This month marks one year into the COVID-19 pandemic - one year of immeasurable grief for lost loved ones and friends, one year of dynamic transformation, one year of coming together to help each other through an unprecedented economic downturn, one year of incredibly difficult decisions.

For those who have lost loved ones and friends, our hearts are with you; we hope that time brings you peace.

Thank you to our county partners, eligibility workers, caregivers, contractors, advocates and many others who have overcome challenges to help us serve the 1.44 million Coloradans who are accessing our safety net coverage programs - coverage is even more critical during a pandemic. I, and our HCPF staff, am honored to work with you and appreciate your passion for service. Together, we are now serving 1 in 4 Coloradans. In fact, we just crossed the 200,000 mark this month, representing the additional Health First Colorado and CHP+ members we are serving. Our federal partners have said they expect to keep the Public Health Emergency in place throughout 2021, which means our membership will continue to grow throughout 2021.To meet this demand, I’m pleased to report that we are well on our way to achieving our goal of enrolling 10,000 new providers by June 30, 2021.

Thank you to you – our new providers – and to all our care providers and first responders for putting all of us first at your own personal risk. Your selflessness has been exemplary, and we are very grateful. Thank you to our scientists, researchers and innovators: the vaccines speed to market has been miraculous. Lives will be saved. The economy will recover, and many who have lost their jobs will be employed again because of your passion, efforts and advances.

This month, Colorado will surpass 1 million Coloradans being vaccinated with one dose and 500,000 with their second dose. The most recent information is available at covid19.colorado.gov/vaccine. With the recent approvals of a new one dose vaccine and with the industry joining forces to speed vaccine production, we are hopeful the immunization numbers will improve significantly in the coming months in parallel to the growing vaccine supply. To maximize this opportunity and to protect our members, we are working with our Regional Accountable Entities (RAEs) to ensure all our members have access to the vaccine and to help members understand where to go and when it’s their turn to get the vaccine. We are also working with our community partners to help overcome resistance and misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines with the goal of improving vaccine uptake and inoculation. Last, we are collaborating to get the vaccine to our members who are homebound or otherwise hard to reach.

Thank you to our HCPF staff. This past year, you plunged boldly into a chapter that offered no playbook. You pulled together to serve more and do more while facing a state fiscal crisis. You reprioritized to meet the urgent demands. You created new forecasting and budgeting models and tools that recognized changing economic and utilization insights. You passed emergency rules to help our members more safely access care, while giving our providers more flexibility to adapt to an emerging “new normal” while helping reduce administrative burden. To protect those most vulnerable to COVID-19, you teamed-up with CDPHE and the Governor’s Office to create a Residential Strike Force focused on keeping our members in nursing homes and congregate settings safe.

Just as we have done this past year, we will have to lean on each other to get through the next phase of this pandemic. As we turn the corner in battling COVID-19 and the economic downturn, I will continue to ask for your help as trusted voices, partners, leaders and care givers. Thank you in advance for your partnership, collaboration, help and support as we navigate through this next chapter together.

Kim Bimestefer

All counties received their requested number of tokens for all four systems (CBMS, ACSES, CHATS and Trails) in August last year. Medical Assistance and Presumptive Eligibility sites have been mailed their needed tokens as well. ACSES and CHATS previously deployed 2FA with PingID. Trails go-live is on hold. Please note if a user has a token for one of the other systems, the same token can be used for CBMS. Included for your reference is the 2FA User Guide and FAQ, which will continue to be updated as needed.

The Command Center is open from 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. on Monday March 22 and Tuesday March 23 for Connect for Health Colorado, Counties, Medical Assistance Sites, and Presumptive Eligibility Sites to ask questions regarding issues experienced following the CBMS 2FA rollout. The 2FA Subject Matter Expert will be available to answer questions.

If you would like to call in to the Command Center on Tuesday (or the noon Status Update Calls), please use the information below:

Phone: 1.575.518.3046

PIN: 126 218 712‬#

All Memos and their attachments can be found on the Memo Series website.

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OM 21-033

The purpose of this Operational Memo is to provide guidance to county departments of

human/social services (county) on updates to the Continuous Coverage (Continuous

Eligibility) Performance Incentive as part of the FY 2020-21 County Incentives Program.

The Performance Incentive was updated due to new guidance received from the federal

government. The Incentive continues to be weighted at 20 percent of total County

Incentives funding.

OM 21-030

The purpose of this Operational Memo is to provide guidance to eligibility sites regarding their responsibilities when responding to documentation requests and findings from the Medical Assistance Eligibility Quality Assurance (EQA) unit.

OM 21-029

The purpose of this Memo is to inform county departments of human/social services of the processes for entering overpayments and overpayment interest into the Colorado Benefits Management System (CBMS) for Health First Colorado/Medicaid fraud investigations. This Memo will be available to all county staff working on investigations to advise on the reporting requirements for member/client fraud, county incentives for member/client fraud and how to code overpayments and interest.

OM 21-028

The purpose of this memo is to inform authorized individuals/entities, such as county

departments of social/human services, Medical Assistance (MA) sites, Eligibility

Application Partner (EAP) sites, anyone who processes applications for individuals that

have disabling conditions, and other internal and external stakeholders, that:

The automated process will ensure that eligibility determinations and

redeterminations are more efficient for Medical Assistance categories that require a

disability determination by the State Disability Determination vendor.

Eligibility site responsibilities and agency letters have been updated.

OM 21-026

The purpose of this memo is to advise County Departments of Human/Social services and Medical Assistance sites of income changes to the Health First Colorado Buy–In Medicaid Program for Children with Disabilities (CBwD). Please share this memo with anyone who works with this program.

