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Home My WebLink AboutEI Provider Meeting Minutes 01-20-17Early Intervention Provider Meeting Friday, January 20, 2017 EI Provider Meeting 1 1/20/17 Staff Present: Trish Elliott, Ashley McCartney, Dan Rhodes Staff Absent: Steve Nevada Providers Present: Holly Whiteside, Matt Yingling, and Linda Hess (Service Access & Management, Inc.), Rachel Bechtel (Aspirations, LLC), Krista Miracle and Phillip Miracle (Pediatric Therapy Specialists of South Central PA), Lauren Everetts (Fulton County Medical Center), Jenn Hawbecker (UCP of South Central PA), Adam Rowland (Advanta Therapy), and Beth Fairchild (EITA) Providers Present by Phone: Faith Blee, Kitiara Bolden, and Theresa Miller (Invo HealthCare Associates), Megan Lesko (Building Blocks Therapy), and Isabel Stennet (BOPIC) Providers Absent: Lincoln Intermediate Unit #12, Tuscarora Intermediate Unit #11 and Keystone Autism Services MEETING MINUTES 1. Welcome & Introductions Everyone introduced themselves and their agency affiliation. 2. Fiscal Update Ashley McCartney discussed FY 15/16 audits and current projections  FY 15/16 audits were due by December 31, 2016. Erin Nye had sent an email to each provider requesting the audit. If your agency has not yet submitted an audit, please request an extension. If your agency doesn’t currently require an audit, please email a certification letter to Ashley which confirms this status.  Ashley appreciates the timely receipt of projections from all providers and encourages everyone to continue giving projections calculations their best effort. Providers may call Ashley at any time if they have questions about their projections. Phone calls are preferred to e-mails because it is easiest to “talk through” projection-related issues. 3. Eligibility Verification System (EVS) Presentation Linda Hess explained EVS by highlighting the functions of specific tabs on the PROMISe website: https://promise.dpw.state.pa.us. This presentation was requested due to observation during Provider Monitorings that staff from several agencies was unsure how to check a new referral’s funding stream.  Linda suggested setting up a PROMISe account for the primary user and creating alternate login credentials if other staff will require access. User must choose security questions, key token, passphrase, and password during account setup.  “Claims” tab: Users can check the status of all submitted claims. Individuals are listed by ICN# along with a paid or denied status. Previously denied claims can be submitted for re-bill from this tab. Early Intervention Provider Meeting Friday, January 20, 2017 EI Provider Meeting 2 1/20/17  “Eligibility” tab: User can determine why a specific claim was denied (i.e. whether the individual lost MA/reason the individual lost MA). An individual’s eligibility can be checked for any thirty (30) day timeframe going back two (2) years (future eligibility cannot be checked). Users can search for individuals by Recipient ID and DOB, SS# and DOB, or first name, last name and DOB. A newly eligible individual will initially show an “inactive” eligibility status. Otherwise, there will always be a start and end date indicated for each funding source (Base, Waiver, or MA). o During discussion of this tab, Holly Whiteside confirmed that providers may contact her directly via email if they need access to certain demographic information for a newly eligible individual such as the EIX#.  “Reports” tab: User can access remittance advice (RA).  “ePEAP” tab: User can check fields that are required for MA services billing. These include Provider ID (NPI#), Location ID, taxonomy # and revalidation date. Providers (and individual therapists) must revalidate prior to their specific date in order to successfully process any MA services billing. 4. Introduction to New Provider: Aspirations, LLC Rachel Bechtel, owner of Aspirations, LLC, provided an introduction to her agency which is now offering Special Instruction Hearing and Social Work in Early Intervention Services to Franklin and Fulton Counties. She described Social Work Services in detail as this service is completely new to both counties.  Social Workers meet with parents/caregivers in home and community settings. They provide therapeutic support to families with the primary goal of connecting individuals to long-standing supports in their community. Aspirations staff provide family/individual Mental Health Counseling (including Play Therapy for children affected by trauma), and mobilize and coordinate resources to address challenges to immediate needs (housing/living situation, life skills, domestic violence, budgeting etc.).  Service Coordinators should refer to Aspirations when the parent/caregiver’s preoccupation with other needs significantly limits their ability to focus on the needs of the EI identified child.  Rather than being an over-used service, many parents/caregivers attach a stigma to Social Work as a perceived threat to custody or an admission they’ve “done something wrong.” Certain families must overcome grief, loss, and denial associated with their child’s developmental delay.  