The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare is allowing to expire a small Medicaid program for family caregivers of children and adults with disabilities over suspected fraud and abuse, and it will be up to the Legislature to either resurrect the program with more safeguards or let it die.
Idaho Health and Welfare Director Alex Adams wrote a letter to House and Senate Health and Welfare Committee chairs earlier this month outlining concerns and stating the need for legislative approval to continue operating the program and to make any changes.
Adams also sent the letter to the co-chairs of the state budget-writing committee.
“It is our hope that program advocates and participants can work with the Legislature to determine which safeguards are appropriate to resolve the troubling issues we are seeing on the ground, recognizing the need for additional staff capacity if labor-intensive safeguards are selected,” Adams wrote in the Nov. 4 letter.
The part of the Family Personal Care Services program at issue was put in place during the pandemic to allow “legally responsible” parents and spouses to be paid for providing caregiving services to Medicaid patients. It was designed for people who didn’t want to risk having outside caregivers in their home and to address a shortage of direct care workers. Before the pandemic, these individuals could not be reimbursed by Medicaid.