The URL can be used to link to this page

Home My WebLink AboutEI Provider Meeting Minutes 07-10-24 Early Intervention Provider Meeting Wednesday, July 10, 2024 3³ ¥¥ 0±¤²¤³Ȁ Jenn Hawbecker, Erin Nye, Zachary Gantz, Angela Alleman 0±®µ¨£¤±² 0±¤²¤³Ȁ (¤ «³§0±® 0¤£¨ ³±¨¢² - Cynthia Bosserman 0¤£¨ ³±¨¢ 4§¤± ¯¸ 3¯¤¢¨ «¨²³² - Riley Degelman -®µ¨¦ -®´³ ¨² 0¤£¨ ³±¨¢ 4§¤± ¯¸ Lauren Everetts 3¤±µ¨¢¤ !¢¢¤²² ǉ Management Holly Whiteside !²¯¨± ³¨®² Rachel Bechtel )µ® (¤ «³§# ±¤ - Joanne LaSalle & Breanne Clair 5#0 ®¥ #¤³± « 0! Caroline Dille -%%4).' -).54%3 7¤«¢®¬¤ £ )³±®£´¢³¨®² This meeting was held in virtual format. All providers introduced themselves and their agency affiliations. 0±®µ¨£¤± 5¯£ ³¤² £ !®´¢¤¬¤³² )µ® (¤ «³§# ±¤ - *® ¤ , 3 ««¤ ǉ "±¤ ¤ #« ¨± Invo staff interviewed a potential speech-language pathologist (SLP) yesterday. They still have Occupational Therapy (OT) opportunities open but have not received many responses. (¤ «³§0±® 0¤£¨ ³±¨¢² #¸³§¨ "®²²¤±¬ HealthPro is trying to hire more staff. They are bringing on two (2) new Special Instructors part-time but continue to looking for Speech Pathologist and Occupational Therapists. 3¤±µ¨¢¤ !¢¢¤²² ǉ - ¦¤¬¤³ (®««¸ 7§¨³¤²¨£¤ Service Access & Management (SAM) still has seven (7) Service Coordinators (SCs). st Nancy Hopkins moved to part-time as of July 1 so she will have a limited schedule. -time where she only helps with reports and does not have a caseload. The SCs have been extremely busy trying to get therapies in for families as there have been some difficulties in that. responded that children will not be transferred as once children are closed out that need to be closed out at this time, Nancy will only have a part-time caseload. -®µ¨¦ -®´³ ¨² , ´±¤ %µ¤±¤³³² Early Intervention Provider Meeting Wednesday, July 10, 2024 Moving Mountains is hiring a part-time Speech Pathologist. She is just starting training at this time so it will be a little while until she is ready to take on a caseload. The therapist lives in the Mercersburg area so she will pick up Fulton and Southern/Southwest end of Franklin County as their caseload. 0¤£¨ ³±¨¢ 4§¤± ¯¸ 3¯¤¢¨ «¨²³² 2¨«¤¸ $¤¦¤«¬ Pediatric Therapy Specialists has hired two (2) new Special Instructors (SIs) for Franklin County. They will begin orientation on Thursday. &¨²¢ « 5¯£ ³¤² 2024-2025 #®³± ¢³² Fiscal Year 2024-2025 contracts are starting to be sent out. The contracting encumbrances are going to be a little lower than the end of the year totals due to being based on FY23-24 allocations and no additional funding. There were not enough funds in FY23-24 to cover all of our expenses. 2023-ΑΏΑΓ !¬¤£¬¤³² th The last day to receive FY23-24 billing will be July 24. A memo will be sent out to all providers regarding this. If we do not have all billing in, please let Jenn or Zach know. They will be working on amendments but are awaiting all billing so amendments are accurate and multiple amendments are not needed. Holly is working on a few medical necessities that she is waiting on. If she is not able to get those to Jenn, she may have providers bill up until June 30th for those children we cannot get medical necessity for. If you know you will have any billing issue you are working on or waiting on billing staff to take care of, please let Zach and Jenn know so they can keep an eye on them and count them in the figures for amendments. "¨««¨¦ Reminde±² th Reminder: please be sure you are consistently billing by the 15 of each month. Please be sure to email both Zach and Jenn when you have voids or adjustments with billing. If anyone has any questions, please reach out to Zach and Jenn. 3¤±µ¨¢¤ $¤«¨µ¤±¸Ȁ #® ¢§¨¦ !¢±®²² 3¤³³¨¦² 5¯£ ³¤ #¤±³¨¥¨¢ ³¨® #¸¢«¤ ¥®± %£®±²¤£ 0! %) #® ¢§¤² st The certification cycle for endorsed PA EI coaches is new and started as of July 1. This is located on the Early Intervention Technical Assistance (EITA) portal under Infant Toddler Service Delivery. You can also access it by clicking on this link - https://www.eita-pa.org/it-service-delivery/#content. Early Intervention Provider Meeting Wednesday, July 10, 2024 The Office of Child Developmental and Early Learning (OCDEL) and EITA have been looking at those who have been endorsed with the Family Guided Routines Based Intervention (FGRBI) coaching and how to keep their skills up to date while they are still trying to endorse new staff. They have developed this cycle to ensure