Tag Archives: mark kissinger

Notes From an Advocate

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The last thing you encounter as an advocate is a shortage of dishonesty. It comes at you from every direction.

As readers of this blog know, the New York Department of Health has directed anywhere from eight to 18 agencies across the state to transfer brain injury survivors living in the community from their care even though many of the providers have adhered to all DOH requests, even though the lives of the survivors will be brutally disrupted and traumatized, and even though some survivors will likely find themselves back in nursing homes because there are no agencies in their area to pick up the slack, and even though the DOH has not talked to the survivors about this.

DOH Deputy Commissioner Mark Kissinger and his staff held  a telephone conference yesterday with the leadership of the TBISCC (Traumatic Brain Injury Service Coordinating Council). The TBISCC is headed by Michael Kaplen (former president of the Brain Injury Association of NY State and a man who has fought hard for the rights of brain injury survivors for years) and comprised of a group of people whose hearts and souls are committed to fact that all people living with brain injuries deserve a chance to reach their maximum level of independence. While I was not present at the meeting, I can tell you from firsthand experience that Kaplen and Council members advocate for survivors with all their might. So does the Brain Injury Association of NY State.

During this meeting Kissinger told the council that something along the lines of 63 brain injury survivors would have their lives disrupted by the DOH directive. He is misinformed or lying. Sources tell me more than 100 survivors in the New York City area alone will be effected by this and there is non-NYC provider faced with having to discharge 50 survivors. In other words, the number of brain injury survivors who will have their freedom of choice, meaning their independence ,meaning their rights as American citizens denied, is probably in the hundreds, if not more.

Yesterday morning I called Kissinger’s office and spoke to a person named Sheri. I told her that as head of the Kahrmann Advocacy Coalition I wanted to schedule a meeting with Kissinger and do so before we say, organize a sit-in in the lobby and bring the media. She said she would get back to me and she did, by email, later in the day, saying they were working on putting together the “phone conference” I requested with Kissinger. I wrote back reminding her – as if she needed reminding – that I did not ask for a phone conference, I asked for an in-person meeting.

As to why this is all happening? Here’s a thought. The DOH directive (see recent blog pieces for more complete explanation) will likely send quite a few people back into nursing homes. Given that some areas of the state will be left without agencies to provide community support staff, other survivors won’t be able to be discharged from nursing homes. Take these observations and connect them to this one; NY’s Nursing Home Transition Waiver is designed to allow people to leave nursing homes and return to life in the community. Is is possible this directive will short circuit that? If so, would it not be reasonable to ask if maybe the Nursing Home Lobby is behind all this?

Anyway, more notes to come. Keep the faith.

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NY Department of Health Betrays Health Care Providers & Brain Injury Survivors

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More than 60 people with disabilities will have their lives brutally disrupted and in many cases traumatized as a result of a New York Department of Health that would rather hide behind labels than respect the people it serves.

Sources say DOH Deputy Commissioner Mark Kissinger says agencies providing community support staff to more than 60 survivors of brain injuries will have to discharge their survivors to other agencies (against the wishes of the survivors themselves in many cases) because they are not Licensed Home Care Agencies. Never mind that a number of these agencies filed their applications as requested and they’ve yet to get a response because of a plodding bureaucracy they have no control over.

While Kissinger’s point sounds reasonable, it’s not. The facts reveal that reason – not to mention equal rights for people with disabilities – has nothing to do with it. Kissinger’s response to this is reportedly, Don’t you think these people should be with licensed home care agencies?  Sounds good, but his assertion is nothing more than a political shell game. He and the DOH know full well that these agencies have been providing effective care for years and the notion that survivors are somehow are risk is, in a good light, misinformed and, in a poor light, disingenuous.

Some background. In 2007 the DOH informed companies providing community support staff to people with brain injuries through the TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) Waiver – a form of Medicaid reimbursement – that they needed to become Licensed Home Care Agencies. Keep in mind that at the time, some of these companies had been effectively providing community support staff for more than a decade. The New York TBI Waiver began in 1995.  Nevertheless, the burdensome blanket of bureaucracy was draped over the providers and so many filed their applications, with, sources say, little if any guidance from the DOH.

Kissinger’s people didn’t bother to talk with any of the more than 60 people whose lives will be damaged by this. And the TBI Waiver, believe it or not, is supposed to be person centered, which means, in short, the person living with the brain injury is supposed to be in charge of their own life.

Sources say Kissinger said agencies with applications filed may still get approved to be Licensed Home Care Agencies and, if they do, their survivors can come back. It’s seems we survivors are absent our humanity in the eyes of the DOH. Just a bunch of inanimate objects to be moved about the landscape.

