Comprehensive, coordinated and cost-effective care – this is not
impossible! Children’s Comprehensive Care Clinic is a pilot
program in Texas which is showing promise. In Washington, we
could expand on this by utilizing the campus communities at the
Residential Habilitation Centers to become “Comprehensive Care
Clinics” for our citizens with developmental disabilities. The
report, Medical Care Task Force Jan 2002, outlines a process to
establish comprehensive, coordinated and cost-effective care.
When looking at cost of care for residents in the supportive
communities or dispersed communities, some of the major costs
that are not included in the dispersed community costs are
medical, psychological, and therapeutic costs. Removing these
costs from the cost analysis does not mean they are free – it
means they are not available or accessible or not provided. Of
the many, many studies that have been done this issue of not
including medical costs is a problem. What is interesting though
is that the studies that ha