implementation of the state practices which aligns with the announcement of principals of EI. There is a 10 minute snippet of a video that lays out the cycle and talks about what will be needed for those already endorsed - https://www.eita- pa.org/eisd/it-service-delivery/itsd-learningpath/certification-cycles-for-endorsed- pa-early-intervention-coaches/. All PA EI coaches who were endorsed prior to July 1, 2024 will be issued a new certificate with the date of issue and date of expiration. The certificates have a three (3) year expiration date. The state has given guidance earlier on what date to put in the provider registry. Now, once the new certificate is received, EI coaches can update the expiration date. After that, they will need to continue on with the certification cycle. Jenn shared a slide that included examples of what the cycle looks like. If the date endorsed is prior to July 1, 2023, the date of expiration will be June 30, 2025. The example notes the training cycle and training hours required. For this particular example, years 1 and 2 required 0 hours while year 3 required four (4) training hours. Please see slide for additional information. The state is providing training that is coaching approved trainings (CAT). EI coaches will have to take those specific trainings to go towards this certification. These trainings can also be counted towards the 24 hours of training so staff will not have to do additional training on top of the 24 hours. Key Messages of what the process looks like 3 Year Cycle o Effective Date: July 1, 2024 o Based on fiscal year o Date of issue and date of expiration are located on certificate of endorsement. At the end of the 3 year cycle, all providers will o Submit a completed session note to demonstrate use of caregiver coaching concepts and collaboration with caregiver. o Sign attestation continuing to provide high-quality home visits. o Complete Coaching Approved Training (CAT) hours 4 during each year. EITA will offer multiple opportunities throughout the year. Then a random selection of providers of 10% will occur. o Submit full video of the session with a family. o Receive feedback from a provider or master coach. o Develop plan for next steps based upon skills demonstrated in video. Early Intervention Provider Meeting Wednesday, July 10, 2024 Jenn believes that for whatever reason some who were selected to provide a video, if they do not meet all FGRBI indicators in the session, they may be asked to join a trio or have a little bit of coaching from a master coach or provider coach. They will or touching on in the video. There are not as many endorsed in Franklin and Fulton counties right now. 4± ¢ª¨¦ 3¯±¤ £²§¤¤³ %£ ®¥ 9¤ ± $ ³ The EI Service Delivery tracking sheets were sent out at the beginning of the fiscal year and collected in the middle of the fiscal year. Please submit them for the end of st the fiscal year by August 1. Jenn will email providers what was submitted mid-year in case they may not have it. Providers can update that one she sends or if you have been keeping track on your own, please submit that. Jenn wants to see where staff is within Franklin/Fulton in terms of taking the course on the Service Delivery learning path, how many are working towards in endorsement and moving forward, what we may need to do in our program to make sure staff is using FGRBI coaching and where we need to go after that. A question was asked if Jenn wants every therapist who provided services in FY23- 24 even if they may not be with an agency currently. Jenn noted that if there are staff who were with the provider in 23-24 to leave them on the tracking sheet but indicate somehow that they left the agency. This will allow for us to keep the numbers consistent for the FY. If you have new individuals, add the new ones to the tracking sheet and indicate they are new. 0±®µ¨£¤± 2¤¦¨²³±¸ 2¤²®´±¢¤² Provider Registries are due soon! Jenn emailed EI providers regarding the Provider Registry documents and resources on the EITA portal. It is under resources and includes a list of those resources. You can also access this page by clicking the link - https://www.eita-pa.org/resources/. Resources are updated as of January 2024. They include how to complete a profile, apply for an account, organization administrator guide, EI training logs, etc. If staff take training they do not receive a certificate for, they can use the EI training log. They need to fill it out, answer questions, provide a brief summary of the training The EITA portal seems to be fairly user friendly. However, there are times it gets a little cumbersome on where things are hidden. %³¤±¨¦ .