Caretakers already trying to cope with cuts
I am responding to The Times editorial “Raise license fees on adult-family homes” [Opinion, April 30].
Many Adult-family homes for the disabled, such as the one my 32-year-old son resides in, have had a 4 percent across-the-board cut in Medicaid compensation this year.
On top of that, the state Department of Developmental Disabilities has cleverly changed the assessment formula on the how it compensates for care. Suddenly, the compensation to our caretaker for the same level of care for my son and five other residents was drastically cut. There was no new fee or tax, but a loss of about $2,000 per month in cash flow to our caretaker.
Now The Times is calling for a $900 increase in licensing fees at the same time our adult-family home is projecting a $24,000 cut per year in income. It does not sound like Olympia got outmaneuvered after all.
With that kind of savings, the state could afford to increase its oversight on poorly run adult-family homes. While well-meaning, The Times did not do its homework and unfortunately, our disabled will be the ones who suffer from it.
— Ken Kerr, Normandy Park
Paying oversight costs in assisted-living arrangements drastically different
Thanks for the editorial concerning state oversight costs for assisted living and nursing homes monitored by the state. It is too bad adult-family homes only pay 4 percent of their oversight costs while boarding homes and nursing homes pay nearly 80 percent.
The Times did not mention or investigate what these costs actually are. If it had, we would see that adult-family homes receive significantly less in payments — most patients are usually on Medicare —than these of other types of homes, while still being required to provide similar staffing levels. Perhaps we could investigate a little more to see why these differences exist.
— Rich Zywiak, Spokane