February 23, 2018
Healthy Schools Campaign Hosting Webinar on Free Care
Date: Wednesday, February 28, 2018
Time: 11am-12pm PST
Register: Click Here
About the event:
The change in the free care policy presents an important opportunity to increase access to and resources for school health services. While the December 2014 State Medicaid Director letter clarified that school health services delivered to the general student population, not just those...
January 22, 2018
Federal Government Set to Reopen with Temporary Funding Bill through Feb. 8
This morning, the U.S. Senate passed a temporary funding bill to pave the way for keeping the federal government open through February 8, 2018. The bill still needs to pass the U.S. House, and is expected to do so easily.
A permanent funding bill would need to be passed prior to February 8 to avoid another shutdown. As previously reported, we do not anticipate any impact to school-Medicaid...
January 19, 2018
Will a government shutdown impact school-Medicaid payments?
As the deadline looms for the federal government to approve funding for the fiscal year and avoid a shutdown, school-Medicaid stakeholders may be wondering what impact a shutdown would have on their programs.
It doesn't appear that Medicaid payments will be affected by a temporary shutdown. Several Federal congressional legislators have already identified on their websites that Medicare,...
December 2, 2017
RMTS for LEA Billing—Implementation Advisory Group Publishes October Meeting Summary
The Implementation Advisory Group (IAG) has published minutes from their October 3, 2017 meeting. Of interest:
Navigant presented the technical RMTS “Wish List” items that were discussed during previous IAG meetings. The IAG discussed these items with DHCS and asked for them to be considered in the upcoming RMTS software system Request for Proposal (RFP). The LECs in attendance stated...
December 1, 2017
LEA Ad-Hoc Advisory Workgroup Publishes August 2017 Meeting Minutes
The LEA Ad-Hoc Advisory Workgroup, comprised of LEA representatives, DHCS, and the California Department of Education (CDE), held their regularly scheduled meeting to make recommendations and discuss issues impacting the LEA Medi-Cal Billing Option Program.
Highlights from the August 2, 2017 meeting include:
Dr. Lindy Summers-Bair of the Medical Review Branch retired as of July 31, 2017....
November 28, 2017
Federal Audit of New Jersey School-Based Medicaid Programs Seeks $300M in Paybacks
The federal Office of Inspector General (OIG) released audit findings of New Jersey's school-based Medicaid programs in which they request the state refund over $300 million.
Specifically, OIG determined:
PCG, the state's contractor, improperly altered school employees’ responses to timestudies to indicate that their activities were directly related to providing Medicaid services when...
November 16, 2017
November Medi-Cal Bulletin for LEAs Posted—RTD Generation Phasing Out Over Next 12 Months
The November Medi-Cal Bulletin for California LEAs has been published to the DHCS website.
One item of interest is the announcement that DHCS will be discontinuing the generation of Resubmission Turnaround Documents (RTDs) over the next 12 months. The discontinuation will happen in multiple phases, with a timeline to be published in a future monthly bulletin.
DHCS notes, "the new process...
November 6, 2017
Register by November 22 for Next LEA Advisory Workgroup Meeting
LEAs interested in attending the bi-monthly LEA Advisory Workgroup meeting (also known as the 'LEA Ad-Hoc Meeting') should RSVP to Cheryl Ward at DHCS by Wednesday, November 22, 2017.
The meeting will take place on December 13, 2017 from 10:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. at Natomas Unified School District in the Staff Development Room, 1931 Arena Boulevard, in Sacramento.
Previous meeting notes and...
October 27, 2017
SDUSD Makes the Case for School Health Services
Michelle Bell, a longtime member of our school Medicaid billing community, was recently featured in an article about the impact of school health services on the students in San Diego Unified School District. We're proud to work alongside Michelle and grateful for the attention she brings to the importance of school health services and programs on a daily basis.
The article was published by...
October 25, 2017
New Resource for LEAs & Parents Regarding EOBs for School Health Services
DHCS has published a one-page informational that LEAs can share with parents regarding private insurance, explanation of benefits (EOB) statement for school health services, and impact to public benefits.
When a child has both Medi-Cal and Other Health Coverage (OHC) through private insurance, and a school is billing Medi-Cal for eligible health services provided to that student under the LEA...