(1) “Assistance” means money payments made to or in behalf of totally disabled persons in need, or medical care, or both, including hospitalization, outpatient care and treatment, nursing home care, drugs or any other type of remedial care recognized under state law in behalf of permanently and totally disabled persons in need, but does not include subdivisions (1)(A)-(1)(D) unless the federal Social Security Act (42 U.S.C.), is amended to include one (1) or more of the following:

(A) Any such payments to or care in behalf of any individual who is an inmate of a public institution, except as a patient in a medical institution, or any individual who is a patient in an institution for tuberculosis or mental diseases;

(B) Any such payments to any individual who has been diagnosed as having tuberculosis or psychosis and is a patient in a medical institution as a result of having tuberculosis or psychosis;

(C) Any such care in behalf of any individual, who is a patient in a medical institution as a result of a diagnosis that such person has tuberculosis or psychosis, with respect to any period after the individual has been a patient in such an institution as a result of such diagnosis, for forty-two (42) days; or

(D) Is not an inmate of any private institution except such private institution as has been approved by the department at the time of receiving assistance;

(2) “Department” means the department of human services;

(3) “Permanently and totally disabled” means that the individual has been determined to have a permanent physical or mental impairment, disease or loss that substantially precludes the individual from engaging in useful occupations within the individual's competence, such as holding a job or homemaking. Such determinations shall be made in accordance with standards that shall be established by the department in consultation with an advisory committee, which committee shall include physicians nominated by the state medical society, and after review of the medical findings by a reviewing physician or physicians;

(4) “Recipient” means a person who was receiving aid to the permanently and totally disabled benefits during the month of December, 1973, and is now qualified under Public Law 93-66 to continue to receive a state money payment as a supplement to the federally provided supplemental security income benefits; and

(5) “Regional director” means the director of a region, or a designated agent in a county office, under chapter 1, part 1, of this title.