People with Disabilities Foundation

“Some directors have reviewed the form 990, its schedules and related attachments in detail and have presented the return and their findings to the balance of the governing body for their concurrence.”

“Pwdf monitors this on an on-going basis; as a small agency, it would have been reported and discussed at every general annual and budget board meeting. This fy there was no need for enforcement.”

“Every year, the voting board reviews the staffing and salary structure at the pwdf general annual budget meeting in april or may. Periodically, (every 5 years), we purchase naional and regional salary data from guidestar to compare our salary structure with similar nonprofits that have similar budget amounts.”

“The documents are available upon request to the organization and also through the office of the california attorney general.”

“Pwdf continues to consult with and represent individuals who have psychiatric, intellectual,and/or developmental disabilities (p/idd) on cases that involve social security disability benefits and reasonable accommodations in employment,housing, education, and social security disability programs. We primarily represent clients before the social security administration (ssa) for ssdi & ssi benefits in post-entitlement and continued eligibility for benefits. We have clinics for beneficiaries of ssdi and/or ssi who have mental and/or developmental disabilities and have issues due to ssdi work reviews and ssi redeterminations based on income and resulting overpayments in either program. After 6 years of litigation, in 2012, pwdf received favorable outcomes in two federal court cases filed against the ssa alleging that they discriminate against people with mental (schizophrenia) and developmental (autism) disabilities. (case nos. 3:06- cv-6108 emc (nc) and 3:09-cv-980 emc (nc).) this is the first time the ssa has offered reasonable accommodations on the basis of mental/developmental disabilities. We are currently in the enforcement stage, ensuring the ssa is not in violation of this settlement agreement with respect to doe;davis passed away. Pwdf filed a medicare (medicaid) compedia case in federal district court against the u.s. Department of health and human services (hhs) on an issue of first instance. Hhs is using an overly restrictive definition of an "acceptable medical indication," preventing medicare (and medicaid) beneficiaries from obtaining coverage for prescription drugs for life- threatening and other conditions. Pwdf's intent is to have broad impact. The case is now in the u.s. Court of appeals for the 9th circuit, which covers 11 states and territories. (bruce v. Azar, et al. Case no. 19- 17565.)”

“Pwdf continues its public awareness and education activities through outreach events, guest speaking, an e-newsletter, informational seminars, training sessions and a youtube channel, which hosts and disseminates our seminar and other videos. To-date, we have nearly 50 educational videos on our youtube channel. In addition, we continue to market our training videos for distribution. Over the last several years, we have been expanding our public awareness and education program from a primarily local program to a national program thouugh technology based on recommendations from a "capstone" team of graduate students from new york university's robert f. Wagner graduate school of public service. Since our last 3-hour, free public awareness seminar in june 2018, pwdf has been doing research for and planning our next seminar, with the working-title of aging and mental health issues: diagnosis, treatment, and solutions. This seminar will address psychiatric issues related to aging, including those that often or may onset late in life such as dementia (neuro-cognitive disorder), personality disorder, cognitive dysfunction, anxiety, and depressionto provide a robust and important topic with which to educate the community. Pwdf is actively planning this seminar and we expect to schedule it for some time in late fall 2019 through winter 2020. In 2015, we began increasing our work in submitting public comments to governmental agencies advocating for policies and regulatory changes as they pertain to people with psychiatric and/or developmental disabilities, because this population is too often underrepresented and stigmatized. For example,in 2018-2019, we submitted comments on notices of proposed rulemakings to the ssa related to setting the manner for the appearance of parties and witnesses at a hearing (docket no. Ssa-2017-0015), as well as ssa proposed rulemaking on elimination of the education category "inability to communicate in english" when evaluating disability claims for adults under titles ii and xvi of the social security act (docket no. Ssa-2017- 0046). We provide training on the americans with disabilities act (ada) and supplemental security income (ssi) and social security disability insurance (ssdi) for people with mental and/or developmental disabilities statewide and locally,including for organizations such as nami california, nami san francisco chapter, nami marin chaper, the bar association of san francisco, and support for families of children with disabilities, among others. This year, pwdf presented two workshops on ssi/ssdi for support for families of children with disabilities: one that was an introductory workshop on child's benefits and another on overpayments, waivers, and appeals. Pwdf also received a request from san francisco general hospital to provide a workshop on social security disability to some of their residents, so we developed a workshop geared towards medical providers. We also provided a workshop,"conservatorships (management of the person and/or property) and social security disability representative payee services" for psychiatric nurse practitioner students at the university of california san francisco school of nursing. Pwdf submitted freedom of information act (foia) requests to the us department of labor (dol) and department of health and human services (hhs) for information related to their enforcement of the paul wellstone and pete domenici mental health parity and addiction equity act of 2008 (mhpaea) in august 2018. The dol provided some information, but has not replied to all of our requests: we are appealing their responses as inadequate. After not receiving a response from hhs for nearly 7 months, we sent them a letter on march 28, 2019 about their lack of response. In april 2019, the centers for medicare and medicaid services (cms) acknowledged the request. In august 2019, nearly a year to the day after we submitted the request, cms freedom of information group contacted us to say t”

“DEVELOPMENT”