In June 2025, Little Friends was one of 25 Illinois-based service providers that came together to create a joint venture, Community Supported Care Partners (CSCP), with an organization by the name of Deon Health. The sole purpose of working together as CSCP was to collaborate and with collective input work to create a better system for people dealing with Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities (I/DD) who depend upon Medicaid and Medicare for support.
Medicaid and the services it provides for many has been a “hot topic” of political discussion for the past several years, and changes have begun that are affecting people all over the State and for that matter the country. Given the impact Medicaid support has for the adults we serve, anything we can do to provide ideas for potential improvement is worth the effort to pursue.
This past month, the CSCP group celebrated its first year of working together creating an infrastructure that we believe has the potential to enable people with I/DD to lead healthier and more productive lives. While admittedly this initiative is a multi-year effort that will require a host of approvals at the State level if enacted, what is guiding the group’s work is a focus of having new solutions in place that are “People First, Provider Led, and Community Supported.”
I have the privilege of working with the CSCP Board of Managers for this initiative and in doing this, have learned of the challenges of being involved with a venture on this scale. What has been promising is that we have learned about what could be on the horizon for services based upon the plans for Medicaid government support published in a report issue issued by the Medicaid and Chip Payment Access Commission (MACPAC), a non-partisan legislative branch agency that provides data and makes recommendations to Congress on issues facing Medicaid and State Children’s Health Insurance programs.
Priorities and recommendations that were suggested for Medicaid policy improvements included:
- Focus on Whole Person Care
- Integration of Physical Health/Behavioral Health/Long-Term Support Services
- Provider-led governance
- Predictive Risk Stratification
- Crisis Prevention
- Life Transition Management
As a member of a group of Service Providers who deal with these challenges, we not only think these recommendations are solid, but represent a great focus for opportunities to make improvement. A lot of what was recommended is a part of the core solutions we are working on to build.
All of us involved with this idea recognize that implementing a change compared to existing systems and programs takes time and collaboration from other entities involved. However, what’s clear is that the system as it is today is costly and has room for improvement. Rather than complain about it, there is a group who is trying to provide support to make it better and more efficient for those we serve. Time will tell what happens in the future.
Again, there will be more to follow, but this has the potential to be very important in the time to come.
Little Friends: Trends and Transitions — Changes Happening in a World Dealing With Disabilities
