Providing Health Care for People with Disabilities: Competency Planning Checklists

Introduction and Instructions

The purpose of these gap analysis checklists is to assist health care professionals in evaluating their attitudes toward participants with disabilities, their current capacity to provide physical, communication, medical equipment, services and program access, as well as care coordination for participants with disabilities. Health care providers can use these checklists as an actionable practice competency assessment. These tools should assist providers in complying with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) expectations for services for Medicaid and Medicare populations with disabilities.

Health Plan professionals can use these checklists to check if their policies and procedures, as well as the training they offer is inclusive of these access elements. These questions are not meant to be graded, but rather to be used as a planning tools to help identify opportunities for improvements, set priorities, and to track improvements over time.

Instructions:

1. Cross out the question if you feel the question does not apply.

2. Check Unsure if you do not know the answer and need to find out.

3. Definitions to refer to, if needed, are provided following each checklist.

4. Resources are provided at the end of the document.

5. Create an actionable plan based on items where you identify gaps!

Note: This tool uses the terms “participant” “people” “individual” interchangeably (versus patient, or client).  It recognizes the participant as someone who is actively involved in the health care process, rather than a passive bystander. It also reflects changing the process from simply providing a diagnosis and treatment, to more holistically focusing on providing care and supports for maximizing function and independence, as well as addressing the barriers to integrated, accessible care. This is consistent with social and independent living (non-medical) models of disability. The National Quality Forum has adopted this standard in their reports to CMS on person- and family-centered care, and in other reports.