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good morning and welcome to Nami New Jersey's weekly webinar series my name is Maggie Lua and I'm the associate director in communications and technology from nemi New Jersey today's topic it's federal and state benefits program changes during the kovat 19 emergency in response to the pandemic as well as the social and financial impact on individuals families and businesses our government has made various timely changes in the benefit programs that affect most of us in the mental health community we are honored to have our distinguished speaker fellow bits joining us again today so is the associate director of Nami New Jersey where he leads our advocacy public policy and law enforcement programs folk has more than 40 years of experience in the public mental health system as a therapist administrator and family advocate though currently serves as the chairman of the New Jersey Behavioral Health Planning Council is also responsible for adapting the state plan for supporting the family caregivers of people with mental illness phil was awarded the Senator Paul Wellstone award for mental health advocacy Fenna JAMA and a governor Richard J Cody mental health champion award from Nami New Jersey and most recently Phil one of the prestigious 2019 inclined advocacy award from the community health world project so Phil we're so grateful that you are here shedding some light on this important topic for us so I will now pass it on to you thank you so much Maggie well today we're going to do a survey of the many federal and state changes to programs that affect people with a mental illness as a result of the cove 819 emergency I want to mention that this is a very quickly changing environment there are new things coming down almost only on this we will have some resources at the end of the presentation that you should regularly look at so that you can keep up they also want to say that many of these changes are temporary they're in effect now but they will be ending at some time when the actual emergency ends one last this disclaimer today a presentation we are not offering legal advice so you should keep that in mind as well okay so why don't we get started so today's presentation is going to cover many benefit programs that affect people with the mental illness we'll go over the legislative and executive authority for the responses excuse me we're going to deliver the delivery of mental health services the changes in health insurance as well as HIPAA and 42cfr was the privacy regulation regarding substance abuse treatment also some change to Social Security some changes that have heard in housing homelessness and food assistance programs generally there's been a lot done with both unemployment insurance and leave family leave we'll have a little discussion of student accommodations what's going on in the courts and lastly we're going to leave you with some resources both websites that you can go to and some telephone numbers so on March 13th President Trump declared a national emergency is regarding the Kovach outbreak basically this gave the Secretary of and Human Services authority to make some changes temporary changes and to waive some requirements in Medicare Medicaid chip the State Children's Insurance Program and HIPPA the first thing that took place that was Congress acted on March 6 - for an emergency supplemental of eight point three billion dollars to put a good deal of money into some public health programs funding research community health centers certain provisions waiving requirements that were in place about telehealth and also the first of several attempts to give to small businesses were affected by the emergency the second congressional Act was a family's first coronavirus response act this helped with food assistance mandated free testing for Coheed an increase in Medicaid accid states were receiving so states generally New Jersey would receive a fifty fifty matchless in sorry increased the match by six point two percent it's a considerable amount of money with the over a billion dollars that we've received in Medicaid funds some provisions in the unemployment aid that we'll talk about a little bit later as well as some aid stick and the medical leave that we'll be going over later as well our next king what's known as the Care Act this one we probably heard a lot about especially that each American will be receiving $1,200 I think some of you either have received it or will be receiving it very soon that applies to everyone making under seventy-five thousand dollars a year as an individual so in that one for unemployment insurance you not only would be getting your unemployment insurance but they would add $600 a week to what you would be receiving here act also gave some money to hospitals additional money to food banks be five hundred million dollars in loans available to businesses we'll talk about some mortgage relief and it importantly delays student loan payments during the emergency next came the Paycheck protection program we've heard a good deal about this as well so this was really meant for business to maintain workers on the payroll it also gave some money to hospitals and additional money to increase the availability of testing so you know if you're following the dates on this this governor Murphy actually declares a state of emergency before the federal declaration of a state of emergency by about a week it essentially declares an emergency and it's New Jersey prepared to meet the spread of Kogan 19 it allows the state to take emergency measures it's necessary to protect the health safety and welfare citizens of New Jersey it also