11/18/2025
Community Update: Summary of Tonight’s AHCCCS Policy Meeting
Tonight, AHCCCS held a community meeting to walk through the updated Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) policies and the new Extraordinary Care Review (ECR) process. This was the same presentation shared last Thursday and was intended to help families, providers, and community partners understand what has changed since the October 1 implementation and why these revisions are being proposed.
These updates come after significant public concern, extensive feedback from families and providers, and direct engagement from Governor Hobbs. AHCCCS acknowledged that the original October 1 policies did not fully reflect developmental standards or the day-to-day realities for children with disabilities and long-term care needs, prompting a deeper review by their clinical team.
Key Areas Discussed in the Meeting
AHCCCS shared several major adjustments to the draft policies, all of which are now open for public comment through November 24. The updates include:
Age-based care task adjustments
AHCCCS has lowered the ages at which certain care tasks—such as incontinence-related laundry, eating and feeding, bathing, and toileting—can be assessed as medically necessary needs. These changes reflect a more accurate understanding of developmental differences across childhood.
Habilitation guidance
For children aged 3 and up, habilitation hours are now standardized at 10 hours per week. However, an exception pathway is built in so that families can request more hours when supported by medical necessity.
Extraordinary Care Review (ECR) process
This is the most notable addition. The ECR is designed to give families a way to request exceptions when standard limits do not reflect their child’s medical and developmental needs.
During an ECR, clinicians will review:
• Detailed service utilization
• Diagnoses and clinical factors
• Risk of institutionalization
• Extraordinary time and caregiving demands
• Other relevant medical or behavioral considerations
Service levels will remain the same while an ECR is being conducted, ensuring continuity of care and preventing gaps while decisions are made.
Implementation timeline and transparency commitments
AHCCCS shared that the public comment window closes next Monday (November 24), with a projected implementation in early January 2026. They also committed to quarterly public reporting, continued community engagement, and the creation of an oversight committee to monitor how the ECR is functioning once implemented.
Throughout the meeting, AHCCCS emphasized that these revisions are a direct response to community feedback and that they are actively seeking constructive comments from families, providers, and advocates to further improve the policies.
Next Steps & RVC’s Community Call to Action
Raising Voices Coalition has been working nonstop with our policy team, agency partners, and community members to analyze these documents line by line. We have prepared three key resources:
1. A formal RVC position letter
2. Detailed, line-by-line policy feedback
3. A community call to action with clear instructions for submitting public comment
All three will be released Wednesday, giving families and providers time to prepare strong, informed submissions before the deadline next Monday.
Our goal is simple: to ensure that several thousand public comments are submitted so that AHCCCS, DES/DDD, and state leadership hear directly from the people most impacted by these changes.
More to come Wednesday. We’ll get through this together—one unified voice at a time.
