Consultant Says State Needs Strategic Plan For Human Development Centers

Arkansas does not have a comprehensive plan for the state’s human development centers, but it needs one, a consultant told the Health Reform Legislative Task Force Tuesday.

The task force is considering reforms to the state’s health care system. Faced with providing recommendations by Dec. 31, it hired The Stephen Group as a consultant, which made its initial report Oct. 7.

That report said that 920 severely developmentally disabled individuals live in human development centers (HDCs) in five cities. Senior consultant Richard Kellogg said he was impressed by the state’s Conway facility, calling it “one of the best I’ve seen in the United States.”

However, he and lead consultant John Stephen said no strategic plan exists for moving forward, including in response to a June 2015 Arkansas Building Authority report that found it would take more than $183 million to bring all of the human development centers’ facilities into an appropriate condition.

John Stephen, lead consultant, said a commission needs to be formed to consider the centers’ future and that families need to be involved. Also, many states have moved to de-institutionalize residents. That would be an option, but Arkansas needs to create a state-specific plan, he said.

Sen. Jason Rapert, R-Conway, expressed frustration that Department of Human Services officials had told him such a plan exists. He said the state is subsidizing insurance for able-bodied individuals receiving the Medicaid private option but has a waiting list of 2,900 developmentally disabled individuals who would like access to other services. Of those, 2,640 receive other types of care through Medicaid. Some on the waiting list include human development center residents whose families would like access to other services.

“I have a real problem with the fact that we have people that cannot speak, cannot lift their head, cannot talk to you, cannot communicate with you, but they’re living, and we have given them a quality of life here in our HDCs,” he said. He later added, “I feel that we’re at a point where it is a moral obligation that we address this, and not to just continue to pay lip service to this issue.”