Connections sponsor of the month By Maria Smietana
Case Management
More than two decades ago, Michele Lohmeyer and Laura Fife were both starting their families. What happened after their babies were born would profoundly change each woman’s life forever, and set them on a path to help other families in similar situations. Lohmeyer, a native of Attica, IN, was working in mortgages when she gave birth to premature twin, one of whom did not survive. After this tragic life event, Lohmeyer found more meaningful work with First Steps, Indiana’s early intervention program for infants and toddlers born with disabilities or developmental delays. Later, she started working in waiver case management. Jacob, her surviving twin, got a good start in life through First Steps and will soon be a graduate of Purdue University! Lohmeyer went on to have two more children, Isabella and Will. Her family now resides in Westfield, IN. Fife was born in Gary, IN, and after graduating from college, she worked in public relations and writing. Then her daughter Hailey, now 20, was born with a rare chromosome deletion that caused her to have numerous physical and cognitive challenges. Like Lohmeyer, Fife found her employment to be hollow in light of her new reality. She went to work in waiver case management as well as in the residential/support services sector. “It was a welcome change, and I found my niche,” Fife said. She and her husband, Patrick, reside in Noblesville, IN, with Hailey and their other two children, Sara, and Sean.
14 Special Needs Living • March 2022
The two women founded Connections Case Management in 2015. “We provide case management supports and guidance for individuals that use the Family Supports (FS) and Community Integration and Habilitation (CIH) waivers,” Lohmeyer said. (Indiana’s Medicaid waiver programs make it possible for disabled individuals to receive therapeutic and other supports and services without being admitted to an institution, allowing Medicaid to pay for services in the home and in community-based settings.) Thanks to their previous experience, Fife and Lohmeyer knew that proper supports were invaluable to the success and happiness of their special-needs clients. “We set out to hire an amazing group of dedicated case management professionals all over Indiana that have many personal reasons and motivations for dedicating themselves to quality case management services and supports,” Lohmeyer said. “Connections Case Management is grounded in supporting our case managers and providing them with the tools to have work/life balance, a robust training and education curriculum, ongoing supports and resources, and technology,” Fife added. “We know that
