Section 754. Supported employment services

A. Service description.

1. Supported employment services shall include training in specific skills related to paid employment and provision of ongoing or intermittent assistance or specialized training to enable an individual to maintain paid employment. Each supporting documentation must confirm whether supported employment services are available to the individual in vocational rehabilitation agencies through the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 or in special education services through 20 USC § 1401 of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Providers of these DARS and IDEA services cannot be reimbursed by Medicaid with the IFDDS Waiver funds. Waiver service providers are reimbursed only for the amount and type of habilitation services included in the individual's approved plan of care based on the intensity and duration of the service delivered. Reimbursement shall be limited to actual interventions by the provider of supported employment, not for the amount of time the recipient is in the supported employment environment.

2. Supported employment may be provided in one of two models. Individual supported employment is defined as intermittent support, usually provided one on one by a job coach for an individual in a supported employment position. Group supported employment is defined as continuous support provided by staff for eight or fewer individuals with disabilities in an enclave, work crew, or bench work/entrepreneurial model. The individual's assessment and plan of care must clearly reflect the individual's need for training and supports.

B. Criteria for receipt of services.

1. Only job development tasks that specifically include the individual are allowable job search activities under the IFDDS Waiver supported employment and only after determining this service is not available from DARS or IDEA.

2. In order to qualify for these services, the individual shall have a demonstrated need for training, specialized supervision, or assistance in paid employment and for whom competitive employment at or above the minimum wage is unlikely without this support and who, because of the disability, needs ongoing support, including supervision, training and transportation to perform in a work setting.

3. A functional assessment must be conducted to evaluate each individual in his work environment and related community settings.

4. The supporting documentation must document the amount of supported employment required by the individual. Service providers are reimbursed only for the amount and type of supported employment included in the plan of care based on the intensity and duration of the service delivered.

C. Service units and service limitations.

1. Supported employment for individual job placement is provided in one-hour units. This service is limited to 40 hours per week.

2. Group models of supported employment (enclaves, work crews, bench work, and entrepreneurial model of supported employment) will be billed according to the DMAS fee schedule.

3. Supported employment services are limited to 780 units per plan of care year. If used in combination with prevocational and day support services, the combined total units for these services cannot exceed 780 units, or its equivalent under the DMAS fee schedule, per plan of care year.

4. For the individual job placement model, reimbursement will be limited to actual documented interventions or collateral contacts by the provider, not the amount of time the individual is in the supported employment situation.

D. Provider requirements. In addition to meeting the general conditions and requirements for home and community-based care participating providers as specified in 12VAC30-120-730 and 12VAC30-120-740, supported employment providers must meet the following requirements:

1. Supported employment services shall be provided by agencies that are programs certified by the Rehabilitation Accreditation Commission to provide supported employment services or are DARS vendors of supported employment services.

2. Individual ineligibility for supported employment services through DARS or IDEA must be documented in the individual's record, as applicable. If the individual is ineligible to receive services through IDEA, documentation is required only for lack of DARS funding. Acceptable documentation would include a copy of a letter from DARS or the local school system or a record of a telephone call (name, date, person contacted) documented in the case manager's case notes, Consumer Profile/Social assessment or on the supported employment supporting documentation. Unless the individual's circumstances change, the original verification may be forwarded into the current record or repeated on the supporting documentation or revised Social Assessment on an annual basis.

3. Supporting documentation and ongoing documentation consistent with licensing regulations, if a DBHDS licensed program.

4. For non-DBHDS programs certified as supported employment programs, there must be supporting documentation that contains, at a minimum, the following elements:

a. The individual's strengths, desired outcomes, required/desired supports, and training needs;

b. The individual's goals and, for a training goal, a sequence of measurable objectives to meet the above identified outcomes;

c. Services to be rendered and the frequency of services to accomplish the above goals and objectives;

d. All entities that will provide the services specified in the statement of services;

e. A timetable for the accomplishment of the individual's goals and objectives;

f. The estimated duration of the individual's needs for services; and

g. Entities responsible for the overall coordination and integration of the services specified in the plan of care.

5. Documentation must confirm the individual's attendance, the amount of time the individual spent in services, and must provide specific information regarding the individual's response to various settings and supports as agreed to in the supporting documentation objectives. Assessment results should be available in at least a daily note or weekly summary.

6. The provider must review the supporting documentation with the individual, and this written review submitted to the case manager, at least semi-annually, with goals, objectives, and activities modified as appropriate. For the annual review and in cases where the plan of care is modified, the plan of care must be reviewed with the individual or his family/caregiver, as appropriate.

7. In instances where supported employment staff are required to ride with the individual to and from supported employment activities, the supported employment staff time may be billed as supported employment provided that the billing for this time does not exceed 25% of the total time spent in supported employment for that day. Documentation must be maintained to verify that billing supported employment staff coverage during transportation does not exceed 25% of the total time spent in supported employment for that day.

8. There must be a copy of the completed DMAS-225 form in the record. Providers must clearly document efforts to obtain the DMAS-225 form from the case manager.

Historical Notes

Derived from Volume 17, Issue 18, eff. July 1, 2001; amended, Virginia Register Volume 23, Issue 20, eff. July 11, 2007; Volume 25, Issue 20, eff. July 9, 2009; Volume 30, Issue 14, eff. April 10, 2014.

Statutory Authority

§ 32.1-325 of the Code of Virginia; 42 USC § 1396.