Training, Policy Briefs, Presentations


DREDF develops training materials for health plan insurers, providers, and advocates that promote physical and programmatic accessibility and encourages disability literacy among practitioners. We also develop policy briefs on diverse healthcare topics and present at national health care and related conferences.

Training

  • Improving Access to Health Care for People with Disabilities
    Self–directed health care training modules intended to help senior, disability, and affinity organizations develop their capacity to assist people with disabilities access health care and long-term services and supports (LTSS). (October 2014)

Policy Briefs, Conference Presentations

  • The Community Living Policy Center at the University of California San Francisco released a paper authored by Mary Lou Breslin entitled Easy Does It: A Promising Model for Emergency Home and Community-Based Services (PDF). (December 2019)
  • The Community Living Policy Center at the University of California San Francisco released a paper authored by Mary Lou Breslin entitled Improving Support for Health Maintenance in Home and Community-Based Services: How States Adapt Nursing Rules for the Community First Choice Program (PDF). (February 2018)
  • Promoting Physical and Programmatic Accessibility in Managed Long-Term Services and Supports Programs

    The Community Living Policy Center​ at the University of California San Francisco​ releases​ a paper authored by Mary Lou Breslin entitled​ Promoting Physical and Programmatic Accessibility in Managed Long-Term Services and Supports Programs​ (PDF). The paper explores how managed ​long-term services and supports contracts promote physical and programmatic accessibility for enrollees with disabilities​. (July 2017​)

  • Promising Aging and Disability Collaborations.
    DREDF releases two new Issue Briefs that highlight promising collaborations between aging and disability organizations, Medicaid managed care organizations, and heath and mental health care providers. The organizations involved in these collaborations are working to improve health for older adults and people with disabilities while also reducing emergency department visits, hospital admissions and re-hospitalizations. (July 2016)

    ISSUE BRIEF: Care1st Health Plan and Access to Independence, San Diego County, California (PDF)

    ISSUE BRIEF: FREED Center for Independent Living, Grass Valley, California and the Area Agency on Aging, Sacramento, California (PDF)

  • The Case for Including Functional Limitation Measures in Electronic Health Records (PDF)
    DREDF releases an Issue Brief that supports including either the American Community Survey (ACS) set of six disability questions or other equivalent functional limitation measures in electronic health records.
    (April 2016)
  • A Promising Collaboration: Access to Independence and Care1st Health Plan San Diego, California
    This webinar presented preliminary outcomes from a collaboration between the Independent Living Center, Access to Independence, and Care1st that piloted a project in San Diego, California to reduce hospitalizations for a group of homeless people with disabilities and seniors identified as repeat high users of emergency care. (October 14, 2015)
    Slides (PPTX)
    Transcript (DOCX)
    Video
  • Promising Practices: A Preliminary Report On The LifeLong Complex Care Initiative
    An Innovative Three-Way Complex Care Collaboration: Berkeley Center for Independent Living (CIL), LifeLong Medical Center, and Alameda Alliance Health Plan, Berkeley, California (September 24, 2015)
    Slides (PPTX)
    Transcript (DOCX)
    Video
  • Promising Collaborations Between IL Centers, ADRCs, and Medicaid Managed Care Plans
    This webinar presented examples of promising practices featuring the work of the Aging and Disability Resource Connection (ADRC), a collaboration between FREED Independent Living Center, N4AA, and other LTSS and safety net providers in rural California. The collaborative partners assist individuals with disabilities to plan for LTSS; provide care transition intervention for people with substance use disorders and mental health disabilities; and facilitate community transitions. (August 27, 2015)
    Slides (PPTX)
    Transcript (DOCX)
    Video
  • Proposed Medicaid Managed Care Rules: Possible Impact on Seniors and People with Disabilities
    DREDF, Justice in Aging and NDRN presented a webinar on the proposed federal rule on Medicaid Managed Care for the Aging and Disability Partnership. (July 7, 2015)
    Slides (PPTX)
    Transcript (PDF)
  • Advanced Training Webinar on California’s Coordinated Care Initiative (CCI)​
    California is moving forward with the Coordinated Care Initiative (CCI), including the federally–approved dual eligible demonstration known as Cal MediConnect. The CCI started April 1, 2014, in certain counties, and is ongoing. This advanced training webinar was presented by DREDF’s Silvia Yee and Amber Cutler with Justice in Aging (formerly National Senior Citizens Law Center). April 21, 2015
  • The Affordable Care Act and People with Disabilities
    The significance of the Affordable Care Act for solo law practices and attorneys who work in smaller partnerships and practices, by Silvia Yee, Senior Staff Attorney, GPSOLO Magazine, a publication of the American Bar Association. (Vol. 32 No. 2 March/April 2015)
  • What’s Managed Care Got to Do with It, Got to Do with It? (PDF)
    Silvia Yee, Senior Attorney, presented at the Saint Louis University Law School annual health law symposium on Olmstead and the right to community integration as being integral to disability rights, and how Long-Term Services and Supports (LTSS) and Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) are fundamentally intertwined with how that right is realized. The transfer of Medicaid LTSS to managed care is a critical disability rights issue, presenting both a great challenge, but also a unique opportunity to influence primary and specialty medical providers because integrated care is intended to structurally and substantively elevate the consumer and his or her social supports and providers to an equal position within mechanisms such as holistic health risk assessments and care coordination teams. (March 2015)
  • Disability Discrimination in Health Care (PDF)
    Presented by Silvia Yee, Senior Attorney, at the Jacobus TenBroek Disability Law Symposium, Baltimore, MD (April 2012)
  • Disability Healthcare Access Brief
    Statement of the Problem. Silvia Yee, Staff Attorney. (April 2007)
  • Promoting Programmatic Access: What does programmatic access mean in healthcare settings? (PDF)
    DREDF’s short summary explanation. Nancy R. Mudrick, M.S.W., Ph.D., DREDF Senior Research Advisor, Silvia Yee, DREDF Attorney (Spring 2007)
  • Structural Impairments that Limit Access to Health Care for Patients with Disabilities
    Kristi L. Kirschner, MD, Mary Lou Breslin, MA, Lisa I.Iezzoni, MD, MSc, in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), March 14, 2007, Vol. 297, No.10 (subscription required)
  • Using the ADA and Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act to Increase Architectural and Programmatic Access and Accommodations
    DREDF legal position paper on Medicaid healthcare accessibility for people with disabilities, Silvia Yee (2007)
  • Short visual representation of the theories for legal responsibility for healthcare access (PDF)
    Arlene Mayerson, DREDF Directing Attorney (May 2005)
  • It Takes More than Ramps to Solve the Healthcare Crisis for People with Disabilities (PDF)
    Judy Panko Reis, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Mary Lou Breslin, DREDF, Lisa Iezzoni, M.D., Harvard Medical School, and Kristi L. Kirschner, M.D., Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. Published by the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (February 2004)