Category Archives: TBI Waiver

Is It NY DOH Retaliation?

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Those close to me are beginning to think, with some justification it seems, that the New York State Department of Health is not only purposely dragging it’s feet signing off on a life alert and some assistive technology its own RRDC has approved for me, but is, in fact, preparing to boot me off the state’s traumatic brain injury waiver.

The RRDC or Regional Resource Development Center is the contract employee for the DOH that oversees waiver providers in a specific region.

I have not fully drawn this conclusion myself, but I am watching matters very, very, very closely.

It is curious to me that now that I am about to move from one region of the state to another, it appears I may have to qualify for the waiver all over again. It reminds me of times when my closest friend Michael, who lost both his legs in Vietnam, would get a notice from the VA announcing a reduction in his VA benefits. Michael would drive in, point at his legs and say, “Are they growing?”

What has some close to me horrified is their concern that the DOH is, if not willfully, knowingly placing me at risk. I live alone in a rural area with a brain injury, asthma, a heart condition, agoraphobia, PTSD and an on again off again fight with depression. Despite repeated emails to the DOH I can’t get an answer  to why the hold up. It seems to me one of two things (or both come to think of it) are true here. This is retaliation against an advocate or this is s systemic problem and what I am experiencing is being inflicted on brain injury survivors across the state. I’d rather it be the former frankly.

The first request for the life alert and white noise machines was made last March and the final paperwork was in by June and then, of course, no one at DOH mentioned I needed a letter from my MD and now that has been taken care of.

But why retaliation? There are an array of reasons perhaps. I have not been quiet about their utterly irresponsible decision to enter into a contract knowing full well it will bring an unqualified, dishonest bully back into the lives of brain injury survivors, their loved and providers. It is also my understanding they are not particularly fond of having their actions revealed in this blog and perhaps too they are not pleased about a recent grievance I filed against a specific RRDS in the Capitol Region.

In talking to this RRDS about the lag in time for my assistive technology she snidely said, “Well, Peter, you can waste my time by talking on the phone, or, if you really need the life alert like you say you do and you really need the white noise machines like you say you do, why don’t you just hang up, call your doctor and get a letter?” To have someone, anyone, imply that you are somehow feigning the need for a life alert or any form of assistive technology is beyond despicable.

I filed two complaints against this person. One through Sunnyview Rehabilitation Hospital and one through the DOH. Sunnyview sent me a very informative and responsible letter detailing the outcome of their investigation and the DOH not only has yet to tell me the outcome of their investigation, they’ve promoted this individual to the position of Lead RRDS.

There will be more in this blog on this matter. I will not remain silent when the health and safety and equality of others are placed at risk and  I will not be silent when my health and safety and equality are placed at risk.

On purpose or not, that is exactly what’s happening.

The Hottest Places in Hell

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On the one hand you have New York State Department of Health officials who will proclaim their commitment to making sure brain injury survivors in New York receive the best services possible under the TBI Medicaid Waiver. But the DOH signs a contract with Southern Tier Independence Center in Binghamton knowing full well STIC will hand the work to a clinical predator like Tim Feeney who prances about proclaiming he has college degrees he doesn’t have.

Then you have STIC, the Southern Tier Independence Center and their executive director Maria Dibble who would no doubt proclaim their loyalty to people with disabilities, yet Dibble and STIC have no problem giving work to a man they know lies about his credentials to the very people STIC and Dibble claim to care about.

At least the DOH has enough respect for a consumer led advocacy coalition to sit down with us and while some of their position related to the Feeney debacle is, in a word, indefensible, there are other things the DOH is doing that are admirable. Not so STIC and Dibble and sure as hell not so Feeney, all of whom simply ignore requests for answers for the consumer led advocacy coalition.

I’m in the early strides of penning a book about my experience as a brain injury survivor as well as my experience working in the field. Feeney and his enablers are certainly great examples of yet another reality dramatically wrong with the health care system. Just as troubling are those who go along with the ruse. NYSARC again hiring Feeney for a presentation knowing damn well he is a fake.

Soon a round of interviews will begin, with elected officials, law enforcement officials, DOH officials and many more. Meanwhile, it appears time to do all I can to bring the media in on this. In addition to inflicting Feeney and his enablers on men and women (and for Feeney, children too) with disabilities, there is more than a quarter million in state dollars being paid to the contract that pays Feeney and his crew.

