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Daily Camera guest opinion: Guest Heidi Storz: People with different abilities face lack of critical services

Daily Camera - 9/9/2021

Sep. 9—By Heidi Storz

For close to 60 years, Imagine! has provided vital services to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) living in Boulder and Broomfield counties. Our services allow this population, which was once literally hidden away from our community in institutions, to become active, contributing members of their communities.

However, our ability to provide those services are being put at great risk because of our inability to provide a competitive, living wage for the Direct Support Professionals (DSPs) working for our organization.

Currently, this essential workforce is severely underpaid due to inadequate Medicaid rates paid to providers, set by state payers. The result is a community service delivery system challenged by high DSP vacancy rates and an average turnover rate of 43%.

I recognize that Imagine! is not unique in facing difficulties hiring staff right now. An unexpected outcome of the pandemic has been a reduction in people returning to the workforce throughout our nation.

However, unlike most businesses, when Imagine! is seriously understaffed, the people that we serve face immediate potential health and safety risks. Furthermore, this challenge existed for us well before the pandemic, and without the support of our elected officials, will not be solved even as other businesses begin to return to normal hiring patterns.

Community providers like Imagine! deliver valuable services that enable people with I/DD to remain in the community, rather than being forced to live in high-cost, state-run institutions that isolate and segregate people with disabilities. These services include everything from helping babies and toddlers to meet key developmental milestones to providing after school and summer camp activities for school-aged kids to ensuring adults with disabilities have the opportunities and supports they need to find and maintain employment.

The pandemic is amplifying a crisis our workforce has long faced, and immediate increases in Medicaid reimbursement rates are necessary to prevent the shattering of an already cracked system. If the system fully cracks, the result will not only mean fewer options and resources for people with I/DD to live and work in our community, but a less healthy and inclusive community overall.

We can, and must, immediately attend to the crisis facing providers of Medicaid-funded disability services such as Imagine! by working to increase Medicaid rates paid to providers. As stated by Hubert Humphrey in 1977, "the moral test of government is how that government treats ... the sick, the needy and the handicapped." It is time to speak up and to make sure our government passes that moral test. Some of our most vulnerable citizens are at risk, the well-being of our community is suffering, and we can't afford to wait any longer.

Heidi Storz, Esq. is President of Imagine! Board of Directors

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