HIGHLIGHTS: Inventory of Consumer-Directed Support Programs

"Consumer-direction" is a philosophy and orientation to the delivery of home and community-based long-term care that puts informed consumers and their families in the driver's seat with respect to making choices about how best to meet their disability-related supportive service needs. At a minimum, the consumer-directed services model allows persons with disabilities of all ages or others, such as family members, acting as their representatives to select and dismiss the individuals — generally termed personal assistants, aides, or attendants — who are paid to provide assistance with basic and instrumental activities of daily living and other disability-related supportive services. In June 2001, the Home and Community-Based Resource Network at Boston College, with support from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) contracted with EP&P Consulting to develop a descriptive inventory of publicly-funded programs offering home and community-based personal assistance services through consumer-directed service delivery models. The report provides descriptive statistics about 139 programs offering consumer-directed home and community-based services. [12 PDF pages]