On Friday, February 23rd Care Compass provided a walk through of the Waiver Readiness Program Survey.
We’ve compiled and answered all of the questions that were submitted regarding the CCN Waiver Readiness Program Survey.
Q. What does participating organization mean in the context of organizations who qualify for the CCN-sponsored 1115 waiver readiness funding?
A. Participating organizations are members of the Care Compass Network Open Network or Care Compass Supporting IPA (CCS IPA).
Q. What will waiver readiness entail?
A. The CCN Waiver Readiness Program was developed to provide funding to allow organizations to have the opportunity to better understand how the NYSHER waiver will work, how their organization will be able to participate, and any other lifts that will be required. There are standards that need to be met in order for CBO’s to participate.
Q. Would this cover the costs associated with becoming a HITRUST organization?
A. Yes, IT is one of the areas that would be a valid use. You may use these funds in any manner your organization identifies will support your readiness to provide services to Medicaid members during the waiver.
Q. What organizational contacts will the 1115 waiver readiness survey be sent to?
A. The CCN Waiver Readiness Survey was sent to each organization’s Executive Directors/CEOs. However, the Executive Directors/CEOs do not need to be the one that responds to the survey.
Q. When counting Medicaid patients that we have served, are those that we have billed directly to Medicaid or can patients that have Medicaid as a payor be counted?
A. Patients that have Medicaid as a payor within the Southern Tier 9-county region.
Q. Is the number of Medicaid members served the number of people that we provided a Medicaid billable service to or those we served that had Medicaid eligibility.
A. Care Compass is looking for the number of Medicaid individuals served, regardless of whether the services are billed or not.
Q. Hoping to confirm the counties listed on slide 11 for the 1115 Waiver Readiness Program – Otsego County was not listed, should it be?
A. No. Otsego is excluded from the CCN Waiver Readiness funding as it is not part of the original Southern Tier 9-county region served by CCN during DSRIP.
Q. I have a clarifying question regarding the number of HRSN screenings performed annually. The question does not specify Medicaid members – should it or are you looking for a payor agnostic global number of screenings and subsequent interventions?
A. Yes, within the CCN Waiver Readiness Program survey, the number of screenings are for Medicaid members only.
Q. Is this the only information needed on how the Readiness Funds will be used?
A. We will have a follow-up Waiver Readiness survey in June-August timeframe asking how funds were spent, but we will not be asking for any receipts or any further details.
Q. Is it possible to better define the categories in the budget breakdown?
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- Staffing is for individuals your organization is looking to hire (salary and recruiting costs).
- Waiver planning is for things such as the town halls and other internal meetings your organization might have to prepare for waiver participation.
- Infrastructure is for anything your organization might need to participate in the waiver, the most common use case could be any IT-related items needed to meet compliance and security requirements.
Q. What screening would you check if you utilize a Health Home screening?
A. You would check “Other Standardized” and note the screening.
Q. Do you want counties currently served or those we are willing to serve if we had additional funding?
A. Include counties that are currently served under the first section, there is a second section where you can outline counties in which you would like to expand or offer new services.
Q. For the number of referrals received, how many services provided, etc. Do you mean the total across all types of clients? Or just those who receive Medicaid?
A. When accounting for services provided, you would include the total from across all types of clients.
Q. Outbound referral due to lack of capacity to meet is that because we don’t provide the service or is it because we do and don’t have the capacity?
A. Within the CCN Waiver Readiness Program Survey, there is a menu that will come up when you indicate that you provide the service. If you are making outbound referrals, you likely don’t provide the services or you are not able to handle that volume.
Q. Referrals closed in a month – does this mean how many times we were able to meet the needs or how many referrals made?
A. This would be the times you made a referral for a service, and the client received that service as a result of the referral.
Q. Time to close the referrals – Does this mean between when we received and started working on the referral? Does this mean the whole time start to finish of meeting a need or something else?
A. When the referral is received is the start time and the end time is when you have completed what you needed to do to close out that referral, meaning the referred service was provided to the client (in hours, if available).
Q. For closed loop referral, can you select more than one?
A. No, there is not a way to select more than one closed loop referral system within the survey, but you can check “Other” and add both to the free-text box.
Q. Is there a way to print the survey?
A. Yes, you can print the CCN Waiver Readiness survey, but all the questions are included in the guidance document as well.
Q. For housing, we don’t have a housing program at our organization, but we do connect people with services that provide those. What would this fall under?
A. If you do not have a housing program but do connect people with an organization that does provide that service, you would select “Housing Navigation”.
Q. We have a produce prescription program funded/coordinated by our organization, but direct patient contact is provided by staff outside our organization. Should we quantify those as referrals?
A. This would be considered your service even though you may sub out portions of it.
Q. What if we do not file a 990 – am I exempt from applying?
A. For-profit organizations are not excluded from participating in CCN Waiver Readiness Survey as NYS has outlined the necessary steps for these types of organizations to participate. You can use your year-end number from your internal financial statements.
Q. Is the survey going to be used on how the funding will be divided among the agencies?
A. Information provided on the survey will be utilized to determine the distribution of funds.
Q. If someone answers that they want to provide services in another county, is there a provision to reach out to a service provider to have discussion before they can come into another county?
A. We do not intend to do anything that could cause a violation of antitrust. We do not want to limit anyone’s competition in any of the services that will be provided in any of the counties or SCN. If we are selected as the SCN for the Southern Tier, we will continue to use the collaborative approach we have historically, and will utilize input from CBOs and other external stakeholders to make decisions that would impact how HRSN services are delivered.
Q. There is some confusion regarding the counties your SCN Region 6: Southern Tier includes. I thought it was still Broome, Chenango, Delaware, Otsego, Tioga and Tompkins. Can you please confirm? The confusion is about the other four counties of Chemung, Schuyler, Steuben, and Cortland as listed on your Guidance Document. These counties seem to spread across SCN regions 5: Finger Lakes and 7: Central NY. My understanding is that these counties are counties that are included in your CCN coverage area. Are you applying for lead agency in these other 4 counties or are you asking NYS to redistrict these four counties?
A. The Care Compass Network Waiver Readiness Program funding being offered is for the original Southern Tier 9-county region that CCN served during the DSRIP waiver. Any organization who intends to provide HRSN services to Medicaid members during the NYSHER waiver that operates within the original nine counties is eligible to apply.
We are applying to serve as the lead SCN for the Southern Tier region. In our application, we are including a request to NYS DOH to have the four counties that were removed from the Southern Tier re-allocated back to the Southern Tier region. We continue to work with organizations in those four counties and have programs that we sponsor/facilitate in those counties as well, so we are committed to continuing to work collaboratively with those organizations, regardless of the ultimate decision by the state to include/exclude these counties.