ORCHID'S 2021 COLORADO COGNITIVE DISABILITY REPORT

Orchid's 2021 Colorado Cognitive Disability Report

There are a lot of issues -- We've focused on Olmstead

The INTERSECTION of OLMSTEAD & PARITY & MEDICAID NETWORK ADEQUACY

Data Collection is a HUGE ISSUE and the financial responsibility for it needs to be squarely on the STATE
We've got to get away from expecting people with disabilities and their underfunded advocates to provide the systemic data collection that is needed.
We're not the first to recognize that DATA COLLECTION is a CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE.
Further we need INCLUSION in that --- the kind of INCLUSION that is anticipated with OLMSTEAD.

OUR Take

Cost Shifting of High End Mental Health Care to Law Enforcement, Jails and County Governments

In the last several years, Colorado State Government has "PHILOSOPHICALLY" agreed with getting people with mental illness out of the Criminal Justice System and made SOME CONCRETE STEPS in that direction.

Medicaid Managed Care has done a pretty decent job for people at the low to medium levels of a Continuum of Care. It's largely been a disaster for people with needs at the High End of the Continuum of Care --- and that is because those needs are generally more expensive.

Further, a lot of this got cost shifted to Law Enforcement, Jails, and County Government.

Backfilling that HIGH END of the BEHAVIORAL HEALTH CONTINUUM of CARE is what Colorado and most States need to do.

Additionally, it would be helpful to have some ADDITIONAL FEDERAL ASSISTANCE to do that.

To do what needs to be done in Mental Health is a MAJOR BUDGETARY RE-ALIGNMENT addressing the challenges from:

De-Institutionalization, and
Medicaid Managed Care

When we think about what Colorado needs in additional funding ---- it's roughly a BILLION DOLLARS over the next 10 years.

OLMSTEAD PLANNING could go a long way to help manage that.

Nobody's against the ONE-STOP SHOP that makes things more convenient and cost effective.

AND Thousands of Coloradans are in a WORLD of HURT because we haven't funded an adequate BEHAVIORAL HEALTH SYSTEM.

Olmstead Supporting Documents

2010 DOJ Fact Sheet on the Georgia Settlement Agreement. Involved both People with Developmental Disabilities and People with Mental Illness.

2010 US Department of Justice Delaware Findings Letter
(See page 8 --- 3. Expansion of Services Would Not Require A Fundamental Alteration of Delaware's Community Service System)

2011 Statement of the Department of Justice on Enforcement of the Integration Mandate of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Olmstead v. L.C.