Category Archives: BIANYS

BIANYS ignores its members rights & more

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The Brain Injury Association of NY State will not support the rights of brain-injured New Yorkers to be informed of the results of the complaints they file through the joint BIANYS-NYS Department of Health TBI Waiver Complaint line. The DOH refuses to tell complainants the results of their complaints. BIANYS President Marie Cavallo and BIANYS Executive Director Judith Avner have chosen to ignore a September 14 email sent to them by this writer on behalf of the Kahrmann Advocacy Coalition, the largest advocacy group for brain injury survivors in the state, which read exactly as follows:

Please note that many are copied and blind-copied on this email, including quite a few BIANYS members who are told by you that BIANYS is the leading advocacy organization in the state.

We have one specific question and would like a direct answer to this specific question. Anything less and we will continue to conclude BIANYS does not believe TBI Waiver complainants should be given the full results of their complaints.

Does BIANYS believe TBI Waiver complainants should be given the full results of the complaints they file through the TBI Waiver complaint line current answered by BIANYS staff? Yes or NO

Keep in mind, a large number of people, including your members, are watching this email and awaiting your answer.

Peter Kahrmann, KAC Founder

Last I knew BIANYS had less than 400 members, however, a significant number of those members also belong to KAC, including me. So, it is a statement of fact to say BIANYS refusal to even answer the email is, once again, another example of BIANYS (which falsely claims to be the leading advocacy organization in the state) ignoring  the rights its own members and the rights of all brain-injured New Yorkers and their families.

So far, the BIANYS board of directors has done nothing to address this.

NYS Brain Injury Association & Council stand against rights of brain-injured New Yorkers

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New York State’s Brain Injury Association and Traumatic Brain Injury Services Coordinating Council are not interested in defending the rights of brain-injured New Yorkers.

  • Brain-injured New Yorkers who file complaints related to the TBI Waiver are never informed of the results by the state’s Department of Health. Both BIANYS and the TBISCC are well aware of this; their refusal to address the matter reflects their position. 
  • Waiver providers are not allowed by the DOH to advocate for brain-injured New Yorkers at Medicaid Fair Hearings; both BIANYS and the TBISCC are well aware of this; their refusal to address the matter reflects their position.
  • The assault on housing subsidies being inflicted by the DOH on brain-injured New Yorkers, a campaign that puts some at risk for homelessness and threatens the lives of others.  In one instance a federal court judge had to step in protect the life of one brain-injured senior from the DOH Campaign. Both BIANYS and the TBISCC are well aware of the DOH housing-cuts campaign; their silence on the matter reflects this position.

Both groups have been asked repeatedly to address all these  issues and while the TBISCC gives intermittent lip-service to the Medicaid Fair Hearings question, BIANYS – which proclaims itself the leading advocacy organization in the state for brain-injured New Yorkers – remains stone silent. At the beginning of yesterday’s council meeting Judith Avner, assistant chair of the council and executive director of BIANYS, said the council needed to hear what the actual DOH policy was regarding fair hearings. The DOH has for months been saying they’re working on a policy. One might think Ms. Avner’s statement was  reason for hope but when DOH official MaryAnn Anglin arrived at the meeting later no council member, including Ms. Avner, asked her about the fair hearing policy.

It seems one has a better chance of nailing Jell-O to the wall than getting the council to offer the DOH  proposals that have anything whatsoever to do with the TBI Waiver.  It had been proposed by this writer on behalf of the Kahrmann Advocacy Coalition the the council formally recommend that all DOH staff, contract and otherwise, be required to take training in brain injury now offered by BIANYS. DOH staff and contract staff involved with brain injury receive no mandatory training in the brain or in brain injury. While BIANYS is not the advocacy organization it claims to be, it is, without question, the best educational resource for understanding brain injury in the state. The council can’t even make this recommendation!

The DOH’s intentions are clearly sinister. One can only conclude that the reason for blocking waiver providers from supporting their brain-injured clients at Fair Hearings is to undercut the client’s ability to prevail, thus making it easier for the DOH to kick them off the waiver. One can only conclude the reason complainants are not given the results of their complaints is a reflection of the DOH covering its, well, ass. One can only conclude the reason the DOH is kicking as many people off the waiver and out of their homes as possible is to save money, even though this literally risks human life.

The silence of BIANYS and the TBISCC tells us both groups agree with the DOH, at least the leadership of both groups does.