For any advocacy group to not take a public stand against this means, by default, they are standing for it.

As Dante Alighieri said, “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality.”

 

TBI Waiver’s New Beginning Maybe – Part II

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The New York State Department of Health deserves enormous credit for its consistent willingness to interact with the Kahrmann Advocacy Coalition. Any notion some of us  may have had that there would be resistance to interacting with us was quickly erased by DOH officials, and in  discussions with KAC members subsequent to my  recent meeting with DOH officials, the gratitude is very real.

Assurances that Timothy J. Feeney’s will not have the contractual authority he had under previous contracts (there were three five-year contracts, one with STIC who subcontracted the work to Feeney and two directly with Feeney’s company)  were deeply appreciated, especially since DOH officials fully acknowledge that two of Feeney’s college degrees are not valid (he does not have a valid masters degree or a valid PhD).

There are some things that need to kept front and center and in focus. While it is true that the DOH is entering into a contract with STIC (Southern Tier Independence Center in Binghamton, NY) and not with Timothy J. Feeney’s companies, School and Community Support Services Inc. and School and Community Support Services (one is for profit, one is not-for-profit), the DOH entered into the agreement knowing full well STIC would be giving  Feeney they work and that Feeney will be misrepresenting his credentials when he does the work the contract calls for.

One of the things that has been again made clear to me over the past 24 hours is this. Survivors of brain injuries and their families and quite a few providers are disgusted that anyone would knowingly enter into a contract knowing the contract’s deliverables will be provided by someone who will be clinically misleading the very people he is supposed to be helping.

What would officials say when  the mother of a brain injury survivor who asks, “Why is it okay for my son to be treated by someone who says he’s a doctor when he’s not?” Would anyone actually say, That’s not the point, his educational credentials are not the point, the contract deliverables don’t involve that.

What would they say to the wife who asks, “How is it that the state pays a couple of hundred thousand dollars to someone knowing that Feeney does have the credentials he says he does? Would they be okay if he was treating their husband?”

What would they say to the Vietnam Veteran who said, “I’ve been through enough shit in life, they expect me to listen to this fraud and they’re paying him?”

These are real questions from real people. They deserve answers. The answer they feel they are getting is that they do not deserve the best. Giving someone clinical power in the lives of others knowing that he or she is willfully misleading them is inexcusable.

However, it is in a very real way reassuring to all to hear that Feeney will not have the power he did before. And, it was clear to me that all the officials that I met with will not tolerate any intimidation tactics whether they be aimed at consumers, families or providers. Officials made a good point too when they said people have to report these tactics, file complaints. They were clear about this, and I believe them.

The First Brain Injury Summit – A Step in the Right Direction

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While there are some difficult realities surrounding New York State’s Traumatic Brain Injury Waiver, all attendees at the first Brain Injury Summit held in Albany this week agree that the waiver is far more a blessing than it is a curse. Nearly 3,000 adults who live with brain injuries live in the community because of the waiver, and that is good news. There are also no plans to end the TBI Waiver. Deep breath all.

The summit was recorded and once I figure out how to post it online in its entirety, it will be posted. Transparency is critically important.

The attendees at this week’s two-hour summit, hosted by the Kahrmann Advocacy Coalition, pledged in no uncertain terms to work together to address the challenges now faced by waiver participants, providers and, not incidentally, by the New York State Department of  Health which deals with the perpetual pressures faced by any regulatory agency, particularly during hard economic times.

Those who attended the summit were (in alphabetical order) :

  • Marie Cavallo, president, Brain Injury Association of NY State
  • Bill Combes, NY State Commission on Quality of Care
  • Karina Davis-Corr, Providers Alliance
  • Peter S. Kahrmann, Kahrmann Advocacy Coalition
  • Mark Kissinger, Deputy Commissioner, NY State Department of Health
  • Sandra Ryden, Kahrmann Advocacy Coalition
  • Mary Seeley, acting Executive Director, Brain Injury Association of NY State
  • Joe Vollaro, Providers Alliance

While I can’t and won’t speak for the others at this meeting, I can tell you that discussion was wide ranging, direct, deeply respectful on all fronts, and serious. It was and is not lost on any of us that there are real financial pressures on everyone that are not of our own making.

