Notice is hereby given that the following changes have been made to the proposed rule in accordance with subparagraph 120.54(3)(d)1., F.S., published in Vol. 33 No. 35, August 31, 2007 issue of the Florida Administrative Weekly.

These changes are in response to comments received from the Joint Administrative Procedures Committee.

The rule incorporates by reference the Florida Medicaid Early Intervention Services Coverage and Limitations Handbook, August 2007. The following changes were made to the handbook.

Page 1-4, ITDS Enrollment Criteria. We added clarification that the ITDS coursework required by the Department of Health applies to all providers. The last sentence in the second paragraph now reads, “In addition to the education and work experience requirements, all providers must complete the ITDS coursework and competencies as required by the Department of Health, CMS Early Steps state office.”

We provided the full title of the Individualized Family Support Plan prior to the abbreviation IFSP. The third paragraph now reads, “The ITDS provides early intervention services under the support and direction of the Individualized Family Support Plan (IFSP) team, including a licensed physician or other health care professional acting within his scope of practice.”

Page 1-5, A Complete Medicaid Enrollment Application Package. We revised the first bullet to read, “Copy of all appropriate Florida professional or paraprofessional licenses or a copy of the Department of Health, CMS Early Steps Infant Toddler Developmental Specialist certificate.” We added the following note, “See page 1-3 for the list of professional licenses and page 1-4 for the type of paraprofessional license that qualify an individual to enroll as an early intervention provider.”

Page 2-3, Criteria of Eligibility by Testing. We changed the heading to read, “Criteria for Eligibility by Testing.” In the first sentence, we changed “standardized tests” to “standardized instruments.” We deleted the second sentence that the tests be “thorough, efficient, objectively scored, reliable, valid, culturally fair and have a broad developmental focus.”

Page 2-8, Provider Requirements. We revised the note to read, “See Chapter 1 in this handbook for the types of professional licenses that qualify an individual to enroll as a professional early intervention services provider.”

Page 2-9, Description of an Initial or Follow-up Interdisciplinary Psychosocial and Developmental Evaluation. In the last paragraph, second sentence, we replaced the abbreviation, EIS, with the full title, “early intervention services.”

Page 3-2, Government and Private Non-Profit Agencies. We included the dates of the OMB circulars. The second paragraph now reads, “An agency determines the cost of providing the service in accordance with the Office of Management and Budget Circular A-87 (Revised 5/4/95, As Further Amended 8/29/97) for public agencies, and Circular A-122 (Revised May 10, 2004), for private non-profit agencies.”

59G-4.085(3) incorporates by reference AHCA-Med Serv Form 020. We made a technical change to the title of the form by correcting the word “formally” to “formerly.”