Healthcare Update - February 2019
Key Highlights in this topic/WORKGROUP for the PREVIOUS month:
DHS’ Financial Operations Division (FOD) sent an email on December 14, 2018 regarding detailed Income Maintenance Random Moments Time Study (IMRMS) and the Social Services Time Study (SSTS). Beginning with Q3 2018, the FOD will provide all counties with their County specific time study result reports. The spreadsheet contains three tabs – observation detail, observation net and group summary. For example, the observation detail tab shows specific random moment response detail by participant for each time study observation. The email includes two memos and your County’s detailed report. Contact your accounting/fiscal staff if you have not seen this report. You may contact Molly Klismith at molly.klismith@state.mn.us or Cindy Bayles at cindy.bayles@state.mn.us if you have any questions regarding your County's report.
Beginning Jan. 1, 2019, all Personal Care Assistance (PCA) and Home Care Nursing (HCN) services for people under age 65 will be covered under fee-for-service (FFS). Members will continue to be enrolled in the Managed Care Organization (MCO) they were enrolled in, but MCO contracts for Minnesota Health Care Programs (MHCP) members under age 65 will no longer cover PCA and HCN. MHCP will cover these services on a FFS basis beginning Jan. 1, 2019.
Todd McMurray from Chisago County has been appointed to the METS Health Care Program Management Team (PMT), replacing Tiffinie Miller from Dakota County.
The METS PMT is currently working on setting initial priorities for the Advanced Planning Document (APD) funded projects for APD year 2020.
The IRS standard business mileage rate increased from 54.5 cents to 58 cents per mile Jan. 1, 2019. Minnesota Health Care Programs (MHCP) will reimburse 58 cents per loaded mile for NEMT volunteer driver and foster parent appropriate and most-direct-route transports for dates of service beginning Jan. 1, 2019, through Dec. 31, 2019.
DHS will mail approximately one million Forms 1095-B in February. Approximately 50,000 will be mailed each day in order to meet the March 4th deadline. Members who have changes to their eligibility after January 23, 2019 will get a corrected form sometime in March or April 2019.
Requested Actions needed from MACSSA in the next month:
APPARENT TRENDS IN THIS TOPIC AREA:
Periodic Data Matching (PDM) - February 28, 2019 is the last business day of the month and the last day for enrollees to resolve PDM discrepancies or request an extension. March 1, 2019 is the first day of eligibility loss for enrollees who did not respond to their PDM notice.
PDM cases with a February PDM month: 24,389
Cases with a discrepancy: 3,576 (14.6%)
During the PDM field test, between August and October DHS facilitated a total of 7 Supported Sessions for workers. During that time they received approximately 10 questions. Based on this experience, they do not currently have any supported sessions scheduled in the future. DHS will continue to check in with Mentors to see how it’s going.
Issues/Concerns regarding this topic this month:
DEED data was added to the METS system for renewals in 2017, and the first batch of renewals that it impacted was July 2018 MA renewals. There were several issues with what was being populated on the renewal. DHS HCEO worked with MN.IT on the analysis of the issues which were not considered defects, but further analysis was needed to figure out why this was happening. It was noticed that the most recent DEED data was not populating on the renewal. It was discovered there is a two-step process for MN.IT to put the information into the data warehouse, but MN.IT only completed the first step and not the second. MN.IT fixed this and completed both steps; but no changes were found on the next batch of renewals run at the end of Dec 2018, other than it appeared to populate more recent data. Further analysis is needed.
The State Medical Review Team (SMRT) has shut down the following email addresses in order to ensure that members’ private data and protected health information is not compromised: dhs.smrt@state.mn.us and dhs.smrtcases@state.mn.us. If you want to check the status of a SMRT referral, or update contact information for a member, you may contact the SMRT hotline at 651-431-2493 or 800-235-7396.
Legislative Impacts:
Bulletins, Publications, or supporting materials to be included with this update: (Please attach to the email sent with this report.)
CONTACTS (For Topic Groups):
Kari Ouimette