Community care boosted in agreement on disabled in Virginia

Excerpt from The Washington Times: (click for entire article)

Virginia has reached a wide-ranging settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice over its system for treating the intellectually and developmentally disabled, forestalling a federal lawsuit on charges the state needlessly institutionalized many people instead of placing them in community-based care.

The settlement comes on the heels of a scathing report issued by the Justice Department last February concluding that Virginia’s system violates the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Under the terms of the settlement, the state agreed to close four of its institutions that house people with intellectual disabilities, called “training centers,” and to downsize another. The settlement also requires Virginia to provide thousands of additional intellectual-disability waiver slots, which allow the state to waive the typical requirement that people receiving Medicaid funding live in institutions, enabling them instead to receive services in community-based settings.