allows heads of agencies to prove out promulgate rules and waivers and suspend modify existing rules we'll getting into those in a minute and also state agencies are authorized to take appropriate steps to adjust the hazards including and eliminating barriers to their services and to ensure the continuous delivery of state County and musical services so just last week the governor issued executive order 138 and that extend it's June the 6th so again we talked about them that there are going to be a variety of both federal and state waivers to respond to the cogut emergency so first of all providers are encouraged to provide medical and mental health services through telehealth so during the emergency we're trying to maintain personal distance this allows health services to be delivered and other than a face-to-face circumstance so it allows health providers and to build Medicaid for just about all the services they provide and by providing telehealth rather than face-to-face services this also waived the pre-approval or prior authorization requirement allowed psychiatric screening services to provide their service through tell us screaming evaluations and telepsychiatry evaluations during the public health emergency partial care programs or day programs were allowed through this way for the waiver to provide their services by telehealth and in the state of New Jersey is allowing them to build a per diem or a day rate based on the telehealth that they are providing to consumers in their programs just Center for Medicaid and Medicare services also through a waiver allowed facilities including psychiatric residential treatment facilities to receive the full reimbursement in the event that they had to change their a location they had to change their office and move patients to unlicensed facilities so as long as the state makes a reasonable assessment that those facilities meet minimum standards during this emergency if psychiatric residential treatment facilities have to move to a different facility or provide services to a subset of consumers in a different facility CMS is going to allow some room to for billing and also during this time CMS is waiving and granting temporary delays for scheduling and Medicaid fair hearings and issuing fair hearing decisions so the state of New Jersey has established some guidelines for those agencies a contract with the division of mental health and addiction services one they are encouraging all providers through established strategies for contacting consumers clients in place during the emergency so even with the emergency agencies are still required to main contact with the people who they are serving they're encouraged to consider alternate site locations as needed and also to review their staff current staffing determine what our essential functions and what staff requirements are determined by we're needing certain quality vacations in order to continue to provide staff to maintain their operation even with a reduced staff so of course this includes temporary policies to permit staff to work from home for functions that did not require staff on-site presence and remember a good deal of the services are now being provided through telehealth and lastly during the emergency all providers are given the flexibility to use all available and appropriate technologies to deliver telehealth as long as they are able to maintain a standard of care so what does telehealth though telehealth is the use of a variety of electronic information telecommunications technologies that allow support long-distance support and clinical care as well as professional health related education Public Health and health administration to include a videoconference the internet store-and-forward imaging streaming media landlines and wireless communications there going to be some guidelines with this as well providers should always use private locations and so there best of their ability consumers should not receive tell health in public or semi-public settings and if it is absolutely necessary consumers should give the ability to give verbal consent whether or not they are accepting those situations telehealth can be used in all those situations where professionals believe they can provide their services during this emergency most services would include diagnosis or treatment of moncavage 19 related conditions such as mental health counseling and adjusting prescriptions among among many other things so you know you could have medication appointment the doctor could phone prescriptions into pharmacy of being done with telehealth but again professionals are caution when using telehealth that the technology issues should really only be visible to the consumer receiving that service so maybe you wouldn't want to do something that broadcast on a TV screen say where many people could be a party of the conversation a quick mention of a reason horse license and I give you a URL where they can be read this permits people who are recipients really of a variety of benefit programs such as Medicaid or food stand receive free or reduced rate telephones which could include smartphones I think there are two companies in New Jersey that are offering that so that would certainly assist with receiving telehealth services and a couple of the companies in New Jersey have during the emergency also crease the amount of minutes or data that people are able to receive for free or low-cost storing the code big emergency so again you can go to that URL and find out more about that so some changes modifications to family care and which is a state Medicaid program so the governor's orders and the president's state of emergency