Indiana Family to Family

Family Voices Indiana shares the following information  from the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network: The following estimates are based on information collected from the health and special education (if available*) records of children who were 8 years old and lived in areas of Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Utah, and Wisconsin in 2010: About 1 in 68 children (or 14.7 per 1,000 8 year olds) were identified with ASD. It is important to remember that this estimate is based on 8-year-old children living in 11 communities. It does not represent the entire population of children in the United States. This new estimate is roughly 30% higher than the estimate for 2008 (1 in 88), roughly 60% higher than the estimate for 2006 (1 in 110), and roughly 120% higher than the estimates for 2002 and 2000 (1 in 150). We don't know what is causing this increase. Some of it may be due to the way children are ide

Family Voices Indiana shares the following announcement from CMS: Posted March 26, 2014 By Julie Bataille, Director of Communications, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Open Enrollment for the Health Insurance Marketplace ends in only 5 days.  There are just 5 days left for consumers to apply for and enroll in quality, affordable coverage. If you don’t have health insurance and don’t begin to sign up by the deadline—you can’t get coverage again until next year. Right now we are seeing a surge in consumers coming to HealthCare.gov and calling call centers. We’re working hard to ensure that our systems can handle record-high consumer demand over the next few days.  HealthCare.gov continues to perform well in terms of response time and error rates, even with traffic that is similar to what the site experienced at the end of December, the deadline for consumers who wanted their coverage to begin on January 1. There were over 1.2 million visits to the website and more than

Family Voices Indiana shares the following announcement from DDRS: To: Division of Disability and Rehabilitative Services Providers  From: Nicole Norvell, Director, Division of Disability and Rehabilitative Services  Re: Wellness Coordination Provider Guide  Date: March 24, 2014    To assist Bureau of Developmental Disabilities (BDDS) providers with delivery of the Wellness  Coordination service, the Division of Disability and Rehabilitative Services (DDRS) has developed  a document entitled “Wellness Coordination: A Guide for Providers,” made available on its  Announcements webpage.    This guide includes information about Wellness Coordination and its purpose; required data  points and suggested components of assessments and wellness plans; and the process and  timelines by which providers should complete requirements of the service. For questions  related to this guide or other facets of the Wellness Coordination service and its process, please  contact   BQ