ALC-Executive Subcommittee
Video
Transcript
3 documents
Machine transcript
May contain errors. Verify important quotations against the official video.
About transcript accuracy
- Source
- SliQ live captions
- Model
- SliQ live ASR
- Processing date
- October 2, 2026
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
6:45
All right, Cha sees a quorum. Thank you all for being here, um, for your attention today, um, we're gonna go ahead and get started. I know we got a busy day, a lot of things going on, so I'll invite, uh, Ms. uh, Weatherton with DHS Smith and Stone to come to the table, please and present the emergency rule or whoever is coming to the table to present the emergency rule. And if you would recognize yourself when you
Speaker 5
7:25
Melissa Weatherton, director for Medicaid Specialty Populations at DHS. Martina Smith,
Speaker 6
7:29
director for the division of Provider Services and quality assurance. Paulaone, director of the
Speaker 5
7:43
Office of Substance Abuse and Mental Health. OK. You're recognized to proceed. Thank you. So we're here today asking to get approval on an emergency rule, um, that Falls under Act 636, that was passed during this past
legislative session. Miss Smith is over our licenger unit before you today is a new licener manual in Miss Stone is over our behavioral health, and there is a new behavioral health Medicaid manual. Act 6:36 changed the oversight of psychiatric residential treatment facilities. It moved it from a board to um under the office of long term care, making it a long term care facility. Um, so before you, it's a brand new office of long term care,
licenser manual to regulate PRTF providers and a new Medicaid manual to strengthen the requirements of what services are. in those facilities. We've done a number of enhancements, um, throughout a process closely working with the providers and other stakeholders, um, of note, I would say that prior um to these manuals being put in place, children could go into one of these um facilities at age 5. We are raising it to age 10.
These manuals also bar any use of seclusion or mechanical restraints, they increase ratio requirements during the day. They increase um sight and supervision requirements throughout the night. Um, let's see, they also, um, require additional mandatory training in behavioral health and they require a series of preparedness plans and stricter, um, safety standards around who
can be in the wing, how close in age the kids have to be. In the Medicaid manual, I think some of the things to point out that are additional requirements, it's mandatory hours of what we define as active treatment. We require some heightened around education, um, because they did provide education in the PRTFs and let me see if I'm missing anything. We need to point out, oh, we're mandating a series of monthly reporting requirements that are new to the facilities where they're going
to report monthly to us on the use of chemical restraints, psychotropic drugs, um, and they're going to report to us on out of state children and their discharge plans. Every month, and they are also going to report, um, What about missing ladies? Restraint, psychotropic drugs, and out of state children. And And treatment plans. And I'll stop there and see if Paula or Martina want to add anything, then I've missed. They want to point out.
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
10:41
We're happy to take questions. Nothing else from you, you ladies, OK. Going first to Senator Boyd,
Senator Justin Boyd
Unverified
10:48
you recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, uh, you said, or I understood you to say that you were raising the age from 5 to 10. And so I just curious, is that going to create some other issue, like, are we going to start hearing from Judges or schools or parents or somebody saying, hey, there's nowhere to stick my Child who has
Speaker 5
11:11
Whatever the significant needs are. So what we have put in the rags that effective July 1, no child under the age of 10 will be admitted to a facility. We're not asking for any child that's under that age to be discharged. They can stay until their program is completed. But Senator Boy, we've had extensive conversations on yes, we do understand that these some of these children will still need services, still need treatment, still need placements, um, Paula can speak more towards this, but, um, based on what we've been looking
at those age ranges between 5 and 9, you know, we're really focused on doing, um, through Medicaid more in-home type intensive services. We have, um, other things that we think would be more effective for that younger age of children. Yeah, for
Chair
Unverified
11:59
those young children, um. That we made sure that we have a new service that we're putting into place. We've been piloting. It's called Family Centered treatment, um, and we know that particularly for any child, but particularly for those under the
age of 10, um, services are only as good as the family's involvement because these are short-term services, um, short term being about 6 months in a, in a psychiatric residential treatment facility. So all of these children are going to get treatment and then they're gonna go back home. And so we're really focusing on keeping those children under the age of 10 in their communities, in their schools, so building out the services that support them in those environments, which they would return anyway. So really having the parent involvement and and doing a
service called Family Centered Treatment, we think is critically important for those younger children. OK, uh,
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
12:53
going to Representative Wardlaw, you recognize. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess I'm
Representative Jeff Wardlaw
Unverified
12:57
just trying to figure out what's the emergency. Walk me through why this has
to be done right now when there's a bunch of bills that were passed during the session to deal with Medicaid, and I
don't see you down here for all those with emergency rules as well.