allow Medicaid to cover testing and visits for testing and testing related services without any cost for kovat 19 all so that a would apply to chip the children's health insurance program you know at this time when many of us don't want to be going into stores every week or even every month Medicaid is now permitted to cover a 90 day supply of prescriptions of maintenance medications and again they encourage providers new telehealth for routine visits where those options are available it directs hospitals to waive the cost-sharing for uninsured individuals who are eligible for charity care for testing and testing relating services and also no one will lose a McCade or chip coverage during the emergency and so this is important even if you have a redetermination edge eldering in this time period or there are certain requirements for payments to a managed Medicaid managed care company that comes due during this period Medicaid and CHIP are requiring that your coverage not be ended while this emergency is going on so there have been some changes to Medicare as well Medicare is a little more particular about what services could be provided as well as telehealth but just recently Medicare offered one 1135 waiver includes provision and telehealth including in the place patients place of residence this would include doctors nurse practitioners psychologists and licensed clinical social workers they've also increased the payment for some telephone encounters denied payments for similar office and outpatient visits again like Medicaid Medicare is attempting that bringing the reimbursement rate for telephone encounters up to what would have been the rate for face visits again a bunch of services you can receive through telehealth including counseling and preventive health screening and again things like partial hospitalization program psychotherapy group psychotherapy and patient education can now be billed as telehealth visits so some more changes to Medicare the Office of Inspector General is provided flexibility to reduce or waive coinsurance and deductibles for telehealth medicare has a requirement that were had a requirement that for tell billing you would have had to have established a relationship with a patient or consumer during the cogut emergency really to encourage new people to receive services Medicare is relaxing their audits of those claims to allow flexibility to allow people who do not already have an established relationship to get into treatment remember some things like virtual check-ins it's a little bit different than a face-to-face in any visit that there's going to be some flexibility in billing for telehealth services for those two services so HIPAA and changes are required by current emergency so you know there were requirements certainly for telehealth that technology was very specifically able to guard privacy and this has been somewhat relaxed during the kovat emergency just necessitated by not everyone had been that technology I think the federal government to solve this is civil rights decided it was more important to make sure that people were able to receive services or so important that the the counterweight of privacy was lessened so during this period of time they're going to waive potential penalties of HIPPA for violations again health care providers I'm sure if some really egregious violation those could be heard after the emergency is over so the secretary a czar and again the president's declaration state of emergency granted the Secretary of Health and Human Services certain authorities to waive sanctions and penalties and one of these is regard to HIPAA is the secretary a czar has waived the requirement to obtain a patient's agreement to speak with family members or friends involved in the patient's care during the copay emergency also the waiver the emergency waiver a permits disclosure of protected health information for treatment purposes and certain disclosures to disaster really organizations again and these will be in effect during time of the covert emergency the cares Act also made some changes that 42cfr the substance abuse privacy law you know primarily it had some of the very stringent particulars requirements for an agreement to disclose were modified much more in keeping with the standard that's used in HIPAA so the requirement the CFR requirement for written consent is still in force however once i've written consent is given it results in some flexibility for the relation for treatment payment and health care operations it does require that entities may be effort reasonable effort to comply with the patient's request to restrict the disclosure it also creates a new anti-discrimination provision that prohibits the use of the substance use treatment information discriminate against individuals for health care employment access to the courts or social service benefits and including the sale or rental of housing and also that the substance abuse data can't be used in civil criminal administrative or legislative proceedings without a court order or the patient's consent so there's some protections are also put in when some of the provisions were waived you know you know many people have lost jobs and lost in comes the certainly affects people's health insurance many people have received their health and health insurance through their employers so just there know that Family Care Medicaid can provide health insurance low-cost health insurance to residents who are citizens of the state or qualified immigrants that would be someone who's a legal immigrant with five years of residence in the country so children are eligible up to the family incomes of seventy seven