Unlike Children & Youth staff, Social Workers do not have an investigatory role; their purpose is to help and advocate for families. Rachel has observed Children & Youth in other counties “pulling out” of certain households once Social Work services are in place.  Rachel distributed hand-outs which further explained Social Work and a descriptive sampling of EI referrals. Holly and Trish clarified that Service Coordinators will be the primary point of contact for providers making referrals to Aspirations. Early Intervention Provider Meeting Friday, January 20, 2017 EI Provider Meeting 3 1/20/17 5. Brainstorming for New Ideas: Child Find Trish led a discussion to address the recent decrease in Child Find’s numbers. Based on available birth and referral numbers, she is concerned that too many children are missing out on EI because families are not aware that it is available to them as a free service. Marketing ideas to raise awareness about EI and current challenges to the referral process were discussed.  Trish met with Jack and Isabel (BOPIC) to discuss publishing ads and an accompanying article explaining EI services in a monthly bi-lingual newspaper (Spanish and English versions of the article appear side by side). Lancaster and Lebanon Counties have previously published EI related content in this newspaper. Jack suggested incorporating the ads and article within a larger marketing plan.  Trish encouraged meeting participants to email her any marketing ideas. Krista Miracle proposed the formation of a marketing “sub-committee” to meet and discuss ideas on a monthly basis. Suggestions were given to advertise EI services on various platforms and mediums (i.e. Mix 95.1, Facebook, Pandora radio, the Weather Channel, United Way’s Early Intervention Connections, Macaroni Kid).  Holly identified the following as challenges to the referral process: o Doctors referring to outpatient therapists with waiting lists instead of EI due to a perception that the former are more qualified. o Certain providers making referrals and then not providing supplementary documentation in a timely manner. o Parents stating that they are interested in services but not following through. o Children bouncing back and forth between Chambersburg and York NICUs due to their insurance coverage. o Lack of coordination with Children & Youth in obtaining parents’ signature when “signing rights” are retained (i.e. parents are incarcerated/living outside of the County).  Trish is open to suggestions on how to increase and improve cooperation/coordination with Keystone Health and Summit Health which are the largest referral sources for EI. 6. Family Survey Discussion Trish reviewed results of the most recent Family Survey which twenty-nine (29) families completed. It consisted of forty (40) statements describing experiences with EI Services. Families were asked to indicate whether they agreed or disagreed with each statement. They could also choose “Very Strongly Agree/Disagree” and “Strongly Agree/Disagree”. Discussion was focused on statements which generated the most “disagree” responses.  Trish critiqued the survey for not being representative of the work EI service providers are doing. She observed that one statement “Helped families get to know and support each other” contradicts HIPAA regulations. Another Early Intervention Provider Meeting Friday, January 20, 2017 EI Provider Meeting 4 1/20/17 weakness is that the survey doesn’t give families an option to skip statements or explain their responses with comments.  Service Coordinators should periodically remind families to review their child’s IFSP, the Parents’ Rights Agreement and other contents of their Welcome Packet. A significant number of families disagreed that they had been given information about support organizations/programs or help accessing them.  Holly would like to better understand the survey from a family perspective. Who is the target audience? Did survey pool only include children with IFSPs or was it expanded to include new referrals and children who had transitioned out of EI? How does the survey’s cover letter present the information to families? Holly will instruct Service Coordinators to routinely discuss survey related topics with families before the next one is sent to them in the fall.  Phillip Miracle hypothesized that readability might be an issue with the survey. Families could have an incomplete understanding of the statements due to their wording (problem solving in EI vs. procedural safeguard). He noted that a “Show Readability Statistics” feature can be enabled within Word’s Spelling and Grammar Check to view ratings of the document’s reading ease and grade level. 7. Miscellaneous A conference on “Community and Family Engagement” will be held on Friday, May 19, 2017 at the Franklin County Administrative Annex from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. June Fisher (Temple University), a renowned speaker on this topic, will be the conference presenter. Attendance will also be open to MH/ID providers and County agencies. This conference will take the place of May’s Community of Practice Meeting which was originally scheduled for the same day. Next Meeting: Friday, April 21, 2017 starting at 10:00 a.m. Located at the Human Services Building (425 Franklin Farm Lane) Remaining 2017 Meetings July 21st October 20th Minutes by Dan Rhodes