AGENCY NEWS

Medicaid Revenues

I had reported last month that we were experiencing some significant cash shortages because of problems with the billing software at Magellan. I am pleased to report that these problems were fixed in December and our Medicaid receipts are now back on track. Most of our other revenue categories are also caught up with the exception of a billing from December for the Community Development Block Grant and a November billing for the Department of Energy grant. Both of these late payments are for work in our Clinton remodeling project. We have paid contractor claims using our line of credit loan at the bank. I expect these state/federal payments will be received in January. Our cash on hand is now back up to normal levels.

New Board Members

This month we are welcoming three new members to the ASAC Board of Directors. LaSheila Yates manages the Assisted Housing Program for the City of Cedar Rapids. She also has experience in federal grants management and has worked with the Civil Rights Commission. Sue Wilbur works for the Cedar Rapids School District in the Human Resources Department. She recently completed the Leadership for Five Seasons program and was very impressed with the presentation a couple of our youth residential clients gave to that group. Sharon Hallstoos is an attorney in Cedar Rapids who specializes in family and juvenile law including Child in Need of Assistance and Juvenile Delinquency cases. Each of these new members will bring experiences and expertise in areas that will be very helpful to our agency. Lasheila and Sharon will begin with our January 12^th meeting. Sue has a conflict in January and will start in February. All three will be serving three year terms that end December 31, 2014.

Clinton Building Remodel

Our Clinton staff are anxiously waiting for our remodeling project to be completed on the new Clinton Human Services Campus. The contractor still believes they will have the building ready by the end of this month. I will be walking through the building on January 10^th to get a progress update. The first floor area that will be used for child care by the YWCA was completed in December and they are scheduled to begin serving children this week. Our area on the second floor was being dry-walled on my last visit and should be nearly completed. Stephanie Boesenberg is working on getting phones and internet installed. Once we get a fixed completion date, we will be hiring a moving company to move furniture. The mild winter we are having has helped keep us on schedule and has kept utility costs low during construction. We will be advertizing for the maintenance role in the next couple of weeks. We’ve spent three years in the planning, fund raising, and construction phases of this project and it is very exciting for us to be so close to completion.

Staff Changes

Richelle Derfus and Melinda Sors have both resigned from our South Outpatient team. Richelle has accepted a position with the Veteran’s Administration and Melinda has decided to not return following a maternity leave. Gayle Kelly will be interviewing for these two openings. In addition, the Catherine McAuley Center has elected to cancel our contract for counseling in their shelter. Georgia Eash will transfer to full time in the South Outpatient office at the Human Services Campus (United Way Building). New staff we’ve hired include Curt Wheeler and Lindsey Ungs in our prevention department and Melissa Hartman as a Residential Patient Support Staff member at Heart of Iowa. Please help make each of these new people feel welcome to the agency.

Tobacco Free Facility

We will be starting our tobacco cessation classes this month at both Heart of Iowa and Adult Residential. I do not have the update from Hightower Place or King House yet but our hope is to also start the tobacco cessation classes at both of these facilities this month as well. Between now and June 30^th these classes will be strictly voluntary for clients. Beginning July 1^st, ASAC will be a totally tobacco free campus and smoking cessation will be a required part of every residential client’s treatment program. Halfway House clients will continue to have the option of participating in tobacco cessation but no tobacco products will be allowed to be used anywhere on our facility grounds. This change will be huge for our agency since we will be one of the first residential programs in Iowa to go tobacco free. In addition to devoting time during each treatment day for tobacco cessation counseling and reinforcement for those clients who are giving up tobacco, our agency will have a large additional cost for nicotine replacement therapy products. We are spending over $12,000 to purchase initial supplies to get our program started and will have on-going expenses of $3000 or more per month. We will be looking for ways to raise funds to cover this expense and may eventually add a small charge to client treatment bills to cover these products. To start, however, we don’t want any impediments to clients participating so we will pick up the full expense with no additional cost to our clients. All clinical staff will be completing training in the Fresh Start program and we have developed a daily treatment program that each agency clinical staff member will be responsible for implementing. The daily group will include time for clients to discuss their progress, looking at the health consequences of returning to tobacco use and focusing on the positives that will come from successfully quitting tobacco. We’ll also be looking at withdrawal symptoms and what we can do to minimize the discomfort of withdrawal during these daily activities. Over the next few months we will be contacting referral sources to explain the change and will be ordering signs to post to inform visitors of the policy.

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