hundred and parents and caretakers are also eligible for family care those are the the income standards certainly adults with dependent children some additional income standards pregnant women are eligible and of course aged blind and disabled program including long-term care so this concludes our SSI recipients but people are also eligible for what was known as Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act in New Jersey that's called get covered New Jersey so typically in the ACA programs there's specific time period when individuals are left to enroll a lot of time periods passed however during an emergency there are provisions that allow people to enroll against is low cost or subsidized health care if you've had certain life events and one of those is lost of coverage because of something like you being laid off from work or your business closing down so you can go on the marketplace and you are eligible to buy insurance that way so you have a time limit on that so you have about 60 days after that qualifying event to enroll in a plan and if you missed that time period you're gonna have to wait again to next year's enrollment period I think generally falls in the late fall and in New Jersey of an individual earning up to close to $50,000 a year or a family of four with income of above $100,000 can still qualify for financial help and again to go you and go to the marketplace at healthcare.gov so services for undocumented New Jerseyans so there's some legislation that's been introduced in the jar some benefits for undocumented New Jerseyans however woes are still in the legislative process have not beat law so as far as what is available testing for individuals who developed symptoms of kovat 19 is available you can be if you need that qualification you can be tested at many public testing sites around New Jersey no charge to you regardless of your immigration status or whether you have health insurance and immigration ice has confirmed that testing and treatment and preventive care related to code though code 19 will not negatively affect an individual's public charge analysis and this was an Trump administration policy newly enacted that basically was saying people who were receiving public benefits it would not be eligible for citizenship or would harm their inspiration for eligibility for citizenship but during this emergency testing treatment and preventive care it's been confirmed with ice will not negatively affect an individual's public charge analysis so the Department of Banking Insurance has sent out a bulletin to insurance companies in the state advising them to waive all cost-sharing for emergency room and you know what this is can get very wordy so I'm just asking you read through this because it has to do with those charges if providers in your network or out of your network and it changes a little bit for each of these but for mergency this is urgent care and office visits depending on whether the person is in or out of your network banking insurances advise carriers to waive the cost caring they've also advised carriers your insurance company to inform you about the waiving of costs and how the accent of care is necessary and make sure that their networks are prepared to handle the potential increase in need for services during the emergency to develop robust telehealth program so it's not only the public sector that is to develop telehealth it's also the private sector as well caller covered the cost of immunization when they become when in it we have vaccines become available expand access to prescription drugs and that would really include you know extending the period of time to be able to fill regular ongoing medication and also to treat coded nineteen out of drugs to treat covered 19 a preferred level of cost sharing rather than one of the more expensive levels in their formulary so to pay then one of the ways they're encouraging telehealth is to pay in debt work health professionals at the same rate as if they were doing office visits I'm also a grant request for implant exceptions for individuals to assess out-of-network telemedicine services so if those aren't services aren't available in your network you're able to access them out-of-network telehealth services the out-of-network provider would be paid at a rate of the important provider so other health coverage changes hospitals are asked to refrain from imposing cost-sharing on uninsured individuals at the convention that before they're also to waive cost-sharing for laboratory tests right this is your coinsurance for the state health benefits planned and the state educational health benefits plan all cost-sharing for emergency rooms in and out of network urgent care in network for office visits network so just associated with medically necessary testing dr. kovac nineteen are waived again pharmacy benefit managers of less than the restrictions on early reflow of medications men maintenance medications who listens again sudden the need to frequent pharmacies third-party administrators for the health benefits in state education or to inform beneficiaries about the availability of telemedicine and telehealth services so also extra time for participants and beneficiaries of ERISA group health plans these are usually large health plans or self-insured health plan this is for volume or time for five lines and appeals but also if you need to apply for Cobra this is insurance it's a continuation of your employee employer insurance should you be laid off generally there's a time limit to apply for that that time limit has been extended so Social Security's also made some changes during this emergency all the Social Security