¤¶ 3³ ¥¥ Early Intervention Provider Meeting Wednesday, July 10, 2024 As a follow up to a question presented at the last provider meeting, Jenn provided additional guidance from Heather Kawski at OCDEL. This information was included in the last meeting minutes as well as sent out via email but Jenn wanted to review them with providers again. When a provider on boards a therapist, is the start date for that therapist in the PDR the day of hire? Yes, it is the date of hire (or start date within EI if the agency has other departments). For example, an outpatient clinic that has an OT working on the private side of their business and then pulls them into EI. The start date for that individual would be when they start working in EI). This can be confusing as in another question we are asking if you are onboarding a new staff person or wanting a staff person to provide services in Franklin/Fulton. Jenn requested providers send her the materials ahead of time but do not assign them in the provider registry to our county until they st actually pick up a child. Example: if a person starts March 1 with your registry until July. You can give them their date of hire back in March. This does a couple things allows the staff person to take trainings and actually be able to count them towards the 24 hours of time. The EI orientation is not able to be counted towards training time. They need to take that prior to seeing a child but if they are starting to do some coaching trainings or First the provider registry or assign them to the county until they pick up children. This keeps records clean. If OCDEL sees someone in the system with no training, it could throw a red flag or cause the county or provider agency to do a corrective action or add to the quality enhancement plan (QEP). If you have any questions, please reach out to Jenn. Can pre-training hours be counted into the 24- No. Per the regulations, pre-service training cannot be counted towards annual training hours. The training in 4226.29(a)(9) can be counted though (this is the training that they have 120 days to obtain). Fire safety, emergency evacuation, First Aid/CPR (if after hired) cannot be counted. Are we permitted to count trainings that happened within the Fiscal Year but prior to the therapist starting with the EI provider? Anything that they took prior to beginning employment would be considered pre-employment and cannot be counted. A provider noted this would not be the case if the person came from another EI agency. If they were in the EI system previously, those hours can be Early Intervention Provider Meeting Wednesday, July 10, 2024 counted. They can carry the hours with them due to already being in the system. All staff training records need to be updated in the Provider Registry by August 1, nd 2024. OCDEL will pull preliminary reports as of August 2. Jenn will also pull her own reports but she will get the one from OCDEL as well. Jenn has between August ndst 2 and September 1 to review the report and make sure if anything does not look right she is in contact with the providers to get things taken care of prior to OCDEL pulling the final report the beginning of September. %)4! 0®±³ « !¢³ ΓΗ #§ ¦¤² Within the EITA portal there are trainings that providers can self-enroll to include ones st that are Act 48 related. This is effective July 1. The pre-registration courses are open for three (3) months at a time. These are not self- enrollment courses that everyone can take. These are ones that you have to sign up for ahead of time. These courses will be changing some. On the portal, the ones on the right are the self-enrollment courses. If you sign up for them now, you can start taking them now. You have whatever time to complete that. The ones on the left are the pre-registration courses. These are the ones that will be awarded Act 48 credits at the end of the quarter. It used to be you had to sign up by a certain time then the next month staff would have that entire month to complete the training. They are now giving more flexibility to the users. st Beginning July 1, all EITA pre-registration courses will be open on the