I did say that they number one complaint I hear from people who live with brain injuries (and people with disabilities of all kinds) is we get treated like we are children, and in some cases like we are barely human. Part of the reason for this is a rather global lack of understanding about the brain and brain injury thus putting the most well-intentioned among us in the untenable position of having to make choices and decisions while not fully understanding the role the brain injury is playing in the person they are working with.

I also said, and all agreed, that there were no villains at the table, and this includes the DOH, the most commonly villainized of all. The DOH is like any other large entity. Some of its workers are great, some aren’t. 

As a result of the summit the Providers Alliance will begin to meet with the DOH at a cadence both parties agree on, and that is good news all around.

I am not going to go into a slew of details at this point. But I can tell you this, and if you know me or know of me you’ll know this is true, I genuinely felt everyone at the table truly gave a damn. If I did not feel this way, I would tell you.

I would be remiss if I did not also mention that I raised the subject of Timothy J. Feeney being only “moments” away from being part of the neurobehavioral project again, a disgraceful and despicable reality no matter how you hold it up to the light. However, the “hands” that manipulated the course that is poised to allow a clinical predator like Feeney back into the mix were not at the table. It is not yet clear who pulled the strings, but it will be. Trust me. It is just a matter of time.

One piece of Feeney-related good news that came to light at the summit is this: waiver providers are free to choose not to work with Feeney. Therefore, providers who do choose to work with him are, by default, acknowledging they don’t truly give a damn about the people they serve.

The next summit is scheduled for December 10, 2010.

 

Who Pressured NY DOH into Bringing Back a Clinical Predator?

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Someone must have pressured the New York State Department of Health to enter into a contract that allows a clinical predator back into the lives of brain injury survivors, their families and those who provide services to them. Some political favor or debt has called in, someone with some pull who clearly cares absolutely nothing about brain injury survivors.

I make this observation because it is the only thing that makes sense. There are some truly good people working at the DOH who really do care about brain injury survivors. But who among them (or anyone for that matter) can say with a straight face that they are comfortable with the department’s entering into a contract that allows Timothy J. Feeney, who by all accounts is nothing but a full-blown narcissist, back into the lives of those of us living with brain injuries.

There are some good people at the DOH and I dare say many would be forced to bite deep into their tongues in order to get themselves to say, “I think it is fine that someone who lies about his credentials to everyone provides services related to the TBI Waiver.” Don’t forget, Feeney and his company are already an approved provider of waiver services which makes one wonder what will be done about the obvious conflict of interest now that the clinical predators are back as the “neurobehavioral project.”  But Feeney doesn’t stop there. Let’s not forget that only this week Feeney was up in Washington County’s Fort Ann School District working with disabled children, never mind that school officials know his credentials are bogus. So much for putting children first.

A DOH official who  I will not name said the DOH has been assured by Maria Dibble, the executive director of the Southern Tier Independence Center, the recipient of the more than $250,000 contract that will hand the work to Feeney, that the provisions of the contract will be carried out in the highest professional manner. As presented, Ms. Dibble’s reassurance would actually be funny were it not so morally and clinically troubling – not too mention absent any relationship to  reality. How on earth can you provide quality services when you know the person providing them is lying about their credentials?

An email asking Ms. Dibble to explain STIC’s support for Feeney has gone unanswered.

Back to the question of the day. Who is pulling the strings? Is it solely a coincidence that Patricia Greene Gumson, a former DOH employee and Feeney supporter used to work at STIC? Sources have made it clear that both Ms. Gumson and current DOH employee Bruce Rosen had the reality of Feeney’s invalid college degrees brought to their attention and they did nothing about it.  There is no doubt that Gumson and Rosen did some admirable things over the years, no doubt at all. But this truth does not spare them accountability for supporting a clinical predator who likes to call himself “the angel of death” and has been known to be a bully. I’ve heard him refer to himself like this and the late Dr. Mark Ylvisaker often referenced Feeney’s penchant for this macabre moniker.

But back to the question at hand. Who pulled the strings for Feeney? To where or to whom does the corruption thread lead? One possible clue would be to watch which provider Feeney buddies up with.

Anyway, the truth will out.