offices are clubs their public face to face service okay so Social Security's is strongly recommending that you go online I give you the URL URL for the online services going there to that website generally Social Security has an excellent website and going there the other day they do have a number of circumstances that you can click on and get help so again the strong recommendation you need Social Security Services to go online we're calling their field offices and here we have a link to the field offices or they have an 800 number that's a national number you know just their warning is that there could be long waits for service on that so during the emergency they would not start or complete any medical continuing disability review or determinations once the person reaches at age 18 okay so this is not a new determination this is someone who is already receiving Social Security would be up for a review of case also if you are applying they've extended the deadlines documentation or other information that be submitted so there no in person or video hearings of they will upon request old telephone hearings whenever possible so we said as part of the legislation Congress passed that there are some new provisions both for unemployment but also something called a naked an economic impact payment or EIT so this you know you may have heard that people or to receive twelve hundred dollar economic impact payment again many people either receive them or will be receiving them very soon so if you filed a 2019 or a 2018 tax return it's automatically going to be sent to the bank account provided on your tax return you know if you requested a check you know checks will be coming but it's going to take the government longer to write a check than they would have been to make a direct deposit to a bank account so if you did not file a 2019 or an eighteen the tax return the IRS plans to use the information provided by the Social Security Administration to help so the IRS will generate your economic impact payment used in tane method direct deposit device Express or cheque I wish your monthly benefit is said so again you receive Social Security and did not file an eighteen or nineteen tax return IRS are still going to issue that return to you either through a direct deposit or sending you a check again the same way that you receive your Social Security benefit although this is not again this is not a Social Security check it is a payment from the IRS so if you are not on Social Security and did not file a tax return there is a URL that you can go to and enter some information to get that $1,200 payment sent to you in addition there was an additional $500 payment there we go to those who have dependent children and the time period for filing for that has closed down so if you've missed that filing deadline you're going to have to wait until you file your income tax for the current year and at that time you would have an eligibility to receive that additional payment for a dependent child so the governor's executive order states at any lacy tenant or homeowner any other person shall not be removed from a residential property as a result of eviction or foreclosure procedures so for the time being at least no one can be evicted or foreclosed upon in a housing situation that does not mean that a landlord or Inc cannot file for that foreclosed or eviction and we hear that is occurring in some places but at least during the current emergency even if that has the mission notice has been filed you cannot be evicted I don't believe the courts are holding those hearings also for renters are unable to meet their rent they can direct their landlord to use their security deposits to pay rent whether that makes up the entire shortfall or pays it in full the caveat on that is that that essentially is only alone and at the end of the kovat emergency people will be expected to refill the amount of the security deposit that they had previously used for rent so also the New Jersey has the mortgage finance authority has suspended all right increases for all eligible properties within its portfolio that's about 36,000 rental units around the state many of those are a rental units that people through the division of mental health services who seeing services from division of mental health services have received their their apartments so that's good news it won't be a rental increase and also I'm leaving a URL here for you to see if you are eligible for any of this state housing assistance program so there are a number of programs more than we could really go into and well we should say they deserve a presentation of their own but if you'd like to see which you may be eligible for it go to that URL very informative also in New Jersey there's something called rapid rehousing you know I know that will serve every person that's going to need housing but it is available to an extent it gives assistance individuals and families living on the street or an emergency shelter and allows them to obtain emergency or permanent housing so rapid rehousing will pay up to one half months rent with rental assistance up to twelve months deposit for electric oil and gas and also the moving costs assists the cost that are associated with moving into housing so here every county seems to have an agency that is working with the state on this rapid rehousing so here I have a URL where you can find the telephone numbers or locations of those programs snap or food stamps so you can apply online at New Jersey helps org or you could apply by phone I believe later on in our resources we have the phone number so during the COBIT emergency they've simplified the application