PaTTAN training calendar for three (3) months at a time. Users can register and complete the online course at any point during that quarter. Within 24 hours of registering, the user will receive an email confirmation and be enrolled in the course on the EITA training site. Approximately 10 days prior to the end of each quarter, registration will close and no one will be able to register for the course within that block. Everyone will need to wait until the first day of the new quarter to register and complete the course. Users who complete the course will be awarded Act 48 credits at the end of each quarter. This can be a little tricky. There were questions about the end of the fiscal year as staff can th take the course up to June 30 but when will they be able to put them in the provider registry. They are trying to work this out. If Jenn gets any more information regarding this she will pass it along. The credits will be dated with the last day of that quarter. It may take up to 30 days from the end of the quarter for users to see their Act 48 credits in the Professional Education Record Management System (PERMS). Please note that this timing may require additional planning by staff and administrators to ensure all needed Act 48 credits are obtained in time. Early Intervention Provider Meeting Wednesday, July 10, 2024 In the first quarter, registration is open from July 1, 2024 to September 21, 2024. The st course is available to registered users to complete on the EITA training site from July 1 to thth September 30. All users who complete the course by September 30 will be awarded the Act 48 credit hours. Hours will be dated September 30, 2024 and will appear in PERMS by st October 31. Jenn is not sure if they will be awarded a certificate right away or if they have to wait to get it out of the PERMS system. Jenn will follow up on this question. All registered users must complete the course before the end of the quarter in which they registered. Users should plan to register in a timeframe that gives them enough time to complete the course prior to the end of the quarter. An example of User A and User B during the quarter July 1 September 30, 2024: User A registers on July 15, 2024. To get credit, User A would need to complete the course by September 30, 202 2024 and will appear in PERMS by October 31, 2024. User B registers on September 14, 2024. To get credit, User B would need to ted September 30, 2024 and will appear in PERMS by October 31, 2024. This will most likely affect SIs who wants to keep their teacher certification up to date. It is licensure as well as the specific trainings they need to keep for their licensure. % ±«¸ #§¨«£§®®£ /´³¢®¬¤² ȨECOs) 2¤¬¨£¤± ¡®´³ 4¨¬¤«¨¤² There have been some questions regarding timelines for ECOs. Jenn wanted to review the guidelines for completing ECOs. Entry data shall be gathered on all children found eligible for the EI program and reported in the BEIS information management system within 60 calendar days of P/IEP. Entry data should be assigned within HCSIS to the provider who is assigned to them. This is for the entry and exit ECOs. If you do not see that on the IFSP or service page reach out to the Service Coordinator (SC) to make sure. If you are the only provider in there you will be required to do it. If there are assigned. If it is your agency, you have 60 days to complete the ECO and get it entered into HCSIS. Exit data shall be gathered for those children who have received at least six (6) months of consecutive EI services prior to exiting and who are leaving the EI program for one of the following reasons Early Intervention Provider Meeting Wednesday, July 10, 2024 No longer eligible for EI because the child no longer meets eligibility criteria; Anticipated move out-of-state; Parent withdrawal of their child from the program; Transition from the Infant/Toddler program at the age (3) years old; or Transition from the Preschool program to Kindergarten. There is staff that has been entering children who have not been in the system for six (6) months or more. Some other counties require them even if they have been in Exit data shall be collected and reported in the BEIS information management Infant/Toddler or Preschool EI program. If you happen to have a child who was in the system earlier and closed then came back, you will see there is ECO information in the system. We need to