Category Archives: New York State Department of Health

We Are Not Children, the Assault on CDR & Fighting Segregation

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I must’ve forgot to read the paper or watch the news  that day.  What day, you ask? The day the universe decided that if an adult has a disability he or she reverts to age three and, on top of that, morphs into a liar and because of this, forfeits their rights be treated with respect. Not surprisingly, the loss of respect translates into another loss, our rights, including our right to live in the most integrated setting.

One again, people are fighting against segregation and the dehumanization of people – like me – who live with a disability.

Right now, for instance, people with disabilities are under assault in Monroe County New York because a county executive named Maggie Brooks issued a rather sleazy and disingenuous directive that ends a contract with the prestigious non-profit Center for Disability Rights and, as a result, creates carnage in the lives of people with disabilities and, coincidentally (not!), looks to add money to the coffers of for-profit companies.

On the individual and community fronts, people with disabilities are almost habitually treated as if they are dishonest little children who barely have the right to call themselves human beings.

The assault on our right to respect and equality is both global and individual. As the several thousand regular readers of this blog know, I have to move to a new home. There is a subsidy in place that helps me with rent. It will transfer to my new home (once it is found) but, were there to be a gap between my leaving this home and finding a new one, I would not be able to retain the subsidy. Recently my current landlord called me to tell me someone from the New York State Department of Health had called them to ask when I was moving.

First, the person from the DOH does not have a signed release from me and may well have violated the HIPPA law by talking to my landlord in the first place. Second, I am being treated as if I am a liar. Not good. This incident with me is simply a small appendage of the kind of abuse people with disabilities in this country endure day in and day out.

We are all responsible for supporting each others equal rights. I would urge you to visit the CDR site and do all you can to support them. By supporting their rights, you support your own.

Oh, it should not surprise you to learn I’ve filed a complaint in response to the call made to my landlord. However, it would be both wrong and highly inaccurate to condemn the NY DOH as a whole for the actions of one person. There are some remarkably wonderful and dedicated people in the DOH.

Feeney Again: Understatements & Reasons

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An understatement: New York State brain injury survivors and their families will be up arms if Timothy J. Feeney and his staff have any involvement in the Statewide Neurobehavioral Project; a project designed to help providers of services under the Traumatic Brain Injury Waiver. In fact, if there were an Olympic event for understatements and you uttered the preceding sentence, you might just win gold.

I was asked recently if I knew if a contract had been signed that would bring Feeney back.  While I’ve heard from an array of sources that Feeney and his minions are scampering around claiming they are under contract, I do not think the contract has been signed. If you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ll recall that for 15 years while working under contract with the department of health, Feeney misrepresented his educational credentials to New York State Officials, people with brain injuries of all ages, children with disabilities, educational institutions, and healthcare providers. It may be that he did so in courts as well. An avenue of investigative interest for sure. 

If you think having the bogusness of his credentials exposed in 2008 by this writer dissuaded him from continuing the ruse, you’re wrong. Feeney continued and continues to present himself as having a PhD and a Masters Degree. The truth?  He has neither. Feeney was issued these “degrees” by a business called Greenwich University; a dip0loma mill. “Degrees” from Greenwich are not valid anywhere in the world.

Let me just say that I’ve known people with real doctorates and real masters degrees and my father taught at Columbia University and John Jay College of Criminal Justice. People pour their blood, sweat and tears into getting these degrees.

If I am right that the contract has not been signed, I believe there are several reasons for this. Most will not surprise you – one might.

