December 31, 2014

Katrina Ringrose, Advocate

Disability Rights Center
24 Stone Street, Suite 204
Augusta, Maine 04330
Re: Response to your letter titled Lakeview Neuro-rehabilitation Center
Dear Katrina,
The Office of Aging and Disability Services (OADS) is strongly committed and actively engaged in
assisting individuals to transition from Lakeview to community placements in Maine. We are also
committed to ensuring that while living at Lakeview, the individual members are receiving appropriate
care in addition to their overall health and safety.
In order to monitor the care the individual members are receiving, we have a staff person on site at
Lakeview three to five days each week. We have asked for a corrective plan from Lakeview which we
specifically addressed rights restrictions, community access, communication, and staff training, among
other areas. Additionally, we have phone calls biweekly with all of the case managers from Lakeview
that have MaineCare Members on their caseloads. Likewise, we have addressed individual members
access to the telephone with Lakeview administration. David Armstrong reported that all of their staff
have been trained to allow MaineCare members access to call the Disability Rights Center (DRC)
and/or OADS any time they request to do so.
In response to your request to receive copies of the specific transition plans for each individual
member, I feel it may be helpful for you to understand the overall transition process to the Brain Injury
Waiver. Each individual person and their decision maker, if appropriate, have already had at least one
meeting to discuss the Brain Injury Waiver. The transition to the waiver is multi-stepped and
individualized. There is not a cookie cutter plan for each person. Instead, each individual person has
their own meetings and designs their own waiver program to best meet their needs. This is a valuable
and necessary process in order to truly meet their unique needs. The process includes the following
determining medical eligibility and also completing the Care Planning process, which entails selecting
all of the waiver services desired and then selecting providers for those services. This is all
coordinated through team meetings with individual, their decision maker, and the providers they
choose. Therefore, there are not any specific transition plans to give to you. Each individual is in a
different step of the process. Two individuals are scheduled to move to a group home in Maine by the
middle of January. Several others are meeting with a provider next week to see if they are interested
in living in a group home run by that provider. This process will continue until all of the members have
repatriated to Maine.
Additionally, it is important to note the resource development aspect of establishing a new waiver.
There are multiple elements of development that are being worked on simultaneously including
provider enrollment, housing development, workforce development, and care coordination capacity

development. These developments are all essential to the Brain Injury Waiver becoming fully
functional.
We look forward to continued collaboration with the DRC as we facilitate this transition of the
individuals living at Lakeview back to the community in Maine.
Thanks,
Kirsten L. Capeless, MS
Kirsten L. Capeless, MS
Program Manager for Brain Injury Services