Beginning July 1, 1998, the Ohio Department of Human Services will implement a number of improvements in the delivery of Medicaid home care services. This program, the Ohio Home Care Program, was created with a high level of consultation and advice from consumers, advocacy groups, and providers. It will be a more consumer and provider friendly way of addressing the specific home care needs of consumers with a continuum of services.

The Ohio Home Care Program will consist of three benefit packages: Core, Core Plus, and Waiver. All three packages include "core" services: nursing, daily living, and skilled therapy. Skilled therapy services include physical, occupational, speech and language therapy.

• The Core Benefit Package is designed to meet the basic home care needs of most consumers who require up to 14 hours of nursing and/or daily living services per week.
• The Core Plus Benefit Package is structured to meet the home care needs of consumers who required greater than 14 hours of daily living and/or nursing services per week.
• The Waiver Benefit Package is designed to meet the home care needs of consumers whose medical condition and/or functional abilities would otherwise require them to live in a nursing home or other type of institution. Consumers enrolled on the waiver will normally require the highest level of services.

Home services facilitation, a new service which will incorporate case management, overall care coordination, data collection for program eligibility and cost cap assignments, will be offered to consumers enrolled in the Core Plus and Waiver Benefit packages.

An important element of the new program is a greater emphasis on consumers. Consumers and families are viewed as members of a team who are responsible for the consumer's care and are involved at every point in the service plan development and delivery. Several new consumer options will allow consumers to have greater flexibility in directing their care and selecting providers.

ODHS will monitor compliance with the requirements for the Ohio Home Care Program through a comprehensive quality assurance program. ODHS monitoring activities will include outcome-based consumer interviews, consumer satisfaction surveys, contractor and provider site visits, and review of consumer, contractor, and provider records.