When this writer spoke during the public comment period at yesterday’s meeting and told the council that there are brain-injured New Yorkers whose lives are at risk because of the actions of the DOH and the silence of BIANYS and the council, council chair Michael Kaplen responded by immediately adjourning the meeting.

BIANYS and TBISCC leadership needs to either step up or step out, and soon.

Memo to BIANYS board and TBISCC members

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The leadership of my state’s Brain Injury Association (BIANYS), Traumatic Brain Injury Services Coordinating Council (TBISCC) and the Department of Health are all fully aware of the damage being inflicted on the lives of brain injury survivors throughout the state by the aforementioned DOH and, because of their silence (complicity), the brain injury association and the council.

The BIANYS board of directors and the members of the TBISCC need to dump their “heads of state” and get the bows of both ships pointed in the right direction – a direction that really does advocate for brain-injured New Yorkers and, in the case of BIANYS and others,  not simply use those of us with brain injuries to fill their coffers and inflate their egos.

This September 12 the TBISCC will meet and have some presentation from Mt. Sinai Medical Center (which is all well and good but history shows that all the presentations given to the council over the years have not translated into a single proposal by the council to the DOH; feel free to email me and I will send you all the council minutes if you find this hard to believe) and then they will discuss a concussion bill which is important but they will not say a thing about the brain-injured New Yorkers having their TBI Waiver services cut or being discharged off the waiver altogether, nor will they say a word about waiver participants who are having their housing subsidies cut or ended putting some at risk of homelessness and death. A federal judge protected one life when he stopped the DOH from throwing a brain-injured senior out of her home and asking her for $24,000 in the process.

BIANYS and the TBISCC have been dead silent on all this, yet on September 12th there council chair Michael Kaplen will sit in all his pompousness and there Judith Avner the BIANYS executive director will sit in all her feigned righteousness and both will claim straight-faced to care about those of us who live with brain injuries. If either cared they would not be silent about the matters mentioned in this particular missive, but they are. The DOH’s Maribeth Gnozzio may or may not be there, but if the DOH actually cared about brain-injured New Yorkers Gnozzio would not even be in the picture. All three of these folks seem to be tiny-minded narcissistic control freaks and in the long run, are no more important than bird droppings on a windshield (my apology to the bird population).

The challenge contained in this blog piece is to BIANYS board members and council members. Do your leaders truly represent where you yourself stand when it comes to brain injury survivors? Are you really comfortable with the fact neither group holds the DOH accountable nor does either group live up to its mandate? Are you truly comfortable with the silence both groups exhibit in the face of the DOH’s brutality to those you claim to care about?

For example, I would urge BIANYS board members to carefully review the ebits the organization sends via email to its members. Look at the advocacy section in each and you will not find one example of BIANYS advocating for anything other than giving its support to the concussion bill.  I would urge council members to ask for and review council minutes over the years and see if you can find a single example of a proposal by the council to the DOH. Email me at peterkahrmann@gmail.com and I will send them to you. I will also keep your identity private unless directed otherwise. I’ve already talked with some in both groups.

I would urge members of both groups not to fear Avner’s anger nor Kaplen’s for that matter. Kaplen’s bellicose behavior would be rather funny were it not so disrespectful to colleagues and those he claims to care about. Hell, there was a time Kaplen represented me in a lawsuit against the state’s Crime Victims Board which, at the time, was trying to stop reimbursement for any and all phone therapy sessions for crime victims. Kaplen will claim he was the only attorney willing to help which was not true, he offered to help and in the process and tried to get the state to pay him $500 an hour for his efforts (he was helped free of charge in those efforts by others, by the way), money that had the judge not rejected his request, would likely have been taxpayer dollars. I asked Kaplen to speak with me first when the ruling came in so we could discuss how to release it to the media.

Can you guess how I found out the judge ruled in our favor? From a reporter, a reporter Kaplen had called and bragged to. It was then I called and left Kaplen a voicemail message explaining that he should feel a sense of joy that he had not taken this liberty, say, 25 years earlier, because in those days I would’ve simply taken him outside and kicked his ass.

While there will always be Kaplens and Avners and Gnozzios among us, there will always be Kings, Mandelas, Gandhis, Wiesels, Wiesenthals, Darrows, Greers, Steinems, Father Mychal Judges, and more. The question, therefore, is this: are there any of the mindset reflected in this latter group that are on the BIANYS board and the council? If there are, then the days of Kaplen and Avner should be short in number.

