Today (December 30th), we received a call from Cindy Mann, CMS Deputy Administrator and Director of the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services. Cindy is responsible for the development and implementation of national policies governing Medicaid.

Cindy said that the Community First Choice rules are under "active review" and they are at the tail end of that review process. Some of the process is outside of their control at CMS and HHS, so she couldn't give a specific date they would be finalized, but indicated that these regulations would be out soon.

We repeated our message that we needed these rules for our advocacy to get states to select the CFC Option. She responded that states could select CFC without the final rules in place, but acknowledged not having the final rules in place could be problematic for the states which is why CMS was "aggressively moving forward on finalizing the CFC regulations".

We expressed the concern that states may just be wanting to use CFC to refinance "business as usual" and that CFC and other home and community-based funds would be used to support congregate institutional settings. She assured us that this was not CMS's intent and that the CFC rules "will address both the eligibility and the setting issues which we know are of great interest to ADAPT". We also discussed the need for a strong definition of "community", and she agreed that the focus should be on PEOPLE, "not the bricks and mortar". Finally, Cindy agreed to follow up on our conversation with an email that we could share. It is included below.

Thank you for coming to this page to take action!  For more information check out the ADAPT website at www.adapt.org.

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From: Mann, Cynthia (CMS/CMCS)
Sent: Friday, December 30, 2011 3:13 PM
To: Bruce Darling
Subject: CFC regulations

Hello Bruce,

It was great to be able to catch up with you this morning by phone. As we discussed, we are aggressively moving forward on finalizing the CFC regulations; their release which we think will be soon is a priority for all of us at HHS. It will address both the eligibility and the setting issues which we know are of great interest to ADAPT. I hope when you and others review the regulation you will agree we have approached the issue of settings in a person-centered way. We appreciate ADAPT's continued focus on this very important new option and all the input you and your members have provided.

Looking forward to talking again soon. Best wishes for the new year-

Cindy.