For alleged cutbacks.
By CYBERNEWS - Posted May 24, 2021 - Updated 8:57 am May 24, 2021
https://www.telemundopr.com/noticias/puerto-rico/denuncian-estudiantes-de-educacion-especial-estaran-sin-servicios-el-proximo-ano-escolar/2217429/
Victor Moreno, a therapist and spokesman for Therapy Service Providers under the Provisional Remedy mechanism, denounced Monday that more than 20,000 students in the Special Education program will be without therapy and evaluation services for the next school year.
Moreno said that last Wednesday, May 19, the Department of Education notified that there will be a new cut in the payment they receive for their services to the children of the Special Education Program through the Provisional Remedy.
The spokesperson for Therapy Service Providers indicated that in 2015, the Department of Education regulated the rates to Interim Remedy providers, based on a report made by the company Estudios Técnicos. According to the April 28, 2015 report, this company studied the market and informed Education what the average rate was.
"However, at that time Education stipulated a rate 20% lower than the average identified in the report. So this cut is not justified," Moreno said in a written statement.
Through the Interim Remediation Program, therapy services are provided to Special Education students when the Department of Education is unable to provide them.
"We, psychologists, speech therapists, physical therapists, occupational therapists and others will be unable to provide service to these special needs students that the Department of Education cannot or has not been able to provide," he added.
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According to the Department of Education, the costs of services are above market costs based on the Medicare Fee Schedule (MFS).
"However, the services of the Medicare program and Interim Remedy are incomparable in that regard. You cannot compare the service provided to these students through Provisional Remedy, which is a service focused on development and education, requirements that raise administrative costs, with quality, individualized treatment, compared to the service provided by the government through Health Reform and its insurers; they are two different services. Given this scenario, Moreno warned "we will not sacrifice the service we provide to our children as the Department of Education intends. The quality of service is not negotiable. We have been offering quality service even when it takes more than four months to pay us. The Department of Education's response that they pay within 30 days of billing is totally false".
The spokesperson indicated that "those who are recommending these cuts are the Fiscal Control Board. They are threatening the future of students who need government services, many of these students are of limited resources, they need assistance and to leave them without services is to abandon them and in many cases compromise their health. They are violating their right to life, to development, to education; these are rights established in the Constitution".
Moreno added that there have been years "of abuse by the Department of Education to the therapists in Puerto Rico, the insensitivity, the months of delays in payments and impositions have never ceased. How to retain these therapists in Puerto Rico under these conditions and that our children can receive their treatments? The answer is that there are fewer and fewer therapists to attend to them, but the government is not interested in that. Only when the officials who administer the funds destined to our children have empathy towards them, they will stop seeing their needs as an accounting problem and will feel it as a Humanist imperative. The governor (Pedro Pierluisi) has to decide if he is going to be an advocate and defender of the Board or if he is going to defend the rights and funds of Special Education students," Moreno concluded.
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