This blog would urge the survivors to ask for a fair hearing and it would also urge the providers to file suit against the DOH charging that this action is arbitrary and capricious and, if that move wouldn’t hold up, hold the DOH accountable for dropping the ball on it review of applications and hold them accountable.

And hey, here’s an idea, why doesn’t Kissinger himself meet with the more than 60 survivors. If you are going to work for a government agency that plans on pulling the rug out from under the lives of more than 60 people, why not meet them in person?

I am urging all interested parties to call the Brain Injury Association of NY State. As a former board member and a current member they are the state’s leading advocacy organization for brain injury survivors and a truly good group of people.  Their Family Help Line is (800) 228-8201 and their main line is (518) 459-7911. You can also e-mail them at info@bianys.org  While your at it, I would urge each of you to become a member if you are not one already.

Also, call Mark Kissinger’s office at 518-402-5673 and or e-mail him at mlk15@health.state.ny.us

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NY State Department of Health Wounds Again

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Bad enough for 15 years the DOH either turned a blind eye or was too dysfunctional to  figure out that Tim Feeney, arguably, the most powerful person managing the Traumatic Brain Injury Waiver at the time, had bogus credentials and  was prancing around the state and beyond claiming he had a PhD and Masters Degree when didn’t. Now the DOH has issued a dangerous directive to companies providing services to brain injury survivors in New York that will prove devastating to the quality of life for many survivors and, not incidentally, is brutally unfair to some class-act providers across the state.

A couple of years back the DOH determined that providers offering home care staff needed to become licensed home care agencies. Many providers did just that, and some who are waiting on a response to their already-filed applications have been told, reportedly by a by-telephone directive from DOH employee Beth Gnozzio, they have 30 days to transfer their survivors to agencies that are already licensed home care agencies.

Never mind that these agencies lived up to their end of the bargain, never mind that survivors and families will suffer. Compassion and fairness are, in this and too many other instances, not on the menu for survivor, their families and those providers that are, in truth, honorable.

Follow the Money

This blog hopes that every survivor demands a fair hearing in response to this and, it would be interesting to follow the money. In other words, did any already-licensed home care agency contribute or give money in a way that prompted this decision?

The Second Victimization

This brutal directive is unfair to providers who’ve trained their staff and and lived up to their end of the filing for licensure process with the DOH. Worse still, it is brutal because it will mean the consumers, survivors like me, will suffer even more loss. They will lose relationships with people and agencies they have come to trust and rely on. In victimology, the treatment crime victims all too often experiences at the hands of the system is accurately called the second victimization, and so it is in this case.

Rumors Say Housing Subsidy at Risk

On top of this, rumors persist that the housing subsidy for those participating in the waiver is about to be cut, which would be devastating and likely keep people in or send people back to institutions and, in some cases, create homelessness.

Get Your Voices Heard

This blog is urging all interested parties to call and write to Beth Gnozzio and, perhaps more importantly, to call and write Deputy Commissioner Mark Kissinger.

Ms. Gnozzio can be reached at 518-486-4315. Her e-mail is mjg07@health.state.ny.us.

Mark Kissinger can be reached at 518-402-5673. His e-mail is mlk15@health.state.ny.us

And Remember

Your independence is only as strong as the independence of your neighbors.

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A NY State Department of Health Cover-up?

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A September 16th letter from the New York State Department of Health might lead some to think the DOH has no problem awarding several million dollars to a neurobehavioral project headed by a man who continues to misrepresent his credentials to those he serves. Timothy J. Feeney continues to represent himself as  Dr. Timothy J. Feeney or Timothy J. Feeney PhD when he is no more a doctor than Felix the Cat is.

Feeney presents himself to brain injury survivors and their families as having a PhD and master’s degrees when he doesn’t. He did get bogus degrees from a diploma mill located in Hawaii and California in the 1990s before moving its operation to Norfolk Island off the coast of Australia in 1998. Greenwich University, not to be confused with the prestigious University of Greenwich in England, was a non-accredited diploma mill that graces numerous diploma mill lists on the net. It closed its doors in 2003.

Despite the fact Feeney himself says the DOH new all along about his degrees, he has, for nearly 15 years now,  headed up the Neurobehavioral Resource Project for New York State’s Traumatic Brain Injury Waiver. The NRB is arguably the most powerful influence over the TBI Waiver, a Medicaid program designed to provide services to brain injury survivors across the state.   While there is no argument that the TBI Waiver is needed because it affords many with brain injuries the chance to live in the community, there is also no argument that those who live with brain injuries, their loved ones, and the hard working companies that provide waiver services,  have a right to expect people to be who they say they are.