process there are also extra SNAP benefits now in some instances or work activities that were associated requirements for snap recipients but during the public crisis your case will not be closed if you are unable to participate in a work activity and for recertification if your case is due to be certified and during the next couple of months your case has been granted a six month X tension with a lot of these programs the timeline we should say the deadline for taking certain action submitting certain information has been extended but let me warn you that the guidelines differ from program to program and it's much better to be safe and sorry you should confirm if a situation like this pertains to you you should confirm with the particular agency that they've extended a deadline and again at the end of the presentation you're going to find some resources both internet addresses and telephone numbers where you should be able to confirm so uninsurance employment again many people have either lost their employment or they've lost hours in employment both of those situations to a large extent make you eligible for unemployment benefits and some of the enhanced benefits as it is a result of the kovat emergency so especially independent contractors and those are self-employed or gig workers those looking for part-time work you're eligible for what's called the pandemic unemployment assistance okay so those who under normal circumstances you don't have enough work history or uux or you've already exhausted your regular unemployment benefits you may be eligible for this pandemic pandemic unemployment assistance as well okay so again your URL there is my unemployment NJ gov so go there and check on that so workers who've lost employment or hours during colgate a new law prohibits employees from firing at the anyone if you took time off because of Colgate so one of the enhanced benefits unemployment insurance we're providing equals six hundred dollars a week on top of the regular and pandemic assistance benefit through July 25th these payments will be issued separately from unemployment benefit again so if unemployment generally pays 2/3 of thirds of your salary you know some people have pointed out that it is possible to under this pandemic unemployment compensation to actually earn more for a given period of time than you would with regular working salary and also unemployment insurance is giving you an additional 13 weeks of benefits for maximum 39 weeks so other than the regular 26 weeks you have 13 extra weeks up to 39 weeks you know there are possibility that that may be extended in the future but for right now it's 39 weeks okay generally so unemployment is going to pay you 60% of the wages with the maximum 7:13 a week but then you are likely eligible for that additional $600 a week as well so there are some additional employment benefits the new jersey earned sick leave so all employers must provide full-time part-time and tenth employees up to 40 hours of earn sick leave per year so that they care for themselves or their loved ones as part of some of the new legislation there's emergency federal paid sick leave where you could get two weeks of paid sick leave at your regular pay rate when you're unable to work because you are experienced coded symptoms and seeking the medical diagnosis and then 2 weeks of paid sick leave at 2/3 of the employees regular rate because you were unable to work because of need to care for an individual subject to quarantine or to care for a child ok so these are two new benefits that if you can't work because of those particular circumstances you also could be eligible for temporary disability insurance provided through the state of New Jersey that's there for workers who suffer an in illness injury or other disability that prevents them from working and was it caused by their child and also in New Jersey we have a Family Leave benefit provides these Jersey workers cash benefits up to six weeks again for a newborn newly adopted we place foster child or to provide care for a seriously ill or injured family member so if you have a family member who's been impacted by the Koated 19 and youth necessary for you to be there to care for them New Jersey has this six-week paid family leave so some and fairly new rulings for student accommodations so as a result of the emergency districts are still required offer special education services to the most appropriate extent possible while students are away from school programs schools are directed council to talk with parents Syracuse of an IEP team to get their take on how best to meet the needs of a student with disabilities you know while they are home due to the Kobe emergency and really how to make the best out of home instruction to make sure that even with a disability this child is still receiving equitable home services IEP teams also going to need to consider compensatory services when the student returns to school and IEP s may need to be adjusted so it's not only doing the time of the emergency but as a result of emergency it's given that students with disabilities will not be receiving or likely not to receive all the services to which they're entitled so there should be some adjustments made once they do return to school to help them make up for that and it's remain so the responsibility of the sending district are to make sure that even students if they are out of district in animistic placement we're still provided with instruction during the school closures and the newest piece of news is that it's not permitted to schools to execute a waiver or release present or future claims as a condition to implement a student's IEP