About Us

ACES$/NEPACIL

The Northeast Pa. Center for Independent Living [NEPACIL] is a private, non-profit [501©3] organization that was formed in Scranton, Pa., in 1987 and incorporated in 1988.

We have a Fiscal Employer Agent division known as ACES$: Avenues to Consumer Employer Services and $upport. It is described separately below.

NEPACIL grew out of a nationwide movement toward independent living for persons with physical disabilities. The term 'Independent Living' was coined to help people with disabilities realized that they could live safely and securely outside of the boundaries of an institutional setting. Principle among the Center’s belief is that persons with disabilities have the right to make decisions regarding their lives.
They have the right to:

• Make decisions regarding their lives;
• Determine where they will reside;
• Determine the level of services they feel that they require;
• Choose who will provide service for them; and
• Advocate for the same issues [job, housing, access, accommodations, etc.] which non-disabled people desire.

As we often state "Centers for Independent Living" [CIL's] are like children: they born equally but grow up differently. This makes us both a 'CIL', within the context of Rehabilitative Services Administration and a ‘provider of services’ by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Center for Medicare and Medicaid.

ALL CIL's [about 400 nationwide] provide the same ‘core’ Independent Living services.
They are:

• Information and Referral
• Skills Training
• Peer Consultation, and
• Advocacy

In addition, the NEPACIL Division provides :

• Waiver Services, including
  • OBRA;
  • Independence;
  • Michael Dallas*, and
  • CommCare;
  • Attendant Care
• Pa. Block Grant
• Nursing Home Transition
• American Sign Language Interpreter Referral Program
• Transitional Housing
• Environmental[Home] Modifications
• Illinois Fiscal Employer Agency
• Aging Waiver

WAIVER Services

The Northeast Pennsylvania Center for Independent Living (NEPACIL) division also provides Home and Community Based Services to individuals with disabilities through Waiver Services and Financial Management Services.

Waiver Services imply that the default service of nursing home, or institutional living placement, is 'waived' by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services [CMS] in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Waiver Services involves working closely with Nursing Facility Clinically Eligible consumers in order to develop specific service plans and help consumers obtain the services they need to live independently in the community. Consumers that are receiving Personal Assistance Services through state programs have the option of directing their own care by hiring private attendants. For the former, we call that Consumer Controlled Care. And, for those consumers, at NEPACIL we offer Financial Management Services, sometimes referred to Fiscal Employer Agency, serving as the consumer’s fiscal agent to provide payroll services.

The NEPACIL division provides Service Coordination for the Independence and OBRA Waivers, the Attendant Care Waiver, and the Act 150 Program, while providing Financial Management Services to consumers on the Independence, OBRA, Attendant Care, Pennsylvania Department of Aging (PDA), Commcare, Michael Dallas, CommCare and Michael Dallas Waivers.

The Independence, OBRA and Commcare waivers fall under the umbrella of Community Services Programs for Persons with Physical Disabilities (CSPPPD).
These waivers provide comprehensive specific services including:

• Personal Assistance Services (Attendant Care),
• Respite Care,
• Environmental Modifications,
• Durable Medical Equipment,
• Non-Medical Transportation,
• Visiting Nurse, and
• Personal Emergency Response Systems (PERS).

The Independence Waiver serves consumers whose disability occurred after the age of 21, while the OBRA Waiver serves those whose disability was manifested before age 21.

Two other Waiver Services are distinguished only by circumstances rather than services. Michael Dallas Waiver is targeted toward persons who are technology dependent—such as a ventilator. The CommCare Waiver is distinguished from others by the nature of the disability—a traumatic brain injury. The Attendant Care Waiver (ACW) provides services to individuals who may not require the wide-ranging services offered by the CSPPPD Waivers. Services available to ACW consumers include Attendant Care and Personal Emergency Response Systems.

In Waiver Services we also work with the Commonwealth's Nursing Home Transition (NHT) Program, in which our staff actively seeks out consumers residing in nursing facilities in order to help them live independently. Whether this involves enrollment in a Waiver program, helping locate housing, arranging for essential household setup, or securing a discharge date, NEPACIL’s staff do whatever is necessary to help our consumers back to the community.

The Waiver Services Department works cooperatively with the Financial Management Department [FEA], exercising a philosophy of overlapping support, assisting each other whenever necessary in order to provide the best possible service to our consumers. It is this atmosphere that enables us to fulfill NEPACIL's mission to enable individuals living with disabilities to live independently in the community.

Fiscal Employer Agency

The Fiscal Employer Agency Service, sometimes simply referred to as 'payroll', division operates in accordance with IRS Revenue Procedure 70-6 within Section 3504 of the Internal Revenue Code, allowing NEPACIL to act as an employer agent on behalf of individuals to perform a variety of employer payroll related tasks including but not limited to processing and paying their employees as well as withholding, filing, and depositing federal and state employment tax requirements and securing workers compensation insurance coverage if applicable. Known externally as "ACES$: Avenues to Consumer Employer Services and $upport" this model allows program participants a high level of choice and control over their individual budget funds and services while ensuring state programs fiscal accountability and reducing some of the fiscal payroll burden for the participant.

ACES$ deducts and pays all of the necessary taxes [federal, state, income and unemployment]. We also pay for criminal record checks and child abuse clearance checks to help protect consumers in the provision of this service. Also, in Pa. we broker and pay for a Workers Compensation policy for the consumers attendants. Based on the state, ACES$ is, in turn, reimbursed for these costs and payments plus an administrative fee.

Other services:

Environmental [Home] Modifications
NEPACIL contracts with Area Agencies on Aging [AAA] to facilitate the environmental home modifications for consumers who are 60+ to provide modifications to their homes as needed so that the consumer can stay in their home and community.

American Sign Language Interpreter Referral Program [IRP]

The Interpreter Referral Program (IRP) was added in the spring of 1996. It began with the support of the Department of Labor and Industry’s Office of Vocational Rehabilitation (OVR), the Office of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (ODHH), Bloomsburg University’s Interpreting Training Program, organizations from the Northeast PA Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf and the Northeast PA Chapter of PA Society for the Advancement of the Deaf and Deaf/HH community.