Author Archives: Peter Sanford Kahrmann

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About Peter Sanford Kahrmann

Writer, disability rights advocate, civil rights advocate.

On a Mountain

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I am moved.

No longer a resident of Berne New York, a home I was in for nine years and one I will always be grateful for, I am now moved to a house on a mountain in New York’s Delaware County. A dirt road passes in front and the house sits on 12 acres of largely forested land. There is a beautiful pond in the backyard. I met Carlos the mailman, a delightful person. He tells me there is another writer and two painters on this stretch. Is it any wonder? The pull to the writing table (and I imagine for a painter, the easel) is magnetic here.

There is still an enormous amount of unpacking to do. I have nearly 70 boxes filled with books and then of course, there are the many boxes packed at the last minute, that minute when it finally dawns on you that everything actually does go together and are thrown into the nearest box thusly.

The dogs love it here. McKenzie and Charley run free when I’m with them but Milo, loyal first to his beagle nose, remains on a long lead.

I got my library card the first full day I was here. My health has been a bit problematic but seems to be on the mend, its battering in large part, I think (hope!) was in response to the stress and anxiety of having to move.

And then there is the advocacy to get back to. I finally received a letter from New York’s Department of Health that claims to be its response to my complaints. The DOH is one of those remarkable entities that can put words on a page and still leave it blank. More on this soon.

In the meantime I continue to settle in. I am deep into a lovely biography of John Dos Passos by Townsend Ludington. There is a wood stove here and reading by the fire is about as glorious as it gets.

Anyway, I am moved, and the next chapter begins.

 

No Brain Injury Training for NY RRDSs

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The very people hired by the New York State Department of Health to oversee the implementation of the state’s traumatic brain injury waiver receive no mandatory training in brain injury or the brain. 

Two Regional Resource Specialists from the Capitol Region, Maria Relyea and Robert Korotich, acknowledged in a meeting this week that the Department of Health requires no mandatory training in brain injury for RRDSs statewide. 

Given the fact it is the RRDSs who issue the decisions that brain injury survivors will have the services cut or denied altogether, the fact those issuing these decisions are not required to undergo any training about the brain is inexcusable. It’s tantamount to hiring a couple of folks off the street to have them oversee the care of those who’ve sustain spinal cord injuries or are dealing with Parkinson’s  when, with few exceptions, they don’t know anything about SCIs or Parkinson’s.

When you couple this with the fact the state’s Department of Health knowingly signed a contract that will funnel hundreds of thousand of dollars in the direction of Timothy J. Feeney, a PhD wannabe who continues to misrepresent his educational credentials and who has had, according to his own resume, no real training in brain injury, it is hard to reach any conclusion other than the DOH and those of Feeney’s ilk don’t give a damn about those of us who live with brain injuries.

The other conclusion that can be, I think, safely drawn, is the DOH feels it is appropriate to hire people to oversee  the TBI Waiver and directly influence the services waiver participants get or don’t get who are simply not qualified to do so. This is not only unfair, immoral and damaging to brain injury survivors, it is unfair, immoral and damaging to the many companies and individuals around the state who provide services to brain injury survivors. After all, they are expected to following the DOH/RRDS marching orders when the latter tandem knows less about brain injury than the providers do. 

The meeting this week referenced above was the conference I’d asked for that is allowed to take place before a Fair Hearing. My fair hearing is scheduled for December 1. Although I’d written to these RRDSs asking for the conference provided for before a fair hearing, both claimed they didn’t realize this weeks conference was the conference before the fair hearing, claiming that they thought I just wanted to talk about the DOH’s denial of my assistive technology requests.

And just when you thought things could get any slipperier.

Oh, almost forgot. I did inform both Ms. Relyea and Mr. Korotich that I want to have the pre-fair hearing conference with them before the fair hearing. I followed that up with and email confirming this.

The Problem With Secrets

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The problem with secrets is most people can’t keep them.

Despite the New York State Department of Health’s refusal to confirm the directive for this writer, employees in several RRDCs (Regional Resource Development Centers) around New York State confirm the DOH has directed that waiver provider staff are not permitted to  advocate or testify for their clients in a Medicaid Fair Hearing. In fact, if they attend the Fair hearing, they must support the DOH’s position and not their clients.

Several sources say this directive was shared with RRDCs during a conference call with DOH official Beth Gnozzio.

