800 a month.

That is all Mr. Ogg can afford. He offers his story in support of the Class Act, a part of the new health care law that establishes a government insurance program for long-term care, limited in its benefits but available for as long as needed and regardless of pre-existing conditions.

Full Article

IRS Releases New Schedule R for Fiscal/Employer Agents

Schedule R for Form 940 is specifically required for "section 3504 Agents acting on behalf of home care service recipients" (more commonly, Fiscal/Employer Agents serving employers in participant direction programs). The purpose of the Schedule R for Form 940 is to allocate the aggregate information reported on Form 940 to each home care service recipient client (participant direction employer). Fiscal/Employer Agents serving participant direction employers in 2010 must complete and submit a Schedule R with the 2010 Form 940, Employer's Annual Federal Unemployment (FUTA) Tax Return. This requirement applies to both Vendor and Government Fiscal/Employer Agents.

The IRS is expected to release a "Stakeholder Partners' Headliner" announcing the Schedule R for Form 940 very soon. For more information, follow the National Resource Center for Particpant-Directed Services (NRCPDS) on Facebook for updates.

The Center for Participant-Directed Services is aware of a free tool to support Fiscal/Employer Agents' completion of Schedule R for Form 940. 941RExpress, a product of Annkissam, will be updated by December 18 to support Schedule R for Form 940 (in addition to the current support of Schedule R for Form 941). Check 941RExpress.com on or after December 18, 2010 for more information about using the free tool.

Click here for the form.