The Village Network Posts Impressive Ranking

WOOSTER — The Village Network established an impressive ranking in 2016 for treatment of foster and residential care services, related to serving the largest number of youth across the state of Ohio.

CEO Richard Graziano demonstrated that TVN is ranked No. 3 and No. 2 in foster care and residential care, respectively; and by adding the numbers together, he said, “TVN is the largest behavioral health-care organization in Ohio by way of impact.”

“TVN and Buckeye Ranch (in Columbus) are the only two top five in both categories,” Graziano said, not only leading in the number of children served, but also at the forefront of quality of services.

Graziano’s conclusions were reached through charts documenting different rankings by size of the top 20 treatment foster homes administered by private agencies during 2016, using as sources for the statistics Ohio Department of Job and Family Services and Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information System; and the top 20 residential treatment providers for the amount of children placed in residential treatment centers by ODJFS and SACWIS.

“The SACWIS database is the state of Ohio database, which includes every Ohio child in out-of-home — very reliable data,” said Tim Homan, TVN’s vice president of advancement.

“We’ve been concentrating on growing impact on kids,” Graziano said, “not fiscal numbers or dollars.”

Rather than “filling beds” and keeping youth for a long time, he said, the focus is on offering “high level services … (and) stepping them down quickly.”

There is a drive to serve more youth, Homan said, in part because agencies, such as county children’s services and juvenile courts, “are referring more kids.”

TVN is a preferred provider because agencies “like the quality of our work” and the fact that TVN can achieve good outcomes with shorter stays for the youth.

The second stimulus for serving more youth is Medicaid expansion and Ohio becoming a managed care state on July 1 with just five agencies responsible for all of the managed care, Homan said, adding, “We’re gearing up for it.

“The purpose of managed care is to reduce costs,” he said. “What we have to do is make sure our billing system is near-perfect so that claims won’t be denied. We’re right at the cutting edge of that.”

–

Written by: Linda Hall, Staff Writer, The Daily Record.  Linda can be reached at lhall@the-daily-record.com.