Dear Community Partners:

DDS is committed to helping Californians with developmental disabilities and their families access information about regional center services. In talking with self-advocates, families, and service providers, we have heard the value of having information about services available at both a local and state level.

Top help with this, DDS is actively developing an online statewide Provider Directory. The goals of the Provider Directory are to:

• Have visibility into California’s network of developmental services providers
• Establish consistency and standards for provider vendorization
• Make it easier for individuals and families to find service options, leading to greater empowerment when selecting their services and supports

What is the Provider Directory? The Provider Directory is an online portal that will be used to input, store, and view information about all service providers in the state. 

The Provider Directory will centralize information about service providers that work with multiple regional centers, help to clarify the organizational structure within companies, maintain up-to-date contact information, and assist communication among DDS, regional centers, and service providers. 

When fully developed, the Provider Directory will make it possible to determine where services are available and needed, track development of new resources and be searchable by self-advocates and families to identify service options in their community.

How is the Provider Directory getting started?

The Provider Directory will be developed in phases, adding features over time that will be useful to our community. 

The first phase begins with gathering information about all service providers and verifying that the information is accurate and categorized in the same way. For Phase 1, only regional centers and service providers are able to access the directory to help enter and confirm data.

Future phases will focus on making the Provider Directory accessible to individuals and families. We will keep you informed as we get closer to having a search function available to individuals and families. Since the Provider Directory is a new system and one that includes approximately 46,000 distinct vendored services, it will take time, but we will provide updates on the progress.

This is a big task and to be successful we need all service providers to participate!

• Training will be available for service providers. 
• DDS will offer incentive payments to service providers through the Quality Incentive Program (QIP). 
• More information about the incentive payout will be provided in future communications
• We will rely on the Provider Directory information for future QIP activities, including payment for outcome and quality measures