Start-up brokerage: the months before your budget exists

The chicken-and-egg problem

Ongoing brokerage is a line inside your Personal Resource Account. But at the start there is no approved budget, no line, and nothing to bill against — and yet somebody has to do several months of planning and writing before a budget can exist at all.

OPWDD resolves this by funding the start-up phase separately, with state funds. Start-up Support Broker services may be accessed once, with a lifetime funding limit of $2,400, for the work of creating an initial budget. The practical effect is that getting you started does not come out of the money meant to support you once you have started.

Two limits worth knowing now rather than later. It is a lifetime limit, not an annual one. And a second start-up brokerage expense is not available to someone who has already received self-directed services and is simply changing Fiscal Intermediary.

What has to be true before start-up begins

• OPWDD eligibility has been determined, and you have a Notice of Determination
• You are enrolled with a Care Coordination Organization and have a Care Manager
• You have told your Care Manager, explicitly, that you are choosing Self-Direction
• Your needs assessment is done, and a Personal Resource Account amount is known or in progress
• A Self-Direction Liaison has been assigned by your Regional Office

If any of those is missing you are not at start-up yet, you are still at the Front Door stage. Trying to run them in parallel is where most of the lost months come from. OPWDD's Front Door line is 1-866-946-9733.

What the start-up phase produces

• A Circle of Support that actually meets

  Not a list of names. The required members are the person, the broker and the Care Manager; the useful members are whoever knows the person well enough to disagree about what they need. See building a Circle of Support.

• Person-centred planning that precedes the numbers

  What a good week looks like, what the person is working toward, what has failed before and why. Done properly this takes several sessions. Done as a form-filling exercise it produces a budget that describes a stranger.

• A first Self-Direction plan and budget

  Every line justified against a valued outcome, with the arithmetic done and other funding sources checked first. See writing the plan and budget.

• A Fiscal Intermediary selected

  You choose the FI. Ask your broker which ones they work with easily, and ask other families which ones answer the phone.

• Submission, and then questions

  The Liaison reviews. Expect revisions. A first submission that comes back with queries is normal, not a failure.

How long it really takes

OPWDD's own expectation is that completing a Self-Direction budget is typically accomplished within six months of the approval of a Broker Agreement for Start-Up Brokerage and the issuance of a start-up broker approval letter. Note where that clock starts: at the agreement, not at your first phone call.

In practice it depends on how fast the planning work gets done and how clean the first submission is. It can run longer where the plan is complex or the regional office is backed up.

What to watch during start-up

• A budget that appears fully formed. If you did not recognise your family in the planning conversations, you will not recognise them in the budget.
• Silence from the Liaison. Ask your broker for the submission date and the status. Nothing is gained by not knowing.
• Staff recruitment starting too late. Fiscal Intermediary clearance takes time and includes fingerprinting. An approved budget with nobody hired is not support.
• The Life Plan not updated. Your Care Manager must ensure the Life Plan lists the self-directed services. If it does not, that is a problem waiting for your renewal.

Questions families actually ask