Vaccine Update: Vaccine Eligibility for Individuals with Disabilities Receiving Home-and Community-Based Waiver Services

Late yesterday, the Indiana Department of Health announced that individuals with disabilities ages 16 – 49 who receive home-and community-based waiver services are now eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. ​

This includes individuals on the Aged & Disabled, Family Support, and Community Integration & Habilitation Waiver. This expanded eligibility includes nearly 19,000 individuals and is being made possible through our on-going partnership with the Indiana Department of Health.

Before an individual can make an appointment, their case/care manager will submit their information to the Indiana Department of Health. The individual, or their designated support person, will then receive a text message and/or email in the near future with a link unique to them that can only be used to sign up for a vaccine appointment. Specifically, the process includes the following steps:

• Eligible individuals will be contacted by their case/care manager to confirm their interest in receiving vaccine and to gather information needed to provide the individual with access to scheduling their vaccine appointment; the information will be shared with the Division of Disability and Rehabilitative Services or Division of Aging as it is gathered.
• Daily, DDRS/DA will compile the information received and upload it to IDOH.
• Based on that upload, the system will generate and send the individual, or their designated support person, a unique link that they can use to schedule their appointment at a time and location convenient to their schedule.

Case managers and care managers have already begun their outreach activities with over 4,000 individuals contacted to date. For eligible individuals and their families, if you have not yet heard from your case/care manager, please know they will be in touch very soon. For our provider network, we appreciate, in advance, your efforts to coordinate and collaborate with individuals and case/care managers to ensure individuals are supported in scheduling and accessing their vaccine appointments.

We hope this information is helpful. Should you have questions, please use the following:

• Questions for individuals served by DDRS, please send questions to: BQIS.Help@fssa.IN.gov
• Questions for individuals served by the Division of Aging, please send questions to: Fssa.Dawaiverunit@fssa.in.gov