Child Tax Credits
Per CICP rule, income from a tax return is not allowed to be counted when rating a CICP client. Following this rule, any income a household receives from the new Child Tax Credit, that began in July and is currently slated to run through December, is exempt from being counted as income. Under this tax credit, households receive $300 per month for any child under the age of six, and $250 per month for each child ages six to 17. Some households may have opted out of the payments in favor of receiving the tax credit along with their normal taxes next year.
Public Charge Rule Update
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) 2019 Public Charge Final Rule has been vacated and is no longer in effect. Effective March 9, 2021, DHS started applying the 1999 Interim Field Guidance for public charge inadmissibility determinations, which is the policy that was in place before the 2019 Public Charge Final Rule. Under the 1999 Interim Field Guidance, DHS will not consider an individual’s receipt of Medicaid benefits as part of the public charge determination, with one exception for individuals who are institutionalized on a long-term basis (such as nursing facility residents) and are receiving Medicaid coverage for their institutional services. More information can be found in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) July 22, 2021 Informational Bulletin.
Summer 2021 Training Slides and Recordings
The recordings and updated slides for the 2021-22 training sessions held in June are now available on the CICP Provider Information website under the 2021-22 Annual Training dropdown. Providers are responsible for knowing and understanding all information presented during the annual training sessions. If your facility has staff that was unable to attend training this year, please have them review the slides and recordings. Please send all questions to the CICP Inbox.
Electronic Signatures
Providers will be allowed to use electronic signatures for applications going forward as long as they are using a program that date and time stamps all necessary steps. One program that has been approved is Adobe Sign, which prints out a history document showing time and date stamps for when the application was sent, viewed, and signed by the applicant and enrollment staff. If your facility wishes to use an electronic signature program, you will need to notify the department of what program you would like to use and provide an example of the documentation the program creates showing the necessary time and date stamps. Please send requests to use these signature programs to the CICP inbox.
To be clear, this is a different process than the emailed "signatures" currently allowed under the COVID-19 flexible signature policy. Those types of "signatures" will be allowed until Oct. 31, 2021 for applications falling under the situations described in the flexible signature policy.
Emergency Medicaid
For any CICP client that has been approved for emergency Medicaid, COVID-19 related or otherwise, providers will need to send all claims through Medicaid prior to them being written off to CICP. Confirmation that the claim or claims have been denied should be kept so documentation may be provided as part of an audit. Under normal circumstances, a patient should not hold a CICP card while covered under Health First Colorado; however, the Department is aware that some patients who have been granted emergency Medicaid continue to have claims covered under that program. Therefore, all claims for these patients must be submitted to Health First Colorado prior to being included in the CICP write off data.
