Note -- one of our Alliance members, Grizzy Miller is quoted in the article!

Miami Herald

After months of intense criticism, Florida healthcare regulators have quietly announced new rules that could enable hundreds, perhaps even thousands of Floridians to raise their disabled children at home rather than place them in institutions.

The biggest change: The state will no longer require that parents undefined and sometimes teenage siblings and grandparents undefined perform complex medical tasks “that normally could only be provided by a licensed nurse.” Such medical procedures might include the tube-feeding of children, the suctioning or replacement of breathing tubes and the oversight of ventilators.

Instead, a trained professional would provide the services, with the state footing the bill.

The revisions by the Agency for Health Care Administration may help parents of disabled children another way: The agency also loosened its policies governing medical daycare centers, which offer parents an opportunity for their children to receive nursing care undefined and, often, an education undefined while their parents work during the day. Under the new changes, parents need not be at an eight-hour job for their children to be eligible for services at the medical centers.

“This is wonderful news,” said Grizzy Miller, president of a company, Pedi Pec, that operates medical daycares in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. Miller called “unjust” the AHCA policies that had “unfairly impacted dozens of families who were not deemed eligible for [daycare] services over the past several years.”

Read the rest here.