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HomeMy WebLinkAboutEI Provider Meeting Minutes 01-17-18Early Intervention Provider Meeting Wednesday, January 17, 2018 EI Provider Meeting 1 1/17/18 Staff Present: Jenn Hawbecker, Ashley McCartney, Erin Nye Providers Present: Holly Whiteside (Service Access & Management), Lauren Everetts (Fulton County Medical Center), Lori Beam (PennCares; formerly UCP of South Central), Krista Miracle (Pediatric Therapy Specialists), & Adam Rowland (Advanta Therapy) Providers Present by Phone: Jody Bering (Lincoln Intermediate Unit), Megan Lesko (Building Blocks Therapy), Rachel Bechtel (Aspirations), Faith Blee & Joanne LaSalle (Invo HealthCare Associates), & Cynthia Bosserman (PennCares) MEETING MINUTES  Welcome & Introductions Everyone introduced themselves and their agency affiliation.  Fiscal Updates Providers have been submitting their projection spreadsheets on time. When billing is complete for the month that spreadsheets are submitted for, please put the actual billing in the spreadsheet and project out the remaining months to the end of the fiscal year.  Provider Monitorings/Self-Verification Jenn and Ashley have completed all monitorings this year with providers. Jenn thanked everyone for having the information they needed as well as being welcoming while they were present. Jenn was pleased with how the monitorings went. Part of the monitoring was to gather information for self- verification. It is required that programs are monitored yearly then every five (5) years the state comes to the County and completes their verification. Holly and Jenn have been working on the information to turn in for self-verification that is due to Ellen Castinego, OCDEL EI Advisor, on Friday.  QEP Update Jenn sent the Quality Enhancement (QEP) Plan to providers for their review. Part of the self-verification process is to review the QEP. The plan was discussed at the beginning of the fiscal year then reviewed mid-year to go over areas that are being worked on and to see how the outcomes are coming along. Outcome: through the use of Federal and State guidelines and regulations the IT EI Program will improve the timeliness and accuracy of forms and paperwork for effective child/family centered delivery of services. This outcome pertains to 14- day deadlines. Under the description of progress/data updates, on time initial IEP (45 day) is at 100% which is an improvement; on time annual IEP is at 92.86% which is an improvement; IEP by third birthday is 100% and an improvement as well; and 14 day service delivery is 99.46%. This goal is on target. Early Intervention Provider Meeting EI Provider Meeting 2 1/17/18 Results Goal – Procedural Safeguards: Families of children receiving services from Franklin/Fulton Infant/Toddler EI will understand and know about their rights and how to advocate for their child if they do not agree with the recommendation for their child. The information gathered comes from parent surveys. Over the past year, this percentage has decreased. Discussion was held during the QEP meeting in which it was felt that staff and Service Coordinators (SCs) are doing all that they can but families are giving low scores. The following ideas were discussed to increase the numbers:  Creating a Facebook page for families to connect with. This page would be a good source to remind families when surveys are coming out and to have them complete the survey.  Emails can also be sent to the families reminding them of surveys.  Providers can discuss with families the procedural safeguards and family rights. They can also remind families that they were provided with the Families Guide to EI book and if there are any questions about services, to refer to the book or contact their SC. The book can be order through OCDEL or Jenn can provide the book to providers.  Creating a checklist for families to state what the survey question means. OCDEL uses different wording than the SCs do. The families may receive the document but are unaware that they have due to a different term being used at the time of being asked. It only takes one family to mark that they disagree in order for the score to reflect negatively. It is important to remind families that if they have any questions pertaining to services to contact their SC. Results Goal – Service Delivery: families and children will have successful experiences by receiving early intervention services and supports in their natural environment whether in the home, community settings, or in family routines. This goal is at 100%. The SCs do a great job making sure services are where they need to be. Results Goal – Service Delivery: families are a crucial part of the ECO process and they will have the knowledge to be active participants so that infants and toddlers in the early intervention program will have better outcomes. For 16-17, the numbers have decreased significantly. It is unknown what else can be done to improve this area. New staff and those who have been here for a while have received all ECO trainings available. ECO 202 is not available online yet. The following was discussed pertaining to ECOs:  When it is known that an annual is coming up and you are the person assigned to complete the exit ECO, try to be prepared to complete the exit as if the child was not going to be eligible for services anymore.  