Ray Durr and I, as former directors of AIDS Network would like to Congratulate AIDS Network on achieving the DHS contractually mandated minimum service levels!

As mentioned in the last post The State Department of Health Services has just completed its 5th and final site visit of AIDS Network.  These five State site visits were done over the past year to fix a horrific performance by AIDS Network case managers who failed to conduct the required annual need reassessment on 88% of their clients.  Yes, 88% of AIDS Network clients never got an annual reassessment of need.  These site visits confirmed that AIDS Network is now reimbursing medical providers at contractually mandated rates instead of billed rates, and they confirmed that a select few clients are no longer able to get 140 questionable cab rides in a 3 month period.

Yes, the site visits also confirmed that AIDS Network is able to count the number of clients.  We’ve also taken comfort that they have had no apparent lapses and haven’t left client records at risk by leaving the doors to the agency unlocked and propped open overnight.

Lastly, we are comforted in knowing that the DHS has confirmed that AIDS Network has figured out the ‘computer glitch” that kept them from producing accurate reports for many months.

In other words, AIDS Network case managers conducted reassessments on only 12% of their clients while the State requires, at a minimum, a 90% reassessment rate. They couldn’t provide accurate client counts and medical reimbursements were being paid at billed rates instead of contractually mandated rates.  This caused the State to conditionally  fund AIDS Network until they met the state’s minimum reassessment standard.

Happily, those days now appear to be behind us.

It’s been quite a spectacle to see an agency struggle to claw their way out of the abyss to reach and maintain for the past six months the contractually mandated minimum service levels.  We learned today that the State has lifted the condition on AIDS Network funding because they have achieved and been able to maintain the minimum standard since their August 2009 site visit.

Congratulations, we guess, to AIDS Network for achieving the bare minimum state standard.

But the big question for the Department of Health Services remains:  Why not the best?  Why not give the 1290 people with HIV in the southern region the best HIV services rather than the bare minimum?  Why is it that the majority of people with HIV in Wisconsin get the very best HIV services and we in the southern region get the minimum?

Is the minimum the best we can expect in the southern region?

We guess it’s better than nothing.