start over with that child. Holly will need to remove the old information so that new information can be entered. Holly noted that there are a lot of children that transfer from other counties. That entry ECO will stand as is as long as the child did not close before transferring. If the child happened to close, the entry ECO will start over. If anyone has any questions reach out to Holly. If you know a child is turning three (3), you can do the exit ECO within 60 calendar days prior to closing. Holly expressed that it would be great if providers did this. There are a lot of exit ECOs submitted way after the child turns three (3). Holly is working on getting children closed out. Sometimes it may be three (3) to four (4) months or Holly did not get a discharge and an exit ECO is still needed. In the meantime, the question is whether the exit ECO was done before the child turning three (3). The state wants to see the date the ECO was completed prior to the child turning three (3). There are two (2) dates time stamp for date entered but the date completed needs to be done prior. If a child closes out unexpectedly that is different. There are sometimes that an exit ECO is not completed. %³¤±¨¦ 6 «¨£ %#/ 2 ³¨¦² In years past, an invalid response could be received for ECOs but that will be changing. The change will be implemented in Pelican in June. It will no longer permit invalid ECO data. Jenn reviewed a slide that gave an overview of why we are entering ECO data. If you enter something in that is invalid, you will receive an error. A provider has received an invalid error in which it just stopped them; they were unable to continue on. Early Intervention Provider Meeting Wednesday, July 10, 2024 What makes an invalid ECO rating? Jenn reviewed a slide that showed impossible or invalid combinations of entry ECO ratings, exit ECO ratings, and the yes/no question about whether the child has made progress since their entry to EI. Jenn stated that for the most part, children are going to progress but there are children who are so involved that they will not make any progress. In the past, at trainings, they said it was okay. There can be a lower number at the end then what was rated at the beginning. This was due to screening them at two (2) different age levels and needing different skills at those ages. Please review the slide for more detail for the explanations of why the combination is impossible. For example: if your entry was a 6 or 7 and your exit was a 6 or 7 and you answered no. Jenn is unsure what they want us to do in this situation. The child may be scoring in the same number but they may not have progressed or gained any skills. If you see this, reach out to Jenn or Holly and they will reach out to the OCDEL Advisor or EITA Consultant. Holly noted to keep in mind, are you really saying the child made zero progress over the last six (6) months. Unless the child is severely incapacitated, progress should be made. When we had the ECO training, it noted you are looking at the overall picture of the child. It could be three (3) years. This is something to talk to the therapist about first on what they are saying, look at the progress monitoring, see if they did not complete any goals at that time, etc. There are a couple children who come through the system that are truthfully just sustaining their life and may not be making progress but for the most part, 99% of children should be making progress. )³¤±¯±¤³¤± #®²³² , ³¤ # ¢¤«« ³¨®² Several years ago the county figured out a way to be able to pay for interpreter costs. Previously, the cost was on the providers to pay for. The cost for interpretation is costly and over the past year, Franklin/Fulton EI has incurred a lot of costs. One of the number one things that need to be looked at is late cancellations. If a session with an interpreter is cancelled with less than 24 hour notice, we are charged the full amount of the session cost. We currently pay $110 per hour for interpretation costs in the new fiscal year. If we have a family who no shows, we still pay $110. If we have a provider who cancels the visit, we pay $110. We need to pay attention and reel in those late cancellations. Most of the late cancellations are due to the families canceling. There is not a lot that can be done about that other than reminding the families they have an appointment and if they need to cancel, to cancel early. If they know their child is sick the day before and they know they ancel as soon as you can. Early Intervention Provider Meeting Wednesday, July 10, 2024 If a family is canceling a lot, please have them reach out to Raquel. She can have a conversation with the family and remind them how important is to keep those sessions and making sure they are canceling within a timely manner. 