Group hosts meeting on home care cuts

JONESBORO - Tammy Dobbs, who is fighting to overcome cerebral palsy, had to leave her lifetime home in Marston, Mo., in 2008 after her in-home attendant care services were cut to almost nothing.

"I was married, and we got a few hours, but my husband got sick and couldn't take care of me anymore," Dobbs said. "I could only get nine hours a week in Missouri, and that was not enough."

She sought a better life in the Natural State through the ARChoices program, which provides in-home attended care service such as meals, feeding assistance, bathing, minor medical services and others - services Dobbs can't live without.

"Someone told me that if I move to Arkansas I could possibly get more hours," she said. "So I moved to Arkansas and got the 56 hours (per week), which was great."

That was before 2016, a year when the Department of Human Services would begin drastically slashing the amount of service hours individuals could receive. Dobbs was one of about 4,000 residents that year who had their services hours cut essentially in half, hers to 28 hours per week.

"It was terrible because it limited what had to be done. I couldn't take baths like I should. All they could do is get me up and fix my breakfast or lunch or supper," Dobbs said. "I have bathroom problems, so if I didn't go to the bathroom the hours they were there, it was just too late."

Shannon Brumley of Clover Bend is a paraplegic and depends on ARChoices for many of the services that allow him to live at home.

"There is no comparison," Brumley said. "To be able to get up, to get bathed, my teeth brushed, my hair brushed and get fed. I can't do that personally. To have somewhere there to do that means a great deal to me."

The program allowed his parents, who serve as his caregivers, to offset some of the expenses of his daily needs. It was also a better arrangement for Brumley, being in the hands of a family member.

"My parents did my care for me, so they are the ones who got paid for this, but if not for my parents, I would have to hire somebody," Brumley said. "But the state is trying to cut the hours, and that's what I'm fighting for."

Dorthy Vaughn of Highland has a catheter and must have a medical professional attend to it on a daily basis.

"I wear it on my leg, and it takes one of these girls to irrigate it for me and change it out," she said.

Her hours were cut in 2016, but she did not know why at the time. While a 280-question assessment by a visiting ARChoices nurse was usually routine, something changed that year.

"She asked me questions and while she was asking questions she was using a computer program," Vaughn said. "When she finished the interview she said it's going to cut your hours again. I said it can't do that. And she checked, and it still took two hours away. She said it was almost like it was critiqued before we even started."

About 30 of individuals subjected to the same computer program put in use by DHS for reasons that still remain unclear sought answers Wednesday at a meeting hosted by Legal Aid of Arkansas at the East Arkansas Area Agency on Aging in Jonesboro.

Staff attorney Kevin DeLiban explained ARChoices intends to help people avoid institutions by providing home-based services at a savings of $8,500 compared with a nursing home average cost of $47,000 per year. That is until the cuts began.

"When this started coming to us, the ARChoices issue, we had to sue the state," DeLiban said. "Through the process of the federal courts, we got a lot of information. We were like you: 'What is the logic? Why would you cut these service?' DHS either didn't have or was unwilling to provide any estimates about their financial savings in detail by doing this."

DeLiban said one thought is that DHS believed people were receiving too many services and wanted to add more residents to the program. Any data to support those claims has been shrouded in secrecy by the agency.

"They can't tell you how many people under the old system have been cut. They have to go run what they claim to be is this huge involved process to tell you. Then, they can't tell you how big the cuts were," he said.

District 53 state Rep. Dan Sullivan, R-Jonesboro, attended the meeting and said while he had heard of the issue, he did not know until today the extent of the use of the assessment tools. He said he will will arrange a meeting with DHS to see what is going on.

"We have limited resources and with limited resources we need to make the best use of those." Sullivan said. "With the changes and cuts in the program, they need to be wisely. I am very concerned about these assessment tools that use algorithms to determine the level of care versus a physician or nurse who is directly contacting the patient."