  • First, and likely the least surprising, the whole country is looking to conserve Medicaid dollars to the extreme (keep in mind Feeney was essentially being paid with your tax dollars).
  • Second, everyone knows that allowing Feeney and those linked to Feeney back into the fold would be a clear statement to survivors of brain injuries, their loved ones that they are second rate citizens. Why else anyone allow someone who misrepresents his credentials and those who know this and support him back into the fold? It would be like asking a geologist to oversee neurosurgery across the state (my apologies to the geologists among us).
  • Third, if Feeney were again part of the neurobehavioral project and investigations resulted in criminal and or civil charges against him down the road, how would anyone look if they’d entered into a contract with him, directly or indirectly, having been fully informed of his misrepresentations before doing so?! Wouldn’t any parties falling into this category find themselves on the receiving end of some fairly zealous and plausible litigation?
  • However, there is a fourth reason, and this is the one that might surprise you. While the public at large is quick to condemn government agencies simply because they are government agencies, such condemnations are not always accurate. All indications are that those in the New York State Department of Health genuinely do care about the quality of services being provided to survivors of brain injury in the state. And that is good news for us all.

 

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The TBI Waiver: Seeking a Household Unified

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New York State’s Traumatic Brain Injury Waiver came into existence in 1995. Essentially it is an admirable Medicaid program that offers a set of services that help people with brain injuries remain in the community and, not incidentally, costs far less money than keeping people in nursing homes.

Recently I am hearing some deeply disturbing  things, including, but not at all limited to, the following:

    • Survivors of brain injury are being told their services will need to be cut by contract employees of the New York State Department of Health who are not experts in the field of neurology and therefore would appear to be making decisions they do not appear qualified to make.
    • There is a service offered by the waiver called Independent Living Skills Training. According to the DOH’s waiver manual ILST “services may include assessment, training, and supervision of, or assistance to, an individual with issues related to self-care, medication management, task completion, communication skills, interpersonal skills, socialization, sensory/motor skills, mobility, community transportation skills, reduction/elimination of maladaptive behaviors, problem solving skills, money management, pre-vocational skills and skills to maintain a household.  ILST services are individually designed to improve the ability of the participant to live as independently as possible in the community. ILST may be provided in the participant’s home or in the community. This service is provided on an individual basis.”          However, I am hearing that survivors are having their ILST services cut against their will. Now I am sure that were one to look closely at those receiving ILST services there may very well be cases where services should be reduced, or stopped altogether. However, the problem, and it is a potentially dangerous one, is that the decisions to cut these services appear to again being made by people not qualified to make them.
    • There is another waiver service called CIC, Community Integration Counseling. CIC is essentially talk therapy designed to help a person living with a brain injury come to terms with living life with brain damage. Now I am hearing some survivors are being told to turn to the mental health community for their counseling. Again, dangerous. A brain injury is an injury, not an illness. Period.
    • I have also had some reports that some New York DOH contract employees are saying the waiver was never meant to be a permanent support for people with brain injuries. First of all, that is disingenuous, secondly, brain injuries do not entirely heal, and there are lifelong deficits some of us live with that will require support for us to remain in the community.

Now, I would be wrong to villainize the New York DOH as a whole. Like all government agencies that are under pressure to cut costs. All the more reason they deserve advocates standing with them against any and all forces that continue to put the quality of lives and the lives themselves at risk. Therefore all parties need to be at the table: the New York DOH, the Kahrmann Advocacy Coalition, the New York State Brain Injury Association and the Providers Alliance, a group of  40 or more waiver service providers.

Everyone involved in regulating and providing services as well as advocacy for people with brain injury should be at the table looking to remedy things. No one party, including the DOH, should be made or choose to go it alone.

Lincoln was right when he said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” A household unified can stand and then some.

 

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Feeney, the White House, Editors, Elected Officials & Criminal Investigations

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If New York State enters into a contract allowing Timothy J. Feeney to once again impact the lives of survivors of brain injury and those who provide services to them, several things will take place. Before I get to them, let’s review some of the facts.

