Recording from Last Week's Child Welfare Webinar: Thursday, June 10, 2021
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ACTION ALERT - Input Needed for NC Medicaid's Home & Community Based Services (HCBS) Improvements in Response to COVID-19
The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), signed by President Biden on March 11, 2021, provides increased funding for Medicaid Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) to enhance, expand, or strengthen these services.
In the face of heightened challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the goal of financial incentives to support HCBS is to promote community living, improve quality of life, and enhance access to services that enable independence for older adults and individuals with disabilities. Section 9817 of ARPA temporarily increases the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) for HCBS by 10 percentage points.
The increased FMAP will be in place from April 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released guidance on the FMAP increase for HCBS on May 13, 2021, and requested states submit their plans and funding estimates within 30 days of the release and revised quarterly plans through 2024. CMS has since allowed states to extend the deadline by additional 30 days, if needed.
More details on this funding from CMS can be found here
- Specifically, CMS outlines potential strategies states can adopt in Appendix C and D of the letter.
How can stakeholders impact how HCBS is improved by this funding?
Feedback from stakeholders is essential to the implementation of HCBS that positively impact the health of NC Medicaid’s beneficiaries. NC Medicaid is seeking input from people who work in HCBS, people who receive HCBS care and the public on how North Carolina can most effectively allocate the funds. Please provide feedback on what the priorities should be for NC Medicaid’s HCBS spending plan.
Feedback can be shared by:
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Emailing [email protected]
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Attending a webinar on Tuesday, June 22, 2021, from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m. Register here to attend.
Contact
NC Medicaid Contact Center 888-245-0179
IRIS Unavailable- Tuesday June 29th at 5pm-Thursday July 1st at 8am
In preparation for Medicaid Transformation, DHHS and Division of Information Technology will need to update many items in the Live IRIS System. As a result, IRIS will need to be unavailable for all users beginning Tuesday, June 29th at 5:00 p.m. and is expected to be available at 8:00 a.m. on Thursday, July 1st. We are asking LME-MCO to inform their providers that IRIS will be unavailable so providers can make needed preparations and LME-MCOs can answer any questions from their providers. LME-MCO and DHHS staff, please call us at 984-236-5300 with any questions.
Reports can be submitted to the LME-MCO (Host and Home) via their fax and to DMH/DD/SAS Customer Service and Community Rights Team via fax at 919-733-4962 within specified timeframes and procedures. Providers will still need to enter the report into IRIS once the system is available. Reports to be filed with DHSR Healthcare Personnel Registry should be faxed to HCPR within specified timeframes at 919-733-3207. Reports regarding Deaths (suicide, homicide/violence, accident, or restraint) in a licensed facility should be reported to DHSR Complaint Intake Unit via fax at 919-715-7724.
Staff Stability Survey
We are in the middle of completion of the annual Staff Stability Survey. It is important that as many providers as possible complete this survey to ensure accurate workforce information is received for NC. Many bills are being submitted to NC legislature surrounding our direct support workforce as we look at staff stability and information from this survey will provide an abundance of data about direct support professionals in our state. The completion rate for this survey last year was 34%. Our goal is to have as close to 100% participation from providers as possible. In order do to so, would you please share this flyer with the appropriate person at your agency to ensure your information is included?
If the contact at your agency has not received information about the survey, please contact [email protected] and include the name of your agency as well as the contact email. Please note that only 1 person per agency can complete the survey and the same person cannot complete the survey for multiple agencies. Additional questions about the survey can also be sent to the same email address.
The end date for survey completion is June 30, 2021.
DSS: Dear Director Letter: Policy Update: Monitoring of Psychotropic and Other High-Risk Medications. Form Change: DSS 5295 Monthly Permanency Planning Contact Record Instructions for Counties Using NC FAST
The NC Division of Social Services (NC DSS) is committed to ensuring that all children and youth who are in the custody of Local Departments of Social Services experience optimal well-being.
The Healthcare Oversight and Coordination Plan (HOCP) 2020-2024 provides in detail the states plan to meet this objective. The HOCP is required under Sec. 422. [42 U.S.C. 622], and each year the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) provides program instructions for reporting on the implementation of the plan in the Annual Services and Progress Report.
Of the many ACF required components of the HOCP, is the state plan for the monitoring and oversight of psychotropic medications prescribed to children and youth in foster care. Requirements for monitoring have been in place since the 2011 passing of the Child and Family Service Improvement and Innovation Act (P.L. 112-34).
