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Alabama Medicaid to hold Community Waiver Program
                 (CWP) Public Forum, May 3, 2023

The Alabama Medicaid Agency invites providers, recipients, advocates, and other interested individuals to provide input during a public forum on the progress of the Community Waiver Program (CWP).

This forum is required by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for the 1115(a) Demonstration Waiver that runs concurrently with the 1915(c) approved October 21, 2021, with an effective date of October 1, 2021.

Comments will be received during a public forum on Wednesday, May 3^rd at 10 AM and 1 PM, virtually via Webex. If a participating individual would like to request an ASL interpreter, please contact the CWP Director, Byron White, via email at byron.white@mh.alabama.gov before or by 5PM on April 14^th, 2023.

The Community Waiver Program targets persons with intellectual disabilities not currently receiving services through the current Home and Community-Based Services Waivers, including the persons currently on the waiting list for the existing Intellectual Disabilities or Living at Home Waivers. The new waiver program offers services in five enrollment groups, based on age and relative independence, each with a set of services designed particularly to serve them. The Community Waiver Program focuses on maintaining family relationships and promoting community inclusion and competitive employment, which are of utmost importance to an individual’s health, well-being, and happiness, by providing the needed supports that can enable individuals with developmental disabilities to continue to live with family or in their own homes.

The goals of the Community Waiver Program (CWP) include, but are not limited to the following:

•       Improve access to care by reducing and eventually eliminating the current waiting list for Home and Community Based Services (HCBS).

•       Keep families together, support independent living, and provide increased opportunities for self-direction.

•       Adopt a strategy for delivering HCBS that aims to prevent crisis and escalation of needs for individuals who do not currently require an institutional level of care.

•       Support the capacities that individuals with ID have to contribute to their community through participation in integrated community employment, while also better ensuring their financial stability in continuing to live in the community.

Information on the Community Waiver Program (CWP) is available on the following websites:

• Alabama Medicaid Agency: https://medicaid.alabama.gov/content/6.0_LTC_Waivers/6.1_HCBS_Waivers/6.1.9_Community_Waiver_Program.aspx

• Alabama Department of Mental Health:
  https://mh.alabama.gov/community-waiver-program/