Reporting by Designated Protection and Advocacy Agency

This bill makes the state’s Protection and Advocacy Agency and Client Assistance Program, Disability Rights Arkansas, report what they are doing to the Arkansas government.

• Protection and Advocacy Agency: a nonprofit organization that works with disabled people to make sure their rights are being respected. 

If this bill passes, Disability Rights Arkansas will have to send in reports twice a year to the Hospital, Medicaid, and Developmental Disabilities Study Subcommittee and the Governor. The subcommittee is a government group that makes sure that hospitals, Medicaid programs, and services for people with developmental disabilities are going the way they’re supposed to.

• Medicaid: A government program that provides healthcare to people who don’t make a lot of money.

• Developmental disabilities: conditions that change the way a person learns, understands, and communicates.

• Reports should include:

  • What they are doing to make things better for developmentally disabled people.

  • What they are spending money on.

  • Agreements they have to work with or but things from others.

If this bill passes, someone from Disability Rights Arkansas will have to be at every meeting of the Hospital, Medicaid, and Developmental Disabilities Study Subcommittee.

And, Disability Rights Arkansas will have to share any information that the subcommittee asks for as soon as possible, and no later than when the subcommittee says it has to be in by.

• The subcommittee will look over all reports sent in.