Is the Kaplen-Avner Show the problem?

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It is revealing but not surprising that the New York’s Brain Injury Association – not the state’s Traumatic Brain Injury Services Coordinating Council (TBISCC) or Department of Health – is announcing what the next TBISCC meeting will be about.  It is no secret that the leadership of all three groups are, figuratively speaking, in bed together. It is also no coincidence that Michael Kaplen and Judith Avner lead the council and both, until recently, led BIANYS. Avner is still the BIANYS executive director.

According to the BIANYS website, “The September meeting will be dedicated to a discussion of the Concussion Management and Awareness Act (S. 3953-B) which passed the legislature at the end of the session. Discussion will focus on recommendations on the implementation of that legislation to the Commissioner of the Department of Health.” The passage of the act is, without question, a positive step forward. For the council to provide recommendations is all well and good and certainly appropriate. How is it, though, that BIANYS knows, before it is a announced

It is also no secret that little if any evidence exists of BIANYS or TBISCC leadership ever taking the DOH to task for some of its rather brutal treatment of brain injury survivors and, not incidentally, its rather brutal treatment those who provide services to brain injury survivors. New York’s Brain Injury Providers Alliance, for example, has, for some time now, been rightfully pleading with the DOH for a statewide uniform billing policy and they are still waiting.

What is not appropriate and what is an act of disloyalty pure and simple to New York’s brain-injured individuals is the fact TBISCC and BIANYS leadership will do anything but hold DOH accountable.

Some examples:

  • The council was asked to look into the blatant injustice of the state’s TBI Waiver complaint line managed jointly by the DOH and BIANYS. Complainants are never told the outcomes of their complaints, a lack of due process by any measure.
  • With only one or two exceptions, the council has tip-toed around the fact the DOH has told TBI Waiver providers they cannot side with complainants at Medicaid Fair Hearings. BIANYS has completely avoided addressing this issue.
  • The TBISCC and BIANYS remain dead silent even though a recent article in the Albany Times Union  and this blog have reported DOH’s effort to use any excuse under the sun to discontinue housing subsidies for brain-brain injured individuals even when doing so would leave them homeless and jeopardize their lives. 

One question that needs to be asked is this. Is the Kaplen-Avner show the problem? A step in the right direction would be for  Kaplen and Avner to step down, then we would find out.

 

The BIANYS Journey of Nope Gala

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“The Brain Injury Association of New York State is the premier support and advocacy organization for New Yorkers with brain injury and their families,” according to the letter. One would be hard pressed to find a statement less true than that.

The letter is a BIANYS fund raising letter asking everyone to donate money to assist them in their “important work” at the fourth annual Journey of Hope Gala (renamed above for accuracy’s sake) at some pricey location in New York City. BIANYS should stop with the spin and be straight about what work they do, and, equally important, what work they don’t do. Perhaps when the authors of the letter, Gala co-chairs Rosemarie diSalvo and Bradley Van Nostrand learn BIANYS is not the advocacy organization it wants everyone to think it is they’ll pause and rethink their involvement.

Perhaps too, when actresses Lorraine Bracco and Penny Marshall, both of whom, according to one website “have stocked the (gala’s) silent auction with celebrity memorabilia from their friends and several of their friends” learn they are supporting an organization that isn’t what it says it is, they’ll re-think their involvement. After all, BIANYS support for New York’s brain-injured individuals and their families is anemic at best. Three Albany-based BIANYS support groups came to an end recently because of BIANYS refusal to reimburse support group leaders for their out-of-pocket expenses and, in the Albany case, a rejection of the pleadings for help from support group members, made up of, you guessed it, the very brain-injured individuals and family members BIANYS says it cares about. 

While BIANYS claims it can’t afford to reimburse its volunteers for their expenses, lets review the cost of attending the gala, as an individual or in one of several sponsor levels which lands you extra tickets (hold onto your hat).

  • Gala Ticket $300
  • Patron Sponsor: $400 (1 ticket)
  • Friend Sponsor: $1,000 (2 tickets)
  • Leadership Sponsor: $2,500 (6 tickets)
  • Bronze Sponsor: $7,500 (8 tickets)
  • Silver Sponsor: $10,000 (10 tickets)
  • Gold Sponsor: $15,000 (20 tickets)
  • Platinum Sponsor: $25,000 (30 tickets)

I wonder how many brain-injured individuals on fixed incomes and their families will be going.

Enough said.