Dear Mike,

I live in Chula Vista, California with my mentally challenged son and I'm having trouble finding an agency that has PAS. Is there a central agency in California or is there one in San Diego County where I can apply at to get service for him, any feedback would be helpful.

Signed, Agency Seeker

Dear Agency Seeker,

I have some contact information for you that I hope you find useful. Before I get to that, however, I would like to take the liberty of providing some basic background about home and community services and supports for individuals with cognitive and/or intellectual disabilities and their families. These are my thoughts about what appears to be available in California.

It looks like the services you are interested in are available through a Medicaid Waiver. Medicaid is basically a health insurance program for people that are poor. Medicaid also covers long term services and supports (care) in institutions and facilities as well as home and community services and supports. The home and community services and supports are usually provided through what are called "Waivers". Basically, these Waivers are home and community services that are provided as alternatives to institutional/facility based services. A person must qualify and meet the level of need for the institution/facility and then choose the home and community option, if available. This is a confusing, fragmented system, but, again, the basics are that a person must be "severe" enough to enter an institution and also financially poor to qualify for any assistance.

It looks like you are looking for home and community assistance as opposed to having your son enter an institution so, keeping the two basic eligibility criteria in mind (financial and severity of condition or disability) you should check out your state Medicaid agency, in particular your state's "Developmental Disability" (DD) Waiver. This information is available on the PAS Center's web site Medical Waiver pages. Check out also the agencies related to PAS web pages as well as getting the Medicaid and DD agency contact information. If need be, the centers for independent living (ILC) and Protection and Advocacy (P&A) agencies may be able to help you with other information and resources including advocacy and/or appeals if the unfortunate happenstance occurs and you need this kind of assistance!

While I encourage you to browse around our website, below is basic contact information:

The state Medicaid agency where you can referrals, addresses/phone numbers of any local offices and so on:

Cal. Dept. of Health Services
PO Box 942732
Sacramento, CA 94234

Phone (916-445-4171) web address - www.dhs.ca.gov/home/contactinfo/

A phone number for information about the "DD Waiver" is: 916-552-9105

A phone number for medical case management that may be of help around eligibility is 1-800-970-8450.

Yours truly,

Mike Oxford