Additionally, since 2012 the Administration for Children and Families has required that states include in their Annual Services and Program Review the protocol in place for the effective medication monitoring at both the client and agency level. To ensure that the children and youth in foster care are receiving appropriate psychotropic medication regimens and that the state is meeting federal reporting requirements the Division...
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Independence Day Holiday Information, New Medicaid Bulletins and June Pharmacy Newsletter Available
The NCTracks Call Center will be closed Monday, July 5, in observance of the Independence Day holiday. (The Pharmacy Prior Approval Unit will be open holiday hours from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.)
The checkwrite schedule is not affected by the 2021 Independence Day holiday.
New Medicaid Bulletins Available as of June 10, 2021
The NC Division of Health Benefits (DHB) has recently published new Medicaid Bulletin articles:
- Attention Providers: Failure to Update Expiring Credentials Results in Pended Claims
- Electronic Visit Verification Implementation Update: Beginning of EVV Claim Adjudication, Alt EVV and Other Topics
New Medicaid Bulletins Available as of June 15, 2021
The NC Division of Health Benefits (DHB) has recently published new Medicaid Bulletin articles:
- Prior Approval (PA) Requirement for Solid Organ and Stem Cell Transplants Terminating July 1, 2021
- Nursing Home Provider Training on Time-Weighted Reimbursement Methodology
- NC Medicaid EHR Incentive Program Announcements
- Attention: Nurse Practitioners, Physician Assistants and Physicians - Injection, Sincalide (KInevac®) HCPCS Code J2805: Change in Coverage
- Spending Plan for the Implementation of NC Medicaid’s Home & Community Based Services Improvements in Response to COVID-19
June Pharmacy Newsletter Now Available
The latest Medicaid Pharmacy Newsletter, dated June 2021, is now available on the N.C. Medicaid website. In addition to the July 2021 checkwrite schedule, this edition of the newsletter includes the articles:
- American Rescue Plan Act
- Medicaid Managed Care Transferring Prior Approvals
- Medicaid Managed Care Pharmacy Billing and Contracting Information
Providers are encouraged to review this information. All bulletin articles, including those related to COVID-19, are available on DHB's Medicaid Bulletin webpage
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North Carolina Health News: Proposed law could make life easier for North Carolina’s foster parents
In 2016, Brooks Rainey Pearson and her husband decided that they wanted to become foster parents. They didn’t have any children of their own, but they wanted to provide a welcoming home for children whose home lives were unstable.
The couple took the classes required by Durham County and completed the training hours necessary to become foster parents.
On Aug. 10, 2017, the same day the couple received their license, they received a phone call from the social worker they’d worked with that a 5-year-old boy needed a home quickly.
Rainey Pearson said the moment she and her husband Dave Pearson picked up the boy from day care they connected. While they hoped his parents would eventually get their lives back on track and be able to take him home, they knew they’d be willing to provide him a forever home if that did not come to pass. Four years later, after the boy’s parents lost their parental rights in court, the couple began the adoption process.
“[Being a foster mom] is the hardest thing I have ever done,” said Rainey Pearson, an attorney. “I know we went into it so naive, about just the way the world works and how foster care is a failure of our society to help families before children are abused and neglected.”
When the couple brought the boy home in the summer of 2017, they learned that he had been in and out of five other households in just that same year.
What they discovered in their subsequent years of foster parenting is how little say they have in the life of the boy they care for and in the lives of the other children they have had in their home for temporary stays. They also felt like the rules could be capricious or could change, depending on who they were talking to.
But a law proposed in the General Assembly this session would give foster parents, such as Rainey Pearson, more of a voice in the court system and other areas.
Carolina Public Press Series Regarding NC Child Protective Services:
Carolina Public Press Related Articles:
City Journal Op-Ed: Fixing Foster Care: Fixing foster care: The lack of beds in child-care facilities is a problem of our own making but one with an easy solution
This past March, 237 foster children spent at least two nights sleeping in state offices in Texas—nearly seven times as many as March 2020. According to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, most of those children were older or had severe behavioral or psychological needs.
The department claimed that there were not enough foster parents and not enough beds in residential facilities for these children. The lack of foster parents is a problem in almost every state, and one we can only do so much to fix; government can’t force families to take in foster kids, and even the most qualified and well-meaning parents often don’t feel up to the task of caring for kids with special needs. But the lack of beds in child-care facilities is a problem of our own making, and one Washington should fix before it gets worse. Unfortunately, some child-welfare advocates are standing in the way of a solution.
