Except for the issuance of "assessment rates," ODP has not yet issued FY 2015-2016 or FY 2016-2017 rate setting, nor reviewed the waiver requests from these years.   The response from ODP is that they are very short staffed and they are sorry and they will get to them as soon as they can.     Steve Evitts met with PAR providers on January 13, 2017 for discussion.  Providers expressed their concerns and problems due to these delays, and attendees also offered proposed solutions.   Steve Evitts stated that one change he is making is that he will personally review all of the waiver requests to speed up the process, and then staff will followup with the correspondence.   There has not yet been any followup to this meeting.  In followup to the meeting, AZTAC prepared a letter to Steve Evitts, expressing .  If you would like a copy of this letter, send a note to mahaschert@aztacincom.com  Steve Evitts welcomed your written comments, and I encourage you to send an email or letter to Steve and/or Rick Smith.  Their emails are:

Sevitts@pa.gov

Riesmit@pa.gov