Waiver Redesign Project

Community Collaboration and Outreach

To achieve these principles the project teams created opportunities for collaboration and feedback from waiver participants and their families, DSHS DDCS staff, and community partners. The teams considered the feedback and input from each group and responded with a design that incorporated and built upon those ideas. This process is detailed in the Community Engagement section of the Medicaid 1915 (c)  Waiver Restructure report to the legislature.

Timeline and updates

The recommendations include improving the service structure and consolidating from five waivers to two waivers. Participants will enroll in these waivers based on the living situation a person wants and needs. In our timeline and updates section, we document the planned steps to get there.

Current DDCS 1915(c) HCBS Waivers                           Future DDCS 1915(c) HCBS Waivers

Waiver Reimagine Project Timeline

As restructuring unfolds, the DSHS DDCS community will experience it at different times and in different ways, as described below. Strong change management planning and execution will prepare people for changes and smooth the process as changes occur.

Phase 1: January 2025- December 2025 Planning

January-June

• Project plan development.
• Transparency with Specialized Habilitation services by changing the name to Life Skills.
• Changes to expand Transportation for increased access.
• Policy updates and improvement for multiple services.
• Initial consultation with CMS for feasibility of combining some services.
• Analysis of service requests to identify barriers and simplify processes.
• See the summary of our most recent Waiver Amendments on our Waiver Programs webpage by clicking here.
• See our HCBS Waiver service videos by clicking here.

June 2025-December 2025

• Complete analysis of contracting process barriers, provider capacity and service utilization.
• Evaluate possibilities of service changes.
• Evaluate system change feasibility and resource needs.
• Start service design development.
• Begin community collaboration efforts.

Phase 2: January 2026-December 2026 community collaborator engagement and change management

• Service design continues.
• Community collaboration continues.
• Decision package requests are formulated and request legislation if needed.
• Meet with Health Care Authority on access to behavioral health care for individuals with IDD. 
• Rate methodology: evaluation of our current rates, leading to development of a tiered provider rate schedule based on support needs with value-based payment options for some services.

• DDCS provider data collection.
• Identify quality monitoring needs and start plan development for roll out

Phase 3: January 2027-September 2027 system changes and Federal approval

• Submission of new waivers to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services with public comment period and tribal engagement process.
• Contract development.
• Quality monitoring plan development and roll out.
• Training.
• Rate systems changes.

• Contracting providers and targeted recruitment in needed areas.

• Develop and publish WAC and Policy.

Phase 4: September 2027-December 2028 implementation roll out- transition to new waivers then shut down old waivers.

Stay in Touch

DSHS DDCS is committed to continuing to include input from people with lived experience to implement services that meet their needs. If you are interested in getting involved, please see our Community Collaborators page for more information.

An additional way to provide feedback is by completing our surveys that we will post here throughout our planning, change management, and implementation process. Our first survey is linked below:

New survey to be added to this section quarterly.

Idea for first survey to be helping us to determine the names of the new waivers.