In 2018, a bipartisan coalition in Congress passed the Family First Prevention Services Act (Family First). Backed by child-welfare groups like Casey Family Programs, the law was part of an effort to allow states to use federal foster-care dollars to pay for the kind of mental health and family counseling services that keep kids out of foster care in the first place. But Family First also sought to limit how much time foster kids could spend in institutions.
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New Loan Repayment Program Expands Eligible Substance Use Disorder Disciplines, Facility Types
Our Bureau of Health Workforce (BHW) has launched a new program to further support combating the nation’s opioid crisis. The Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Recovery Loan Repayment Program (STAR LRP) expands access to substance use disorder (SUD) treatment by adding several new disciplines such as bachelor’s-level SUD counselors, behavioral health paraprofessionals and clinical support staff.
The program also broadens the clinical best practice of a warm handoff while recognizing the effectiveness of integrated SUD treatment teams. Eligible health professionals can receive up to $250,000 in exchange for a six-year, full-time service commitment at a variety of added SUD facility types. Eligible sites may also apply to become approved for the program.
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Announcing NAMD Children’s Health Report
We are pleased to share with you Medicaid Forward: Children’s Health, the second in a three-part series that looks at how Medicaid can and will, inevitably, play a critical role in the hard work of recovering from the pandemic and establishing a "new normal" for American health care. This report was developed by state Medicaid leaders, for state Medicaid leaders. Developed with support from NAMD’s foundation partners, Medicaid Forward: Children’s Health identifies opportunities for action to address immediate and long-term challenges for children’s health emerging from the COVID crisis across communities.
The report is amplified by real-world examples of states that have implemented the strategies outlined in the framework.
We hope this paper and the other two in the series – one focused on mental health and one on long-term care – are valuable resources to you in your work. And we hope you will help us bring attention to the critical role Medicaid will inevitably play in creating a healthier American future.
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Recent Shifts In The Independent Contractor v. Employee Classification Rules
The legal landscape for defining “employers,” “employees,” and “independent contractors” can be quite dynamic, as this past year has illustrated. In January 2021, the Department of Labor issued an employer-friendly independent contractor rule that would have departed from the agency’s typical balancing test, but it formally withdrew this rule in early May with the change in administration.
The DOL’s independent contractor rule is intended to provide guidance to employers when determining whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor. For employers, this is an important distinction because the FLSA’s overtime and minimum wage protections apply only to employees, not independent contractors. Because courts and employers sometimes struggle to find this line using the economic realities test and its iterations, the Trump-era independent contractor rule aimed to provide a clearer definition of “employee,” as opposed to “contractor.”
The DOL has not yet proposed a new independent contractor test, but employers should be mindful that the Biden administration may potentially announce a new rule on this topic.
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Monday, June 21, 2021
Foster Care Plan Workgroup (Listen Only)
Time: 3:00 pm thru 4:30 pm
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Friday, June 25, 2021
Benchmarks' Friday Membership Webinar
Dave Richard Joins Karen McLeod
Time: 8:30 am thru 9:30 am
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New: Thursday, July 8, 2021
Benchmarks' Child Welfare Webinar
Lisa Cauley Joins Karen McLeod
Time: 8:00 am thru 9:00 am
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Monday, July 12, 2021
Foster Care Plan Workgroup (Listen Only)
Time: 3:00 pm thru 4:30 pm
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Monday, July 12, 2021 thru Friday, July 24, 2021
North Carolina Youth Leadership Forum
The North Carolina Youth Leadership Forum (NCYLF) will be a free two-week web series in July that will model online college life for youth with disabilities. Participants will be treated like college students.
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New: Friday, July 23, 2021
Benchmarks' Friday Membership Webinar
Dave Richard Joins Karen McLeod
Time: 8:30 am thru 9:30 am
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New: Thursday, August 12, 2021
Benchmarks' Child Welfare Webinar
Lisa Cauley Joins Karen McLeod
Time: 8:00 am thru 9:00 am
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New: Friday, August 20, 2021
Benchmarks' Friday Membership Webinar
Dave Richard Joins Karen McLeod
Time: 8:30 am thru 9:30 am
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New: Thursday, September 9, 2021
Benchmarks' Child Welfare Webinar
Lisa Cauley Joins Karen McLeod
Time: 8:00 am thru 9:00 am
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New: Friday, September 17, 2021
Benchmarks' Friday Membership Webinar
Dave Richard Joins Karen McLeod
Time: 8:30 am thru 9:30 am
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