OM 21-023

The purpose of this operational memo is to advise county departments of human/social services and Medical Assistance sites of income changes to the Health First Colorado Buy-In Program for Working Adults with Disabilities (WAwD). Please share this information with anyone who works with this program.

OM 21-022

The purpose of this memo is to advise eligibility sites of the Medicare Savings Program (MSP) and Low-Income Subsidy (LIS) income limits. MSP Categories include: Qualified Medicare Beneficiaries (QMB), Specified Low-income Medicare Beneficiaries (SLMB), Qualified Individuals (QI-1) and Qualified Disabled Working Individuals (QDWI). Please share this memo letter with anyone who works with these programs.

OM 21-021

The purpose for this memo is to notify eligibility site staff of the income guidelines for the Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) Medicaid program and the Child Health Plan Plus (CHP+) program effective Apr. 1, 2021.

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Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) announced that as of Feb. 19 the vaccine data dashboard includes county-level vaccine administration data in beta. 

Continue to stay up to date by visiting the Colorado COVID-19 website.

The Department’s Telemedicine Evaluation Report is now available on the Department’s website. This report summarizes the research and work completed by the Department from June 2020 through December 2020. It contains an evaluation of the policy changes in telemedicine since the beginning of the pandemic and what we know thus far about the impacts on access to care and utilization, health equity, quality and member outcomes, and payment and reimbursement.

The fee-for-service telemedicine utilization data is posted on a bi-monthly basis and can be found on the provider telemedicine web-page.

Connect for Health Colorado opened an Uninsured Enrollment Period to help as many people as possible protect their health and safety during this time. Coloradans who are currently uninsured and don’t qualify for Health First Colorado (Medicaid) can sign up for a health insurance plan through May 15, 2021.

Connect for Health Colorado has created an online toolkit for you, our partner organizations, to better assist you as you help those who are uninsured. The Toolkit includes:

 

The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health (HHS OMH) announced $250 million to fund the Advancing Health Literacy to Enhance Equitable Community Responses to COVID-19 initiative, which would encourage COVID-19 safety and vaccination among underserved populations. OMH will offer funding as health literacy grants to localities, who will partner with community-based organizations, to reach racial and ethnic minority, rural, and other vulnerable populations.

The OMH expects to fund approximately 30 projects in urban communities and 43 projects in rural communities for two years. Cities, counties, parishes, and other similar subdivisions are eligible to apply. Applications are due April 20.

Erin Slifer; (410) 984-4552

Alyssa Llamas; (562) 207-8807

On March 4, the Department hosted a training for HTP participating hospitals to go over the HTP hospital application process and an orientation of the submission portal. As a reminder, per a special communication from Executive Director Kim Bimestefer in November 2020, the HTP implementation date was moved to April 1, 2021. The training is posted on the HTP website.

We’d like to remind program participants that updated documents related to HTP implementation have been posted to the HTP website:

Please direct any questions about these updated documents to the HTP inbox.

The Social-Health Information Exchange (S-HIE) white paper titled Advancing a Coordinated Ecosystem for a Social Health Information Exchange (S-HIE) aims to create a shared vision among Colorado stakeholders interested in improving whole-person care coordination.

The Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) Screening Guide titled Implementation Guidance For Screening for Social Determinants of Health in an Electronic Health Record aims to support health care providers (such as community health centers, independent practices, health systems and community mental health centers) interested in screening for SDoH and documenting the results in an electronic health record.

Both resources are available on OeHI’s Care Coordination page.

As part of Colorado's Health IT Roadmap efforts to support the Polis-Primavera Administration's bold priorities to improve access to affordable and high quality health care, the Department is providing a limited number of FREE licenses to the state's prescriber tool to eligible Medicaid Providers. This is phase one of several phases that leverage foundational health IT infrastructure, policies and innovations. Click here to request a license.

Mailings pertaining to estate recovery are NOT spam. County staff who receive member enquiries on this program should verify this is a program of the Department managed by HMS.

Any member, family, attorney, stakeholder, etc. can contact HMS if they want more information: HMS, 333 W. Hampden Ave. #425, Englewood, CO 80110; (303) 837-8293, Option #3; via the HMS estate recovery inbox.

For additional information please refer to the County Administration webpage.

As a reminder, each incentive's Operational Memo should be a main reference for where and how to pull reports.

The next incentive support call will be on April 14 - calendar invites will be going out soon!

Q4 Quality Check-in will be the first week of May. The calendar invite will be sent out with instruction in the coming weeks.

The Department understands there have been questions on timely case maintenance when we are not disenrolling members due to PHE. The Department is looking into that and will not hold counties to a measure outside of their control.

OM 21-033

The purpose of this Operational Memo is to provide guidance to county departments of

human/social services (county) on updates to the Continuous Coverage (Continuous

Eligibility) Performance Incentive as part of the FY 2020-21 County Incentives Program.

The Performance Incentive was updated due to new guidance received from the federal

government. The Incentive continues to be weighted at 20 percent of total County

Incentives funding.

Questions? Reach out to Rahem Mulatu.

FY 2020-21 Competitive Grants are coming to an end. Scheduling for the Year End Report Out is occurring now - more information soon!

The FY 2021-22 grant application will be available in May after the Joint Budget Committee passes the Long Bill. If counties want to discuss potential grant projects for next Fiscal Year, reach out to Rahem Mulatu.

If your county has opted into the COVID 19 Locked in Report Targeted Grant, please make sure to charge the grant for staff time spent on the Locked-in Report.

If your county has been unable to work the report or anticipates that your county will be unable to use grant funds, please reach out to Rahem Mulatu.

Timeliness for all Medical Assistance applications was measured at 98.06 percent.

Timeliness for all Medical Assistance redeterminations was measured at 97.99 percent.