The Community Waiver Program (CWP) was approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on October 21, 2021, with an effective date of October 1, 2021. The waiver targets persons with intellectual disabilities not currently receiving services through the current Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) Waivers, including the persons currently on the waiting list for the existing Intellectual Disabilities (ID) or Living at Home (LAH) Waivers.

This waiver program offers services in five (5) enrollment groups, based on age and relative independence, each with a set of services designed particularly to serve them. The CWP 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 CWP include, but are not limited to the following:

• Improve access to care by reducing and eventually eliminating the current waiting list for HCBS Waivers.
• 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 capacities 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.

As required by CMS, the Alabama Medicaid Agency invites providers, recipients, advocates, and other interested individuals to provide meaningful questions and comments regarding the progress of the 1115(a) Demonstration Waiver that runs concurrently with the 1915(c) CWP during a public forum on Wednesday, May 8, 2024, at 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m., virtually via Webex.

Participants will have the opportunity to submit written questions via the Webex chat box or to publiccomment@medicaid.alabama.gov during the specified times set for the forum.