A Free gift for the holidays…well, sort of!
11/24/10
Some of you are familiar with CTAP. If you’re not, you happen to pay money to CTAP each and every month. It’s the amount that appears on every phone bill, so you may be paying more than once a month. On our phone bills, home and cell phones, there is a surcharge, tax, or service fee titled: California Relay Service and Communications Devices Fund. Everyone in the state who has a phone bill is helping with the funding.
So, what’s this for? In 1979 a Senate bill allowed providing special telecommunication devices or TTY’s for the deaf. In 1983, a bill implemented the California Relay Service (CRS) in order to improve the communications of the Deaf or hearing impaired using a third party intervention to provide 24 hour contact with any other telephone subscriber. In 1985, another bill allowed the Deaf and Disabled Telecommunications Program to provide specialized telecommunications equipment through the California Telephone Access Program (CTAP). CTAP provides specialized telecommunications equipment to consumers with hearing, vision, mobility, speech and cognitive disabilities.
The California Relay Service (CRS) is a service that provides third party assistance. By calling 711 an operator can facilitate communication for those who either have a speech difficulty or if they are Deaf. If the person were Deaf, they would use a TTY which is a device that resembles a typewriter. The Deaf person types what they would want to say and the operator would speak for them. The operator listens to what the hearing person would say and types it back so the Deaf person can read it.
For those with speech difficulties, there is the Speech-to-Speech Relay Service. It provides specially trained operators that take the time to re-voice a conversation. They take time to make sure that they can properly understand the person with the speech impairment. The operator can either listen silently and can help when there a communication problem arises, or they can entirely re-voice the entire message of the speech-impaired individual.
So, how does someone qualify? For a person to be eligible and to get a specialized telephone, they only have to have an active phone service in their place of residence and have a certification form signed by a medical professional. There is no age, economical, or medical insurance requirement. It does not matter what phone company the person has or whose name the phone bill might be in.
The certification forms are fairly simple to complete. It just needs the information of the person who is going to receive the phone: name, address, and phone number. Also, it needs to be signed by the medical professional indicating the difficulty that the person is experiencing when using the telephone. The medical professional has to be licensed in the state of California. It is important for the person to make sure that the certification form indicates all the difficulties that the person is experiencing. The easiest way is to go to a Medical Doctor that can sign off on any difficulty. A specialist, such as an Audiologist or Optometrist can only sign within their specialty.
The closest Service Centers are in Oakland and Sacramento, but an Outreach Specialist from CTAP will come out to visit with the user and other family members to demonstrate how the equipment works. You can get more information by going to www.ddtp.org or by calling (800) 806-1191. You can also listen to my interview with one CTAP’s Outreach Specialists by visiting www.seniorcareauthority.com/interviews.
Have a safe holiday season!
Frank M. Samson is Founder of Senior Care Authority based in Sonoma and also hosts “The Aging Boomers” on KSVY 91.3 or can be listened to live at www.ksvy.com, every Monday at 2pm PT. The company provides free assistance to families in helping them find the best Independent, Assisted Living and Residential Care Homes for their loved ones. He can be reached at 707.939.8744 or e-mailed at frank@seniorcareauthority.com. The company website is www.seniorcareauthority.com.