so the school district can't say to you in order for us to give your child the special services called for in his IEP we want you to sign a waiver or release the school for future liability again that has been Rule two be illegal so you know your title to the services of your IEP without any additional conditions being placed on that so they've been just a court operation so on April 24th the courts issued a ruling and again this is after the state of emergency that resumed the operation in some courts and extends a deadline for other court sessions and activities so until May 31st the courts have suspended jury trials remember we said the landlord tenant trials it has to do with addiction or grand jury proceedings however civil commitment hearings already have resumed and will continue I imagine many of those are taking place through video mr. municipal court sessions of the state they're able to resume this week by a video or phone where possible with the consent of the parties again foreclosure motions or judgments received after a March first will not be reviewed until further notice and again will reiterate the Spence turn of the Vixen of residential tenants continues [Music] looks like the civil arbitration in matrimonial settlement panels they may have resumed in April the end of April and as we said municipal court sessions can resume April 27th so you know let me reiterate that this is a very quickly changing environment there are new provisions being added and new modifications of existing programs and rules while at the same time the time limit for previous declarations because of the emergency like the court hearings we just saw had ended so you know my strongest recommendation would be to try to stay up to date with what's going on with the situation's that most directly affect you or your loved ones and again telephone there's a high demand for telephone service and you may have to wait for quite a bit of time generally most places because of the reductions and staff are recommending that you try to do as much as you can online so for a number of things we talked about today we've put up some additional resources also at our Nami New Jersey website wwm inj org we also have a number of additional resources to assist you during the Kovach 19 emergency so we're aware that many people don't have access to the Internet so we've listed some telephone numbers important telephone numbers here for your use lastly the state New Jersey has a cope in nineteen information hub a wealth of information in all areas I'd recommend you take a look at that both health information how to deal with the co vid information from the Center for Disease Control to super wealth of information about that and also links to many of the government agencies as well as a general Kovac line and a aligned for Kovac questions even even you know being text alerts for coded oh you know when we went over the telephone numbers I just wanted to point out as well NJ let me go back for that quickly you know men on New Jersey Mental Health Care's behavioral health information helpline and research referral service and during the emergency they have extended hours so that's an important source of both information or if you just need to talk to a friendly voice it's a good place to go so that concludes the presentation portion of today's webinar so thank you so much Phil thank you we will now be responding to some of the questions in the Q&A chat box we have answer some of them online but I know that we are going to over run a little bit but maybe we can take five minutes to after ten minutes to answer Phil so one of the questions that asked that are sort of Kairos right now get on urine screenings for blood levels that are required with prescription medications access to the chat box but again that's fine so I'll be reading so one of the attendees asked our psychiatrist right now gathering urine screenings or blood levels that are required with prescription medications you know that's a good question you know I think they say that the services as required so you know I think you have to speak to your provider directly about that no I know screenings and medications are being refilled and I think we've being safe is ground right now to say that you're gonna have to talk to your particular provider about what he or she is doing in terms of taking blood levels the direction is just to provide the most appropriate care possible right Thank You Phil the other question is that will the additional $600 per week in unemployment similars make someone in eligible for a continual NJ family care Medicaid program no I think there's some flexibility of that I think you know my memory is that there's like a three-month peers or spend on so again you you probably cannot be over the $2,000 threshold for a long period of time but that 600 or the trullinger dollar payment like that could easily throw someone over the threshold that's not initially going to count against someone for the purpose of being knowledgeable thank you and a follow-up question as well that if the family has the permanent residence status or green card will there be an issue during this pandemic period with public charge if they apply first foot stem benefits so the on to the best of my knowledge the only benefit the federal government has clearly stated will not be taken into consideration is the treatment of kovat by the diagnosis and treatment and care associated with kovaydin some of the other programs and I have to say there is a possibility that would affect probably charge determination thank you and the next question is that when Phil you are referring to the waving of emergency