Sources say they have been given two reasons for this. One is based on the slippery-slope notion that since providers are approved by the state to provide services, they are under contract with the state and to disagree with the state would be a conflict of interest (I suddenly feel like I’m writing about the Soviet Union). The second reason would be funny were it not so sleazy: This reason says since providers are paid to provide services to their clients, supporting their clients request for continued services would be self-serving and again, a conflict of interest. 

It seems to me that this is one of those occasions where facts and reason have little effect, at least not on the decision making of the DOH. The notion that being approved by the state precludes providers from supporting their clients would, I suppose, mean that doctors, psychologists and social workers, all licensed by the state, would be precluded from supporting their clients and patients.

Using the fact providers are paid for their work as a reason to stop them from supporting their clients would, I again suppose, mean that a doctor recommending treatment for his or her patient should not support the patient when an insurance company seeks to deny treatment because the doctor is getting paid for his or her work.

It seems to me we are witnessing institutional corruption.

You can be sure of one thing, more people will talk, more facts will come out into the light of day and, when they do, they will find their way to the pages of this blog.

The DOH and others would be well advised to pay close attention to Launcelot’s words in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice when he said, “but at length the truth will out.”

And it will.

 

Need More Stress in Your Life?

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So let’s say you wake up one morning and it hits you, you just don’t have enough stress and anxiety in your life. What to do. What to do. Answer? Try buying a house.

We did. And all indications are the deal has fallen through. Why, you ask? Because we made the mistake of thinking all the people involved were born and raised on planet earth. Not true.

A few things became clear to me as we went through this process. First, I am convinced that banks are purposely keeping the housing market in bad shape so they can blame it on the badly needed financial regulations that recently went into law. The bank’s will whine and say, Hey, the regulations did it. They pour funds into the pockets of those in congress, primarily Republicans it seems, and they hope and pray, congress will undue the regulations (which would be an utter disaster) so they could go back to gouging and ripping off people left and right and lead us down the path to yet another recession.

We heard of one instance where a fellow wanted to buy a house for $200,000. His annual salary is in comfortable excess of $100,000 and he had $80,000 to put down. He was denied because three years earlier his ex-wife missed two mortgage payments on a house they’d owned. My closest friend Michael is a Marine who lost his legs in Vietnam. His bank records clearly show the disability money coming in from the VA. Didn’t matter. The bank still asked him to produce documentation proving he’s a disable vet.

And then, of course, there are the bizarre and, some might say, predatory policies of a number of banks. For example, let’s say your credit score is 659, not too bad. And the bank tells you as long as the credit score is 640 or above, they’re happy. So you sit back in your easy chair, take a sip of coffee or tea, and allow yourself to feel good. Not so fast. The bank applies its algorithm which automatically takes 20 points off your credit score. You be under 640.

At least now I know the word algorithm is Latin for We’re gonna rip you off!

Like I said, looking to add some stress in your life? Try buying a house.

It’s the Ethnic Cleansing, Stupid: Part II

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Max unfolds his Daily News for the umpteenth time and says, “They’re cutting all the subsidies.”

“Yankees lost again,”  Mort says, seeing the sports headline.

Martha looks at Mort, then Max, says, “They don’t care my brother. They’re denying services and cutting subsidies all over the place.”

Young woman twirling her coffee cup on the table top says, “This one dude on the waiver had to move, landlord needed the house for family, something like that, and because he stayed with a friend for a few weeks till he found his next place, they fucked him out of his rent and utility subsidies.”

Dolly says, “Where’s all the money going?”

Max folds his Daily News and slips it under his right arm, presses it tight against his chest. “The rent and utility subsidy is state money. Some of it’s going to Feeney.”

“The messianic little shit,” Martha says. “He’s still bullshittin’ planet earth about his college degrees, D-O-H doesn’t give a shit.”

“Brain Injury Association doesn’t either. You didn’t hear a peep out of them when his bullshit degrees became public,” Max says. “But that ain’t even the point. Think about this. They all march around saying how much they give a shit about us, but what happens. They’re throwin’ people off the waiver left and right, sending them into the streets with no housing help claiming they have no money, but they sign a contract  that’s throw’n more’n a quarter million state money to that asshole Feeney. You imagine how many folks could get housing help with that money?”

Dolly, tearing up again, says, “The fix is in.”