Lawmakers laid eyes on some hard-won data Thursday. The Health Care Oversight Committee reviewed three months worth of statistics on reports of elder abuse in the state that are filed with the Adult Protective Services (APS) division of the Department of Aging and Independent Living (DAIL).
In the past, APS has struggled to investigate reports of elder abuse in an adequate and timely manner. Concerned by backlogs and the unusually low number of allegations that are substantiated, lawmakers asked for a number of changes to the program, including more information on a more frequent basis.
While the state’s substantiation rate remains well below average, APS, by hiring additional staff, was largely successful in eliminating the logjam in investigations.
But getting more information has proven surprisingly difficult for lawmakers. Their efforts date back to 2012, when Gov. Peter Shumlin vetoed a bill they’d passed requiring APS to give lawmakers monthly updates on the programs. Shumlin and Secretary of Human Services Doug Racine characterized the Legislature’s request as unreasonable and said it would create too much red tape for the agency.
During the 2013 legislative session, lawmakers pared back their demands, asking for data on a quarterly rather than monthly basis (up until that point, APS was doing annual reports) and nixing a $75,000 independent study that had been another sticking point. The second time around, Shumlin signed the bill without objection.
Thursday’s briefing marked the first time APS has put out a quarterly report. Lawmakers weren’t totally appeased.
During the three-month period it covers, from April 1 to June 30, APS received 980 reports of elder abuse. Before these reports are investigated, they go through a vetting process to determine if the alleged victim meets the statutory definition of a “vulnerable adult” and if the alleged offense qualifies as “abuse, neglect or exploitation” under state law. Once that’s been certified, an investigator looks into the allegations to determine whether they’re valid or “substantiated.”
Of the 980 complaints, only 362 were opened for an investigation. The others were thrown out or referred elsewhere for a number of reasons. Many of them involved complaints about licensed facilities, which are sent to another unit. Others involved self-neglect, which APS doesn’t investigate. Some were simply “off topic,” according to Veda Lyon, the program director for APS. Fourteen cases were thrown out because the victim didn’t qualify as “vulnerable.”
“We do surprisingly receive a fair number of reports where there is actually no allegation … someone is calling to complain about a neighbor … people want to vent,” Lyon told lawmakers.
Susan Wehry, commissioner of the Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living (DAIL) said that final number is reassuring. One of the chief concerns among lawmakers and advocates has been that APS was rejecting too many cases because it was following too stringent a definition of “vulnerability.”
“The data supported our impression that we weren’t setting too high a bar,” Wehry told the committee.
APS complete 234 investigations between April and July, but the allegations were confirmed in only 32 cases. That’s a 14 percent substantiation rate, whereas the national average falls at about 40 percent.
APS also still has 346 investigations that remain ongoing, and that sparked concerns among the committee members. The lawmakers asked Wehry to get them additional information about the lifespans of these cases to ascertain whether APS is taking too long to conclude them. Wehry, who promised to provide that data, said the case load that each investigator handles ranges from 14 to 50, with the average falling at 30.
“For those at the higher end, the reasons are a combination of longer open cases and the loss of one staff person and others picking up those cases, but the workload, per se, does not appear to be an issue,” Wehry said.
Sen. Sally Fox, D-Chittenden, told Wehry that the quarterly report wasn’t all that helpful, because they didn’t have a history of previous quarters to compare.
“For me looking at one quarter, although its interesting, it doesn’t tell me anything … I hope we get a broader spectrum of data because our job is too look at trends and see if there need to be legislative changes,” Fox said. “I’m concerned that there are still 300-and-something-odd cases that are still open. ”
