Benchmarks' Upcoming Webinars
We hope you will join us!
Benchmarks' DSP Rate Increases-Member Discussion
Corrected the Day: Wednesday, March 16, 2022
Time: 9:00 am thru 10:30 am
(We adjusted the day of the week from Thursday to Wednesday, the link for registration and other items stay the same.)
Benchmarks' Friday Webinar
Dave Richard Joins Karen McLeod
Date: Friday, March 18, 2021 thru December 16, 2022
Time: 8:30 am thru 9:30 am
(This registration is for a recurring meeting)
New: Benchmarks' Friday Membership Webinar with Healthy Blue PHP & Karen McLeod
Date: Friday, April 1, 2022
Time: 8:30 am thru 9:30 am
In order to be most efficient with our time, please feel free to send any questions you may have for the Healthy Blue team to Karen and Tara in advance.
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Benchmarks' Thursday Child Welfare Webinar with
Karen McLeod and Lisa Cauley
March 10, 2022
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NC Medicaid Managed Care Webinars
March Fireside Chat for Providers
Thursday, March 17, 2022, from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. | Register
Please join NC Medicaid Chief Medical Officer Dr. Shannon Dowler, Chief Quality Officer Kelly Crosbie, Maternal Health Medical Director Dr. Velma Taormina and Deputy Director of Member Operations Carolyn McClanahan for the March Fireside Chat on Thursday, March 17 from 5:30-6:30 p.m.
This webinar will provide insight and data on the State’s and other partners' telehealth evaluation and learnings as this service has been expanded in response to the pandemic. Other hot topics that will be covered include Medicaid coverage expansion to continue coverage for pregnant women for 12 months postpartum and a brief overview of the eligibility re-determination process for beneficiaries that will restart at the end of the federal public health emergency.
Do you have a question you would like addressed during the webinar? Please use this link before Tuesday, March 15 to enter your questions. We look forward to hearing from you!
Quality and Population Health: COVID-19 Vaccination in the Medicaid Population
Thursday, March 24, 2022, from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. | Register
This series, formerly the Advanced Medical Home (AMH) Webinar Series, is designed to support providers, practice managers, quality improvement professionals, care managers and clinically integrated networks (CINs).
The latest schedule, registration and information on previous webinars, including the recording, slides and transcript are available on the AHEC Medicaid Managed Care website.
SPECIAL BULLETIN COVID-19 #235-236 Now Available
The NC Division of Health Benefits (DHB) has recently published new Medicaid Bulletin articles pertaining to COVID-19:
SPECIAL BULLETIN COVID-19 #236: Vaccine Incentives and Value-Added Services for NC Medicaid Managed Care Standard Plan Members
To encourage more beneficiaries to get COVID-19 vaccinations, NC Medicaid has worked with our managed care Standard Plans (SPs) to offer incentives to members when they get vaccinated. SPs are offering gift cards or cash incentives to help support this effort. Details
SPECIAL BULLETIN COVID-19 #235: New ICD-10 Diagnosis and Procedure Codes Effective April 1, 2022
In response to the ongoing COVID-19 public health emergency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) is implementing three new diagnosis codes into the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM) for reporting COVID-19 vaccination status, effective April 1, 2022. More 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.
New Medicaid Bulletin Available as of March 10, 2022
The NC Division of Health Benefits (DHB) has recently published a new Medicaid Bulletin article:
Taxonomy Enrollment Requirement Reminders for Claim Payment
Medicaid and prepaid health plans (PHPs) have identified a trend in claim denials related to taxonomy enrollment and credentialing. More 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.
NCTracks Call Center Closed Good Friday 2022
The NCTracks Call Center will be closed on Good Friday, April 15, 2022 in keeping with the State holiday. The Pharmacy Prior Approval Unit will be open holiday hours from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Friday.
The NCTracks checkwrite schedule is not affected by the Good Friday holiday.
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Direct Care Worker and COVID-19 Rate Changes
Please be aware of upcoming rate adjustments to implement NC Medicaid changes to direct care worker (DCW) rates and to confirm coordination with the current COVID-19/PHE rate supplements. Read more in the memo linked below.
**If your agency has received information like this from other LME/MCOs, please consider sending them to Karen & Tara.
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2022 NHSC New Site Application Cycle Opens Soon
What should I do before I apply?
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Building the Direct Care Workforce Movement: The Essential Jobs, Essential Care Multi-State Initiative
In 2020, PHI launched a multi-state advocacy initiative focused on the direct care workforce in Michigan, New Mexico, and North Carolina. The aim of this brief report is to summarize progress on Essential Jobs, Essential Care, celebrate our successes so far, and preview next steps. We will release a final report on this initiative in Spring 2023.
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The Children’s Mental Health Crisis
The pandemic has had a devastating impact on children’s mental health due to factors such as increased isolation, anxiety, and learning loss. The Biden Administration recently highlighted this crisis and announced a national mental health strategy in the State of the Union. Among other plans, President Biden shared actions to address social media’s negative impact on mental health, including increasing online protections and stopping discriminatory algorithmic decision-making. Also highlighting this concern is the probe into TikTok’s impact on children and teens’ health and the bill introduced to limit social media’s harmful effects.
Support in Schools: There are calls to increase mental health services in schools and a new report rates how well states are doing in terms of programming and support. The report was published by a group of 17 national mental health organizations and shares ways to support comprehensive mental health services in schools.
