FAN could lose federal funding

Family Access Network (FAN) may lose a portion of its funding. A federal administrative rule change could wipe away the funding FAN receives from claiming certain school-based Medicaid services.

The agency, which connects people in need with services in the Sisters area and in other communities, has full funding this year. The loss in funding would affect FAN's services for the 2008-09 school year.

According to FAN's program director Julie Lyche, the federal administrative rule change was published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in the Federal Register on September 7.

"The proposed rule says that they will completely eliminate all school-based Medicaid dollars, which in turn is all the dollars that go to all of our school districts for the Family Access Network in Deschutes County," Lyche said.

FAN brings together a network of partners working to support disadvantaged families. Established in 1993, the organization is currently staffed by 22 advocates in 41 sites throughout the county.

Sisters has two FAN advocates, Theresa Slavkovsky and Dawn Cooper; FAN's office is in the Sisters School District's administration building at 525 E. Cascade Ave.

Advocates rely on health and social service providers, as well as the schools, businesses, community organizations and individuals "to ensure children attend school ready to learn."

According to Lyche, other programs in other geographical areas try to serve families in a manner similar to FAN.

"So far, I have not heard of any model like ours that actually places the advocate within the school where they have easy access to the parent or where the parent has easy access to them, so the model and the way we implement it is unique to Deschutes County," she said.

The program evolved through grassroots endeavors of a few people.

"That's part of the reason why I think it's unique to Deschutes County. Folks were looking at what the specific needs were to our area and our families, and they came up with this model that has proven to be effective in reaching out to those families that are always so hard to capture because they don't necessarily want to go through an agency door. They don't want the stigma of having to walk to a building where people know they give out food stamps or something like that," Lyche said.

Currently, 63 percent of FAN's funding comes from federal Medicaid dollars.

"The proposed rule will reduce FAN services to a level that will make it impossible to continue the program in its current configuration," FAN's administration announced earlier this month.

However, Lyche wants to make it clear that even if FAN's current configuration is changed, FAN will not go away.

"We still have 37 percent of our funding that comes from other sources. FAN isn't going to go away, but FAN is going to look very different for a few years until we're able to build back up our base and get to where we are today," she said.

With less funding fewer children will be served.

"We'll have less FAN advocate time within our schools serving those disadvantaged kids," said Lyche.

According to Lyche only two years ago 90 percent of FAN's money came from federal Medicaid funding.

"Because of that FAN started a foundation and is looking at diversifying its funding through local grants and individual donations to look at a long-term, sustainable funding model rather than being so overly reliant on federal money," she said.

Lyche told The Nugget that the Medicaid dollars originally came to FAN at a time the federal government was looking for programs to use as pilot projects for Medicaid funds.

"Deschutes County stepped up, and honestly getting the Medicaid dollars is really what jump-started the program. Without that money there was no way we would have been able to expand like we have," she said, remarking that FAN has had funding from Medicaid for more than 10 years.

Since the new administrative rule is currently only a proposal that has not yet been adopted, public comment is being solicited.

"People can submit comment about why they believe that we should keep the federal school-based Medicaid money or why we shouldn't," said Lyche.

Comments must be submitted by Monday, November 5.

To submit a comment access the link on the online story at http://www.nuggetnews.com and choose "CMS-2287 - P" from the list of open dockets.