About Liberty of Indiana

Serving the citizens of Indiana
Liberty of Indiana is a division of the Liberty Healthcare Corporation of Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania. Liberty of Indiana was formed by Liberty Healthcare Corporation to strengthen its focus on, and commitment to, serving the citizens of the State of Indiana.

Nationally known
In May of 2005, Liberty Healthcare, a nationally-renowned healthcare management company in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, was chosen by the State of Indiana to manage the Fort Wayne State Developmental Center.

Challenges at FWSDC
The Fort Wayne State Developmental Center was faced with a number of challenges. Over the years, the center had been repeated cited for violating state regulations regarding the health and safety of its residents. At one point it had nearly lost its ability to accept Medicaid dollars.

Why Liberty has been chosen to manage FWSDC
Engaging Liberty Healthcare, according to Anita Risdon, the communications director for the Family and Social Services Administration, "was a decision to really make an effort to bring in the kind of management team that we think is needed to turn the center around. ...A company as large as Liberty has at its resource an entire management team."

Proven management expertise
Liberty Healthcare currently has a staff of 760 experienced professionals in 22 states. Liberty manages and/or provides staff to Intermediate Care Facilities for the Mentally Retarded (ICF-MRs), state mental health facilities, private industry, forensic programs and programs for sexually violent predators. All of Liberty's corporate executives have extensive clinical and management experience in the specialty they currently manage.

Turnaround specialists
With the Fort Wayne State Developmental Center facing immediate jeopardy status to its federal funding by the Department of Justice, the State called on Liberty's expertise in assisting facilities who have difficulty meeting federal and state regulations for services to individuals with mental retardation to remodel themselves.

Solid success record
With over twenty years of experience, Liberty Healthcare Corporation has an impressive record of success in treating and managing the most challenging clinical populations.

• When a 400-bed ICF/MR had been de-certified due to client protection and active treatment issues, Liberty's clinical and administrative management team re-designed the facility's service delivery systems and managed the facility back into federal compliance. The facility was re-certified and over $54 million federal dollars were re-instated.
  
  
• Liberty assisted a major mid-western state in meeting its direct care and other staffing needs with a contract for nearly 100 staff to augment state workers. Liberty was successful in recruiting staff for positions that the state had found impossible to fill for prolonged periods.
  
  
• Liberty manages an intensive residential program in a Southwestern state for men and women who are dually challenged by developmental disabilities and mental illness. Once a long term setting with little success in moving individuals to less restrictive settings, under Liberty leadership this facility is now a truly transitional program for the state's most behaviorally challenging individuals. The program also offers statewide consultation, training, and support to individuals at risk in other living arrangements.
  
  
• Liberty has demonstrated success in quality improvement efforts and has been an effective partner in helping several states prepare for upcoming CMS (formerly HCFA) sponsored audits and other regulatory reviews. Liberty has an unparalleled record of delivering services to programs that have been beleaguered by Department of Justice CRIPA actions, de-certification, loss of JCAHO accreditation, and other regulatory problems. We have a record of assisting numerous state institutions with issues such as de-certification, penalties and public scandal by intervening to resolve problems with service deficiencies, lack of clinical leadership, mismanagement, inadequate staffing, civil suits and other regulatory actions.
  
  
• In one state's largest developmental disabilities service district, Liberty replaced a disorganized and expensive system of independent community providers with a staff of professional Certified Behavior Analysts dedicated entirely to delivering all behavioral assessments, behavior analyses and behavior programming for consumers living in the community.
  
  Unified by a clear set of procedures, streamlined assessment and monitoring instruments, automated program forms, and high performance standards, Liberty's team consisted of mobile professionals who traveled to homes, schools, employers and day treatment programs to perform on-site behavior analyses and parent/guardian training functions. Liberty's small staff was able to deliver more habilitative services, more quickly and more consistently than the previous panel of over 50 independent providers.
  
  
• Liberty has also provided teams of managers and clinicians to facilities around the country on a short-term consultative basis. Ordinarily, these consultant teams are comprised of star subcontractors/employees in our Mental Retardation (MR) contracts with the addition of noted professionals in the MR community that are known to Liberty.
  
  
• A consulting project undertaken by Liberty resulted in the completion of 407 functional behavior assessments and behavior support plans in seven weeks time. The facility had been under decertification threat by the Council on Quality and Leadership in Supports for People with Disabilities who were under contract with CMS (formerly HCFA) to do survey look-behind surveys. The Liberty assessments/plans resulted in complete remediation of the behavioral deficiencies.
  
  
• Another project included the completion of almost one hundred nursing assessments and health care plans at two facilities in one state which had received scathing survey deficiencies from the Department of Justice.
  
  
• Liberty has conducted several pre-survey ICF/MR facility reviews in many states in the areas of medicine, nursing, psychology, active treatment, risk management and quality improvement. These reviews have resulted in recommendations for systems improvements which averted serious deficiencies from surveying agencies in those areas.
  
  
• One risk management consulting contract resulted in a request to provide staff training at seven state-owned ICF/MRs on root cause analysis. The tools developed and utilized by Liberty's Risk Management consultants were also adopted by the state in its overhaul of its risk management program.
  
  

Making lives better
Liberty is an innovative national organization with a talented group of employees dedicated to making lives better for our individuals with developmental disabilities.