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New child welfare data can inform state and federal decision making
Child Trends has updated its State-level Data for Understanding Child Welfare in the United States interactive with 2020 data. This comprehensive resource offers state- and national-level data on child maltreatment, foster care, kinship care, and adoption through easy-to-use interactive features. Examining trends in these four subgroups of child welfare helps stakeholders understand what is happening in different components of the child welfare system. These data are essential for helping stakeholders understand the rates at which the child welfare system intervened in the lives of children and youth, and the circumstances in which those interventions occurred. States can use this information to ensure that their child welfare systems support the safety, stability, and well-being of all families in their state.
Notable updated statistics include the following:
- The number of referrals (i.e., reports) of maltreatment decreased by 9 percent from 2019 to 2020. Research shows that one factor likely driving this shift is COVID-19 restrictions limiting contact between children and educators.
- The number of children currently in foster care decreased for the third year in a row and the number of children entering foster care decreased for the fourth year in a row.
- As of December 31, 2020, 34 percent of children in foster care were in a relative care placement. Relatives and other kin are invaluable sources of support and connection for children, both in and outside of the child welfare system.
- At the end of fiscal year 2020, there were 117,470 children eligible and waiting to be adopted from foster care. For children for whom reunification with their parents is not possible, adoption is an important path to a safe, permanent family.
State-level data on child welfare highlight the prevalence of child maltreatment in the United States. The updated interactive offers data on:
- The number of referrals to child welfare agencies, child abuse and neglect investigations, and demographics (including age and race/ethnicity) on maltreatment victims
- The number of children in foster care, their average length of stay, and their permanency outcomes (e.g., reunification with parents, or exits to adoption or guardianship)
- Data on children adopted from the foster care system and those living in kinship care placements
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This is why it’s so hard to find mental health counseling right now
Angelle Haney Gullett lost her father in September and knew she would need grief counseling. She contacted 25 therapists in the Los Angeles area, where she lives, between early October and Christmas, neatly tracking her efforts on a spreadsheet.
None would accept a new client. In most cases, their waiting lists were closed as well, even though Gullett was willing to pay hundreds of dollars in cash for each session. She spent February’s Super Bowl in tears, watching the Cincinnati Bengals, the team her father rooted for.
“I’m in a big city. I’m in L.A. We have a lot of therapists,” she said. “So it’s just kind of wild to me that that many people are at capacity.”
It has been difficult to find mental health counseling in much of the United States for years, long before the coronavirus pandemic began. But now, after two years of unrelenting stress, turmoil and grief, many people seeking help are confronting a system at or beyond capacity, its inadequacy for this moment plainly exposed.
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Monday, March 14, 2022
Money Follows the Person (MFP) Lunch and Learn
Time: 12:00 pm thru 1:00 pm
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New: Monday, March 14, 2022
Help Wanted: Alleviating the Nursing Shortage
With nursing vacancy rates at alarmingly high levels in hospitals and nursing homes across the country, concerns over safety, the availability of care, and the very future of nursing have heightened. While the supply and demand of nurses has historically been cyclical, the extreme shortages that have emerged during the pandemic indicate the need for more fundamental policy change. The first of two events will explore nursing workforce trends, why nurses are leaving, and possible solutions to enhancing the nursing pipeline and improving retention rates.
Time: 2:00 pm thru 3:00 pm
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Tuesday, March 15, 2022
NC DSS: Kindship First
Time: 9:00 am thru 10:00 am
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Tuesday, March 15, 2022
Communicating the Value of Care Work
Time: 12:00 pm thru 1:30 pm
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Corrected: Wednesday, March 16, 2022
Benchmarks' DSP Rate Increases-Member Discussion
Time: 9:00 am thru 10:30 am
(We adjusted the day of the week from Thursday to Wednesday, the link for registration and other items stay the same.)
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Wednesday, March 16, 2022
Interactive Monthly Update
Time: 2:00 pm thru 3:00 pm
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New: Thursday, March 17, 2022
Transitioning Out of the COVID-19 Emergency Phase
With COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths steadily decreasing, America is cautiously experiencing a return to some degree of normalcy. Join BPC as we host CDC Director Rochelle Walensky to discuss her COVID-19 forecast for 2022.
We will also be joined by leading health experts to discuss the implications of the eventual end of the public health emergency for the coverage and delivery of health care services. Discussion topics will include care delivery in and financing of hospitals and nursing homes, the new normal for telehealth, and whether low-income individuals will find it harder to stay on Medicaid.
Time: 9:30 am thru 10:30 am
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Thursday, March 17, 2022
Integrating Peer Supports into Crisis Services
Time: 2:00 pm thru 3:00 pm
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New: Thursday, March 17, 2022
Better Tech, Better Outcomes: How Technology Collaboration Can Improve Foster Care
Time: 2:00 pm thru 3:00 pm
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Friday, March 18, 2022
"Building a National Movement” Workshop Series
Child Trends is co-sponsoring a workshop series—presented by the Campaign for Trauma-informed Policy and Practice, the National Prevention Science Coalition to Improve Lives, and PACEs Connection—on preventing trauma and fostering resilience. Half-day workshops will be offered every other Friday from late January to mid-April, from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm ET.
- March 18: “Building the Movement with Foundations and the Private Sector”
- April 1: “Building the Movement to Address Global Crises”
- April 15: “Building the Movement through Policy and Advocacy”
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Tuesday, March 22, 2022
Building the Relationships You Need to Win
Time: 12:00 pm thru 1:30 pm
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New: Wednesday, March 23, 2022
Establishing Peer Services for Overdose Response
Time: 12:00 pm thru 1:30 pm
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