Letters to DOH employee Patricia Greene-Gumson along with a second letter to Deputy DOH Commissioner Mark Kissinger raising the issue of Feeney’s false claims and calling for an investigation not only into Feeney and his conduct but into who wrote the three contracts that don’t require the head of the project to have so much as a master’s degree. The two letters resulted in the September 16th one-page response from a Lydia Kosinski , Assistant Director for the Division of Home and Community Based Services. In her letter Kosinski says  the DOH was more concerned with work experience than college degrees when it chose the director of the NRP. While Feeney’s resume does not reveal much experience with brain injury in the first place, the question of his misrepresenting himself still lingers and was left untouched in the letter.

While I will try to hold to the belief that the DOH  is not the villain here, the Kosinski letter has begun to loosen my grasp.

One thing is for sure, if Feeney’s contract, which expires the 30th of this month, is renewed, there will be every reason to conclude that the DOH is more supportive of the disingenuous Feeney than it is of those us who live with brain injuries..

It is flat out tragic when you get the message that asking people to be who they say they are is asking too much.

 

It’s Nothing Personal

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It seems some think my exposing a contract employee with the New York State Department of Health (DOH) for not having the college degrees he says  he has is something personal on my part. Wrong. Defining my action as something personal is a well-worn way of derailing advocates in the first place. Since the facts work against you, let’s say the advocate is on some personal vendetta and, if not a personal vendetta, off their rocker.

I am not off my rocker, at least not today (smile folks, there is nearly always room for humor), but my actions regarding Timothy J. Feeney are nothing personal.  In fact, it would be interesting to learn what, specifically, makes some think it is personal.  In other words, say it out loud folks, so we can all hear. Don’t be shy.

The facts of the matter are rather straightforward. Timothy J. Feeney presents himself as Dr. Feeney or Timothy J. Feeney PhD. He is neither. By his own admission, both his masters and his doctorate were issued by the now defunct Greenwich University, not to be confused with the prestigious University of Greenwich in England. Greenwich University was a non-accredited school, a diploma mill, that operated out of California and Hawaii in the 1990s before moving to Norfolk Island off the coast of Australia in 1998. Greenwich degrees are not recognized as valid anywhere in the United States, much less planet earth. Greenwich closed its doors in 2003.

Now to the question of why should this be a concern to all New Yorkers. First and foremost, when you are receiving health care in any form, you have a right to assume those providing the care are who they say they are. Moreover, if someone is going to make his or her living off of hard-earned taxpayer dollars, taxpayers have a right to assume they are who they say they are. This is not the case when it comes to Mr. Feeney. To make matters even worse, Mr. Feeney, in an unsolicited e-mail to readers of one of my blogs, said the DOH knew all along about the source of his bogus degrees.

Mr. Feeney is nearing the end of his third five-year contract with the state’s DOH as head of the Neurobehavioral Project which is arguably the most powerful influence over the implementation of the state’s Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Medicaid Waiver Program, in itself, a laudable presence.  The waiver provides services to brain injury survivors living in the community. However, it is anyone’s guess how many health care providers have had their doors closed by Mr. Feeney or had their ability to admit people into their program put on hold by Mr. Feeney and his staff. Moreover, one must ask how many survivors of brain injury have been denied waiver services or discharged from waiver services under the direction of Mr. Feeney, all under the pretense that he is, in fact, Dr. Feeney or, Timothy J. Feeney, PhD. Can you imagine being the mother or father of a child with brain injury and you acquiesce to Mr. Feeney’s directives only to find out later he misrepresented himself to you?

Then, of course, we come to the question of state taxpayer dollars. Several million dollars in state tax dollars have been earmarked for Mr. Feeney and his small staff over the years. His last contract alone provided for nearly $2 million in state tax dollars for salary and expenses.

Recently I sent a letter to DOH employee Patricia Greene-Gumson who, along with DOH employee Bruce Rosen, have been the two DOH employees closest to Mr. Feeney over the years, asking her to investigate the situation and to investigate why none of Mr. Feeney’s contracts require the head of the Neurobehavioral Project to have so much as a masters degree,  a fact that would lead some to suspect the contract of being jerry-rigged.  The letter was copied to Deputy DOH Commissioner Mark Kissinger, Ms. Gumson’s supervisor, and the Inspector General.

Feeney’s contract expires this September 30th. My hope is the DOH will not make the same mistake four contracts in a row.

Here’s the thing. When you live with a brain injury, as I do, or you are the mother or father of someone with a brain injury, or the husband or wife or sister or brother of someone with a brain injury, you have a right to expect those who are there to help you to be who they say they are. Anything short of that is unacceptable.