SOUTH BEND — The nonprofit agency REAL Services will lay off 65 of its staff who help to coordinate services for local clients of the state’s Aged and Disabled Waiver in five counties.

CEO Karla Ann Fales said it is because of a reimbursement rate that the state proposed in early April that was 41% below what Indiana’s 16 Area Agencies on Aging are currently paid. The work would also take 30% more hours than in the past. She said it would have meant that REAL Services would have had to subsidize the program with close to $2 million per year.

The REAL board decided recently that it could not afford that. Employees were notified in a staff meeting on Wednesday, April 24 that the layoffs will go into effect July 5. They include 57 staff in the Aged & Disabled Waiver program itself, plus eight administrative and support staff.

This comes in the midst of the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration’s cost-saving shift to three for-profit managed care companies to manage the waiver program.

And over the past several months, Fales said, REAL Services has been hiring more staff and investing in training and technology to prepare for a new program, PathWays for Aging, starting July 1, to manage the Medicaid waivers along with Medicare benefits.
Copyright © 2024, South Bend Tribune