Though no final determination has been made, it was discussed to have the whole team sign off on the Ounce to make sure that everyone is working together. If completing the ECO, make sure you are talking to families and providers to make sure everyone is on the same page. Early Intervention Provider Meeting EI Provider Meeting 3 1/17/18 o If there is more than one therapist involved, email them stating what you saw with the child and see if they see/saw the same thing. Therapists should be working collaboration. At this point, there is nothing formal developed but Jenn and Holly are asking providers to reiterate to therapists that this is a collaborative effort and they should reach out to families and other therapists.  Make sure to use the decision tree when completing the ECO.  Children who no longer qualify at annuals should have a closure reason of “successful ISFP” not “does not qualify for EI.” If you are closing a child, you are saying they have reached their same age peers. Make sure the scores reflect that. The numbers on the ECO are comparing when a child enters the program and where they are at when they left the program. If the child enters at three (3) months and exits at three (3) years and has some sort of syndrome (ex: Down syndrome), where their progress is at months old versus years old is going to look different. The SCs feel as if the state is not taking into consideration when the box is checked that the child has made progress, they are only looking at the scores. This goal will continue to be worked on. If guidance is received from OCDEL, it will be passed onto providers. Results Goal – Locally Identified: families will have the knowledge and experience to support their child that will lead to reaching goals in their everyday routines in their home and community. This is part of the Coaching grant. Since we no longer have the grant anymore, the goal is moving on and working with supporting the EI community with Community of Practices. The data is from a local survey that the SCs complete with families. The results were really good. The surveys were completed and distributed with 59 returned. All were marked yes except for one. There were 24 out of 54 therapists using coaching with fidelity.  2018 Early Intervention Initiatives Every year the EI Program comes up with initiatives to work on. Current initiatives are:  Bring nursing and nutrition services into the program. Staff is trying to find a provider who would be able to provide these services. If any providers provide these services in another County and would be interested in doing so for Franklin/Fulton, please contact Jenn.  Reach out to more physician offices in the area to increase child find activities. This will be collaboration with the LICC and possibly providers as well to make physician offices more aware of services. o Staff should make families aware that they can have outside therapy and EI services. o Provider discussed that certified Occupational Therapy Assistants (COTA) can no longer treat children with Medical Assistance effective March 1st. This may result in changes as families will be looking for a secondary insurance. Jenn will touch base with providers more in the future on the initiatives. Early Intervention Provider Meeting EI Provider Meeting 4 1/17/18  Social Work The Social Worker who served Franklin County is no longer working for Aspirations so the social worker service is currently not being provided. We want to continue this service. Rachel, Aspirations, is looking to fill the position as it is important service that is needed. Social work was started a year ago in Franklin County. The service started off strong. There were five (5) – six (6) families receiving services in late winter/early spring. Aspirations hired a social worker in mid-June then the referrals came to a halt. Between mid-June and December only one (1) referral was received. Rachel has met with the SCs and Administration to discuss the service and the struggle of finding families. Rachel is currently looking to find an individual who can provide multiple roles along with social work to sustain the position. Further discussion was held on the services that social workers provide. It is a therapeutic support to the families at times such as the grieving process of hearing the child’s diagnosis or grieving process if a death may occur. If mothers are stating they are depressed, the social worker can help the family get to a better place to help with those skills. The families could need resources beyond what the SC can provide, such as families facing eviction and need support. Social workers can help with social security and medical assistance applications. The goal is to help connect the families with more long standing therapeutic support.  Contracts/Budget Packets Per MH/ID/EI procedure statement, Program Specialists are required to send budget packets to providers on February 10th. The providers then have a due date of March 15th. Providers will receive Appendix A to complete as well as the budget packets; this is for agencies that do not have a state set rate. For providers that do have a state set rate, there are instructions included in Appendix A on what needs to be completed. If anyone has any questions, please let Jenn or Ashley know.  