Speaker 5
13:17
Absolutely. So, under Act 636, it actually that, that law had an emergency clause on it. And at the time, what it did was it removed these, um, psychiatric residential treatment facilities out from underneath the oversight of the board they were under. So since the emergency clause on the act has been in effect. We have not had regulatory standards to be able to regulate these facilities on
Representative Jeff Wardlaw
Unverified
13:40
page 3, 10, you answered that question, no. His proposed rule the of a recent legislation passed
by the General Assembly. So why would you
Speaker 5
13:53
answer that as no? If that's your answer. Because Representative Wardlaw, I, um, I did see an email come through that there was a mistake and that was corrected, and I'm assuming that what happened is y'all did not get the corrected version. They've gone back in and said yes, there, there was a state statute that caused this
Representative Jeff Wardlaw
Unverified
14:07
to be an emergency. It also says there's no financial impact. Can you walk me through? How there's no financial impact. So what are we taking away if we're gaining this new licener.
Speaker 5
14:19
So, yes, there, there actually is no financial impact. So we have, um, we already have an established Office of long term care already have surveyors in that office. They already go out for other long term care facilities like intermediate care facilities, assisted living, and nursing homes. Um, we also utilize a vendor in this space, um, to do some of this work already, um, and they, um, vendor.
Speaker 33
14:49
is not caught, is not going to uh charge us any additional Um, dollar amount to have these additional requirements added to
Chair
Unverified
14:59
their contract. OK, Senator Irvin, you recognized. Thank
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
15:05
you, thank you for being here, um, and for the proposed rule, couple of questions. Do you as an agency have the ability to craft the type of reports that we need or want under this proposed rule and and manual.
Speaker 5
15:21
Yes, Sandra, we, um, Martina Smith and her team right now are developing the OLTC approved templates so that they're all consistent, that we will then send out to the providers for their
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
15:35
monthly reporting. OK. Um, will, will that ever come back before the legislature, the types of information that you're going to be requesting. Do we ever get a chance to see that before they start just because sometimes we, we send things out asking for data, but it's not y'all, you're doing that, but
there are things that we may also want to see. So I, I really think, I mean, I personally would like to see this. I'm sure that Representative Kavanaugh would as well. It's her bill, and I was able to sponsor it on the Senate side. for her, but I'm very interested in making sure that we're tracking, um, any, uh, victims of human trafficking, and they're the length of stay at their facility at these facilities and the treatment and then also not that the treatment stops at that just that facility because they may may not be equipped. That's what I'm
interested in. They may not be equipped to be able to really fully treat some of these children that they receive, and I don't want them just to stop, stop it, stop there. I want to see them being engaged to make sure, even if it's outside of that facility that we get these, these kids to the facilities where they really can get the, the treatment that they really need, if even if that facility can't offer it, or if there's any outside services that they can collaborate with in order to get that treatment.
