Medical assistance to be changed
By MONICA LUNDQUIST
When welfare reform switches clients to a state or county based purchasing system similar to an HMO in 1999, how services are delivered will make a major difference, Opheim said.
Cass has been planning for that change with one group of counties to the north and one to the south.
She said the northern group has progressed further in planning and looks like it will seek more direct county operation of the system.
The southern group has voted to look at hiring an administrator, she said. That system could involve whoever administers it stipulating more terms for how the system operates, Opheim said.
In another section of welfare reform, Cass has been successful in obtaining a $300,000 McKnight Foundation grant to help people move from welfare to work.
Of that, $180,000 will be used to hire counselors to work at the family centers to advise clients about how to deal with problems such as transportation to work and child care in order to get to work regularly when they obtain jobs, Opheim said.
The county board approved 1998 purchase of service agreements for several social services and health services programs. These agreements set rates charged for clients from Cass and other counties using services offered in Cass County.
One of those agreements will increase from 225 to 240 days a year Daytime Activity Center services available to developmentally disabled persons in Walker.
Rates charged for girls participating in the Little Sand Group Home residential treatment program near Remer will increase from 3.7 percent from $113.45 a day to $117.84 per day.
Jay Pepin, director, told the board they have added a summer social worker and more secretarial help this year.
Pay for contracting community support workers who assist mentally ill persons living in the community will receive a pay increase from $9.07 per hour to $9.34 per hour.
Fiscal Agent Melanie Wolfe reported out-of-home child placements continue to keep the 1997 social services expenditures above budget projections.
In November, there were 101 children placed outside their own homes, with foster care and group home costs running well ahead of last year. The total billed in November was $135,707.
Those costs ran 129 percent of budget projections for the whole year by the end of November, Wolfe said.
Last year at this time, the county had spent 79 percent of the projected social services budget, but high out-of-home placement costs this year have 95 percent of the total social services budget spent after 92 percent of the year passed.
Cass County Correspondent
WALKER
Medical Assistance for low income Cass County clients cost $26,500,000 in 1996, Health and Human Service Director Dorothy Opheim told the county board Tuesday.