Recent Activities

  1. December 14, 2009
    Sharon Walsh, DEC's Governmental Relations Consultant, presented a federal update to 619 Coordinators at the Office of Special Education Projects (OSEP) meeting in Washington, D.C. last week. Click here to view Sharon's presentation.

  2. November 19, 2009
    The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced that the Monday November 23, 2009 Federal Register will contain an announcement that proposed rule, "Medicaid Program; Coverage for Rehabilitative Services" (72 FR 45201) originally published in the Federal Register on August 13, 2007 will be withdrawn.

    This is very good news for states who use this reimbursement methodology for IDEA services. The proposed regulation received over 1800 comments. DEC provided comment on this proposal. The proposed regulations were under a series of Congressional moratoria.

    The statement issued yesterday from CMS speaks to the rationale for the decision: “In light of the clear congressional concern indicated by the statutory moratorium and the resolution opposing issuance of a final rule based on the proposed rule, as well as the complexity of the underlying issues and of the public comments received, we have decided to withdraw the August 2007 proposed rule in order to assure agency flexibility in re-examining the issues and exploring options and alternatives with stakeholders.”

    Click here to see the announcement.

  3. Click here to read recent policy and advocacy updates from DEC 's Advocacy Listserv