LICC Updates Fulton Holiday Festival took place on December 5th. There were 32 children, 26 adults and 16 helps from the community who had games, crafts, snacks, pictures, activities, etc. Franklin LICC is looking to host a spring activity at the Coyle Free Library. This will be further discussed at the next meeting on January 18th. Jenn will keep providers posted. Jenn received an email from April from the Fulton County Library who is hosting events. She is looking for help at the Children’s Time event on Mondays from 10:00 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. Holly and Jenn are willing to participate. Providers have also expressed their willing to help. If anyone has any interested in attending to Early Intervention Provider Meeting EI Provider Meeting 5 1/17/18 help give information, please email Jenn. It is very informal. April will have activities at the events. It is a time for providers to be present, mingle with families and provide information if they are interested. Families are made aware of that day’s topic. On March 5th and 12th, the target audience is children ages zero (0) to three (3). If any therapists are available, these would be two dates to send them. Fulton County Medical Center is planning to attend and hand out packets.  Provider Booklet Jenn will be sending the provider booklets out to providers. Jenn is going to work on getting a booklet together for SCs to provide to families that highlight the different agencies and therapists that have specialties.  Provider Roster Jenn has sent out an updated provider roster list to all providers. It should be up- to-date but if there are any changes, please notify Jenn.  Provider Updates and Announcements PennCares – there are still a few openings for Child Development group. Diane Mello took over the group. If you know of anyone who may be interested, please contact the PennCares office. PennCares is also still in transition with the name change from UCP of South Central to PennCares. Lincoln Intermediate Unit – LIU is in the middle of their onsite verification. LIU is continuing to work with families during transition. There have been more children transitioning this year; 700 transitioning into school age program. Building Blocks Therapy – Annual information being received before the evaluations is greatly appreciated it. Invo HealthCare Associates – Invo is in the process bringing two Special Instructors on board to their program. Joanne LaSalle is supporting Franklin/Fulton while Shelley Tobin is out. Fulton County Medical Center – if anyone knows of a Speech Therapist, please contact FCMC. Service Access & Management – Holly reminded providers that it is important to get the annual information in in a timely manner as well as progress monitoring. SCs have been receiving them the morning of or not before. As for the 14-day deadline, it was expressed not to stress meeting the family by deadline if the family is having issues and is not responsive. If you meet with a family and the child is not present or if the child is asleep, you cannot bill for that service. OCDEL has made this clear. The time must be face to face with the child. The deadline for 14-day deadlines is being met. Therapist need to continue to make sure they are showing their attempts in meeting the deadline. SAM will be Early Intervention Provider Meeting EI Provider Meeting 6 1/17/18 making their forms paperless. The 14-day deadline form will now be an electronic type-able form that can be pulled up on your computer. After you complete the form, it can then be securely emailed back to SAM.  Providers have requested that when SCs are looking for therapist availability, that the email states if the child is medically fragile. This would be helpful in assigning the therapist that would be best fit for this child.  Provider Reports The following reports are due prior to the next EI Provider Meeting:  Progress Report on Outcomes in Appendix A (due January 31st)  Appendix A and Budget Packets (due March 15th)  Audited Financial Report (for fiscal year ending June 30th) o Reference procedure statements to see if you are required to submit an audited financial report. If you are not required and have not sent Ashley a letter stating you are not required, please email the letter as soon as possible. The audit is not just for Franklin/Fulton counties, it is an audit on your entire organization. If you serve multiple counties, it needs to be taken into consideration with the threshold.  Monthly Employee Debarment and Exclusion Check Reminders will be sent out three (3) to four (4) weeks prior to the due date of the report. Please see procedure statement MHIDEI-416 Contracted Required Reports and Due Dates for additional information. If anyone has any questions, please contact Jenn or Ashley. Next Meeting: Wednesday, April 18, 2018 starting at 10:00 a.m. Located at the Human Services Building (425 Franklin Farm Lane) Remaining 2018 Meetings July 18th October 17th Minutes by Erin Nye