So, very, I want to know those kinds of levels of details and I think reporting, we want to make sure that we're best utilizing these. facilities, but just not warehousing kits. And that's what I'm interested in. So, um, OK, that, that's, and I'd like to see what those reports are going to look like and the kind of information that are going to be asked by them. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you, Senator, uh,
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
17:21
Representative Kavanaugh, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
17:27
all for being here. Um, I appreciate the hard work on the rules because, uh, during session, that was one of our, uh, real concerns is if we could get these rules done quick enough because we knew what the emergency clause that, um, we were going to have that time frame where there wouldn't be any regulation, um, and for me, this bill was brought because we had really no regulation on a lot of these, um, problems, and it created a real issue, but you feel comfortable with these new regulations. ations that we're going to be able to accomplish what we
really wanted to with the, the legislation is we're going to have lessener. They're going to be standard set, we're gonna be able to keep control of how many kids are in these facilities. We're going to be able to look at how many outside children we have, we're going to be able to have treatment plans for these kids, so they're, they're not in this revolving door. All this is gonna, is addressed in these rules. Is that correct? Yes, ma'am. OK, thank you. OK, and then the question I have, and I think I've, uh,
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
18:31
expressed this to this man who's sitting in front row back there, um, when can we expect the permanent rule to
Speaker 5
18:39
be promulgated, we are going to get that right back at you guys. Um, so we need to put this we need to put it out for public comment. That's our next step, but our goal was to get
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
18:52
that going next week. OK, so you'll be filing that through the normal process next week.
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
19:01
want that to, to start generally with emergency rules. I like to know that we
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
19:05
have a permanent rule coming. Representative Beatty, uh, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just, just one question. I'm over here kind of hiding behind this chair. Um, this
rule kind of came out of a, a working group, uh, that for both outside and inside. Is that correct? It was, you know, several months of, of working group to get to this point and, um, and, and get this before us today, is that correct? it. Yes, sir, we had a, we've had a
Speaker 5
19:31
lot of discussions with the providers um that we've worked very collaboratively on these roles, um, we've spent a lot
Speaker 33
19:37
of time together, um, going through the different
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
19:40
pieces. Well, again, I just want to echo the comments. Thank you for the, the timeliness of, of getting this to, to the
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
19:50
group, so appreciate the work. OK, I remember seeing no other questions as per our practice in the committee, uh, Without objection, the proposed emergency rules reviewed and approved with review and approval being effective upon
adjournment of the legislative council, Friday, June 20, 2025. All right. So no objection. Thank you. All right, members, uh, we'll move now to item C, and that will be the motion picture final report from Olsburg SPI and I think we have joining us, um, by video conference is, uh, Marine and Leon, if you would, um, Introduce yourselves, uh, for
the committee, and then, uh, we'll open it up for you to present, and then we'll take questions after that. So if you would, I don't know which would prefer to start, but I'll leave it to y'all. You're recognized. Thank
Speaker 49
20:45
you. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and, and thank you to the uh to the executive subcommittee. Um,
Unknown speaker
21:22
my name is Leon Ford.
Hm
OK, members, we're trying to reach out to them. It is on
their end and they are, I think,
7 hours ahead of us across the pond. So, I think we'll take maybe 5-minute recess to get
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
28:56
OK. All right, if I can have your attention, please, members and those in the audience. Um, we are having some technical difficulties that appears we will not be able to continue this, um, so we will reschedule this, uh, presentation for a later meeting. Uh, I apologize for the inconvenience, apologize for all those who were here to, uh, ask questions and participate. So, um, with that, I don't think we have any further business and I will say
Unknown speaker
29:27
we're adjourned. Thank you so much.
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. Consideration of an Emergency Rule: Department of Human Services (DHS) - Psychiatric Residential Treatment Facility Services for Under Age 21.
C. Presentation of the Arkansas Motion Picture Study Final Report - Olsberg SPI
D. Other Business
E. Adjournment
Documents
Speakers
Senator Ben Gilmore
Unverified
Speaker 5
Speaker 6
Senator Justin Boyd
Unverified
Chair
Unverified
Representative Jeff Wardlaw
Unverified
Speaker 33
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
Representative Frances Cavenaugh
Unverified
Speaker 11
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
Speaker 49