2 °´¤« !³³¤£¨¦ -®¨³®±¨¦ µ²ȁ (®¬¤ 6¨²¨³ Please make sure staff is using the interpreter at the appropriate times when Raquel is attending a session. If Raquel has scheduled a monitoring for an IFSP meeting, an interpreter is not needed. This is the SC/team meeting. She will be leading that meeting. Please make sure when you are having an IFSP meeting you tell the interpreter and cancel ahead of time. If Raquel is there for a home visit, that is her job to observe. On those home visits, you would need an interpreter. Raquel is there to check in on the families and see how things are going. Make sure your staff knows the difference between IFSP meeting/monitoring meeting that Raquel is leading. An interpreter is not needed to be the interpreter. This is not her purpose for the meeting. Holly noted that eventually close to oad will be Spanish speaking families and Haitian Creole. A provider asked whenever we have a progress monitoring scheduled with Raquel, should we inform the interpreter and also have staff tell the supervisor of the interpreter? It is a huge potential to be lost in the midst of just telling the interpreter. Jenn noted that if you are telling the interpreter, send an email. They have a general email account that goes to a couple staff not just the director. If you are cancelling with the interpreter, make sure you are canceling with the agency as well. ,¤¦³§ ®¥ 6¨²¨³² A provider noted that in the past, the interpreters already have their times on the r session they will put three (3) to four (4) on the voucher. If it is a short session, are they billing for an hour or 45 minutes? over an hour, we are billing for 30 minute increments. It cost $110 per hour. If you or staff is there for 1 hour and 10 minutes, we get billed $165. If the session is any longer than an hour, we get charged for a half hour. 3´¡¬¨²²¨® ®¥ 3¤²²¨® .®³¤²ȝ-¨²²¤£ 3¤²²¨® .®³¤² A provider noted that they had more frequent episodes that on the same day, they as well? Jenn noted that there has been a lot of turnover at the agency. There was a lot of back billing which brought up questions on the validity of billing received. Early Intervention Provider Meeting Wednesday, July 10, 2024 Jenn is going to be asking at the end of each month that she receives session notes for those that have interpreters as well as missed session notes. She will be asking what time they found out; wh; if interpreter is late, etc. Jenn wants to cross reference that with the vouchers sent. .¤¤£ ¥®± /4Ǿ 04Ǿ 34 We are always in need for Occupational Therapists, Physical Therapists and Speech Therapists as well as Special Instructors. SCs sometimes have trouble scheduling SIs due to location or timing. SCs are substituting a lot of SIs right for STs. There are children with feeding issues and we do not have an OT or ST who can do it. Sometimes it does take a while to get things filled. Holly has told staff if you have child who gets more than one service and we can only get one service in there to send a weekly email as children close out. !££¨³¨® « 5¯£ ³¤² %) 0±®µ¨£¤± 2®²³¤± 5¯£ ³¤ Jenn sent out the EI roster. Thank you to those who have gotten back with changes or 0±®µ¨£¤± 2¤¯®±³² due 0±¨®± ³® ³§¤ .¤·³ -¤¤³¨¦ th Audited Financial Report (for calendar year ending 12/31) *´¤ ΒΏ th Audit Engagement/Extension Letter for FY ending 6/30 *´«¸ ΐΏ Progress Report on Outcomes in Appendix A (not required for contracts with an st encumbrance under $50,000) *´«¸ Βΐ st Staff training records completed in the Provider Registry !´¦´²³ ΐ Schedule of Revenues / Expenditures for FY ending 6/30 (for non-state-set rates) th !´¦´²³ ΐΔ Monthly Billing due 15th of each month Employee Debarment and Exclusion Check due 15th of each month 2¤¬¨£¤±² ®¥ ³§¤²¤ ±¤¯®±³² ±¤ ²¤³ ®´³ Ζ-Η ¶¤¤ª² ¯±¨®± ³® ³§¤¨± £´¤ £ ³¤ȁ 9®´ ¢ «²® ±¤µ¨¤¶ ³§¤ ±¤¯®±³²ȝ£´¤ £ ³¤² ¨ ¯±®¢¤£´±¤ ²³ ³¤¬¤³ -()$%)-ΗΔΙ #®³± ¢³ 2¤°´¨±¤£ 2¤¯®±³² £ $´¤ $ ³¤²ȁ .¤·³ -¤¤³¨¦Ȁ 7¤£¤²£ ¸Ǿ /¢³®¡¤± ΐΕǾ ΑΏΑΓ starting at 10:00 a.m. in virtual format Minutes by Erin Nye