room costs for Co vat19 does this also apply to the doctors charges that are usually built separately from the ER charge okay thank you and also there's one more couple more but can we apply for unemployment while being on SSI what if you were employed during the time you had SSI and you that didn't take you the income okay thank you and will that unemployment benefits be able to issued out retro actively if they apply let's say a month late I think unemployed me you start collecting benefits children your date of application so my understanding is you can okay great and someone also asked for family care NJ family care I feel you mentioned on the slide that the forty nine thousand and nine hundred sixty dollars per family of four could you confirm that information so you know that's the sort of the gross the year that's given generally there's some disregards in income so there's a possibility that it could be it's like it just adjusted gross income so yeah I can confirm that that that's if you if you're under that amount yes you should be eligible that what was recent that was a couple of days ago mm-hmm thank you and someone on the line saying that they have applied for the unemployment back in March but they are having some issues no one was responding and they got hung up so they wonder what can they do is there an agency or some way to try follow-up and get a response you know unfortunately we have millions and millions of people who are unemployed I think that was four million people here New Jersey alone so the unemployment office is really overwhelmed you know both the legislature and the governor have certainly said that they are taking steps to ease the backlog that were really in an emergency situation and you know I don't believe there is all very good work around it you just have to keep at it with working through that website were on number four right thank you can an EIP be obtained by a dependent who has earned income you know because it's IRS I would think if it's either gonna be either or then is no longer than independent you're gonna have to decide for the purposes of income tax of the person and again I'm gonna caution you not only are you getting legal advice but you're not getting the accounting advice either but now I would think offhand that a person would have to make a determination either they are independent or they aren't dependent to the extent that you might have been claimed on a previous income tax like the 19 income tax is a dependent and that's what the basis of the payment is I would be cautious about thank you mm-hmm and the next one when will the extended unemployment benefits for the 13 weeks begin will it include the extra $600 yes thank you [Music] again the House of Representatives bill yesterday that intended to extend that I believe to the end of the year but first it has moved to this minute and the Senate is the Senate majority has voiced a lot of opposition to that so whether it ever becomes law or not and you know it certainly getting it something that's going to be interesting like it's not law yet at the current time all we can do and say is that don't even have that extra payment Thank You Phil so I think that I'm the last question because of the time we do want to be mindful of that so someone if someone is currently on SSI and is claimed as a dependent of another person are they eligible for any kind of stimulus payment you know again I'm gonna give the same answer without giving either legal advice or acting advice so rather than being correct about I did not give an answer you know I can say that for a deeper dive into Social Security Disability Rights New Jersey which is drnj RG he's going to be giving a webinar this afternoon that probably will look at the closer SSI in particular so a person might want to go on their website and register for that one for some additional information other than that those are questions we might be able to go to the Social Security website like I said they never very excit they the ability to answer a lot of questions you might be able to go online right from the horse's mouth thank you so much Phil and from one of the other staff members Susan we would like to suggest to the attendees if they have questions with unemployment benefit you can contact your local stage elected officials for health as well so with that I though I would thank you very much for joining us and sharing with us these valuable resources right now before we close I do would like to go back to the our website so before we close this webinar we'd like to share with our participants our online resources and information from the Nami New Jersey website so from the front page if you go to the get involved page and click become a member you can find out all about how to become a member that said all our programs are free and are Paige you can go to the covert 19 information hub that Phil mentioned you'll be able to access all our online services and resources you'll find where the statewide online support groups are are fit eh online support group multicultural as well as signature presentations we have a lot coming up here and as well as the webinar like this one where we'll be posting the recording along with the handout so here is folks and tomorrow we have a special webinar in Spanish you're welcome to join us and feel free to reach out to Nami New Jersey for any support you might need thank you again for sharing this hour with us here today and as a reminder it would be appreciated if you could complete the survey at the end of this webinar so that we can incorporate your feedback for future webinars this concludes our webinar thank you all