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 

On Sunday, Mar. 21, two-factor authentication (2FA) will become part of the login process for all CBMS users. The additional login step of entering a passcode along with a username and password makes it much more difficult for someone to fraudulently login to an account and is required by our Federal partners. There are multiple ways a passcode can be provided for county, state and other staff: PingID app, text message, phone call or hardware token.

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.

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.

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:

 

For more information, read the related Policy Memo.

The law has changed and Health First Colorado and CHP+ members will no longer need to provide proof of health insurance coverage in order to file their taxes. Therefore, the Department will not be mailing out 1095-B forms this year.

For more information, read the related Operational Memo and our FAQ.

For more information about Friday Health Plans, members can visit the Friday Health Plans website or contact Friday Health Plans Customer Service by calling 1-719-589-3696 or 1-800-475-8466. 

For more information about the CHP+ program, members can visit the CHP+ website or contact CHP+ Customer Service by calling 1-800-359-1991.  

On Mar. 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 Apr. 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.

This week, several updates came from OeHI of interest to hospitals and stakeholders.

As part of Colorado's Health IT Roadmap Care Coordination Initiative, OeHI and the eHealth Commission developed new resources to increase collaboration, alignment and coordination of efforts. See below and please share with your networks.

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.

The next Colorado Healthcare Affordability and Sustainability Enterprise (CHASE) Board meeting will take place via webinar on Tuesday, March 23 at 3 p.m. Additional information about the board, as well as meeting materials, can be found on the CHASE Board website.

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

PM 21-002

The purpose of this Policy Memo is to communicate to county member fraud investigators the requirement for Continuous Enrollment during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) public health emergency (PHE), and the related implications on member fraud investigations, eligibility terminations, and overpayments. This memo will be available to all county staff working on member fraud investigations.

PM 21-001

The purpose of this Policy Memo is to inform authorized individuals/entities such as counties, Medical Assistance (MA) sites, eligibility application partner sites, Presumptive Eligibility (PE) sites, and Certified Application Assistance sites (CAAS) that they may assist applicants in completing the application for Medical Assistance remotely (telephone, video conferencing, etc.) during the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency period. This guidance will exclude the disability application. Assisters should follow the existing process for the disability portion. Assisters listed above have the option to assist applicants to complete the application remotely. This interim process will not be mandatory. Please share this memo with all eligibility staff, supervisors, and outside agencies, as appropriate.

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.

OM 21-019

The purpose of this Operational Memo is to inform eligibility sites of changes being made to the Reasonable Opportunity Period (ROP) policy and Colorado Benefit Management System (CBMS). Changes made to the policy and to CBMS will reduce the ROP for income discrepancies from 90 calendar days to 30 calendar days for Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) and Non-MAGI programs.

The purpose of this Operational Memo is to inform eligibility sites of operational instructions to meet Federal requirements to include Net Operating Loss (NOL) as an allowable deduction for MAGI-based programs.

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