  • Fact: For more 15 years now Timothy J. Feeney has misrepresented his educational credentials to New York State Officials, people with brain injuries of all ages, children with disabilities, educational institutions and healthcare providers.
  • Fact: Feeney’s so-called PhD and so-called Masters Degree were issued by Greenwich University, a now defunct diploma mill whose degrees are not recognized as valid anywhere in the world.
  • Fact: The New York State Department of Health now knows Feeney has misrepresented and continues to misrepresent his credentials.
  • Fact: STIC (the Southern Tier Independence Living Center), the provider likely to be awarded the contract and give the work to Feeney and his people, has been fully informed of Feeney’s past and present misrepresentations.
  • Fact: STIC and the New York State Department of Health have been informed that Feeney is under contract with the Fort Ann Central School District in New York’s Washington County to work with children (children!) with disabilities , where he is again misrepresenting himself in the process. Fort Ann has been informed as well and has continued working with Feeney; so much for putting the children first.
  • Fact: If Feeney is part of the contract he will be getting paid in taxpayer dollars, Medicaid dollars which means your money and mine will be paying a dishonest individual.

If New York State enters into any contract which allows Feeney to be part of the Statewide Neurobehavioral Project, an entity that wields enormous power over the lives of survivors of brain injury and their families as well as those who provide services to them, then New York and STIC are making it clear they have no respect for people with brain injuries. Why on earth should those of us who live with brain injuries have to deal with someone who lies about who they are? Someone who is unqualified?

And what was the dysfunctional thinking and the behind the scenes backslapping that went on that led to the decision to contract with someone everyone knows is a fraud? What did not go on behind the scenes was any real concern for those of us who live with brain injuries, our loved ones, and the honest healthcare providers that do give a damn. What did not go on was any respect whatsoever for the hard-earned taxpayer dollars that will pay Feeney and his crew.

Back to what  will take place should Feeney and his people be involved in the contract.

  • Letters will be written to the editors of all daily newspapers in New York State and neighboring states detailing the actions of the State and Feeney and STIC.
  • Letters will be sent out to a wide array of State and Federal officials, including President Obama, Healthcare Secretary Sibelius, as well as various members of law enforcement given that historically Feeney has interacted with the judicial system again misrepresenting himself in the process.
  • Last, but by no means least, letters will be sent to CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services), the Federal Agency the oversees the spending of Medicaid and Medicare dollars in all states, and an agency that will not be pleased to here New York has knowingly entered into a contract with someone they know is misrepresenting his credentials.

The ball is in the court of the State and STIC. We’ll see what happens.

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Caring for Appearances and $ Only

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I have lived with a brain injury for more than 25 years now as a result of being held up and shot in the head in 1984. Since then I have met people who care and don’t about those of us who live with brain injuries. I’ve also met those successfully manipulate many, myself included, into believing they do care when in fact they don’t.

I can tell you from firsthand experience that those who work for the Brain Injury Association of New York State care with all their hearts and souls. They have helped me through some tough times over the years and I can honestly say I love the people who work there. I am proud to be a member and would tell anyone who lives in New York they are making the world a better place by becoming a member.

I know people in the New York State Department of health who care with all their might. I recently met with two DOH official who care and then some, so be careful not to write off government agencies and or employees as being absent compassion and caring. Moreoever, I know healthcare providers in my state and other states care with all their might.

I also know healthcare providers who don’t care. Who see us as a means of making money and or as a means to inflating their dysfunctional egos by seeking to and, in too many cases, succeeding in controlling our every move.

In my years of working with people with brain injuries I have worked with two company owners who both put on quite a show of caring. One, who has since passed away, I’ve come to realize really did care. Sadly, very sadly in fact, his personal demons got in the way of his acting on his compassion in a healthy way. The second owner continues to put on quite a show of caring but in fact continues to operate a program in which participants rights are too often not respected.

I was forced out of the latter owner’s place because I would not be quiet when I saw people with brain injuries being denied their rights. Do I hate this owner or the one referenced earlier? No. I hate the latter’s behavior and feel sorry for the arrogance that blinds him to the fact life happens to him too whether he likes it or not – just like the rest of us. Were he wounded in life, I’d help him.

Anyway, one day at a time.

I’ll continue to expose those who misstep on the human rights front and support those who don’t, and, thankfully, there are many people in the latter group.