Medi-Cal Administrative Activities Messages

What is MAA all about?

KCSOS Webteam — Wed, 31 May 2006 00:02:38 GMT

Medi-Cal Administrative Activities (MAA)

MAA reimburses County Offices of Education, school districts, and community colleges for the Medi-Cal Administrative Activities that they may be already doing. For example, time spent referring students to health care services during School Attendance Review Board (SARB) meetings, Student Study Team (SST), Crisis Intervention Meetings, and IEP’s may be billable through MAA.

What kind of reimbursement are we speaking of?

UNRESTRICTED!

Example of program staff that might perform MAA activities:

• Special Education Staff
• Nurses, Health clerks, Health aids
• School Psychologist, Counselors
• Speech Language Pathologists
• Healthy Start Staff Members
• Child Development Programs
• State Preschool Programs

What Exactly Are MAA Activities?

How Can My District Get Started?

How Does the LEC assist the District?

What Are the District’s Responsibilities?

Who Funds This Program?

Margaret Roux — Fri, 12 May 2006 18:57:53 GMT

The LEC (Kern County Superintendent of Schools) contracts with the state, California Department of Health Services (CDHS) who is the oversight agency for the State of California. CDHS contracts with the Center for Medicaid Services (CMS) who is the oversight agency at the federal level.

What Are the District's Responsibilities?

Margaret Roux — Fri, 12 May 2006 18:55:17 GMT

Enlist the support from your administration and business office. Talk with your region's LEC Coordinator. Set up a meeting with your LEC coordinator, your superintendent, school administrators, CBO, and/or a representative from the school business office to discuss the financial benefits of MAA and explain the process. MAA dollars are unrestricted! Therefore, determine how these funds might assist your district prior to implementing the MAA program. This is a key factor in your program's successful implementation. The MAA process can involve time for the business office and their support is essential.

Designate a MAA coordinator for your district to serve as liaison among the LEC, business office, district administrators and the time survey participants. Make sure that the MAA Coordinator gets the support needed to implement the program successfully!

Decide whether you need additional outside help. Vendors can help implement the MAA program and may assist you with the time survey process and/or claims development. Choose carefully. Contact several vendors to assess their services and prices. Also, contact other school districts and ask them for recommendations. The LEC can assist you in this process.

Identify the staff conducting MAA claimable activities and the funding streams through which they are paid. Employees cannot be 100% federally funded and participate in the MAA program. When choosing the participants, keep in mind what their workday entails and the meetings they attend. For example, time spent referring students to health care services during School Attendance Review Board (SARB) meetings, Student Study Team (SST), Crisis Intervention Meetings, and IEPs may be billable through MAA.

How Does the LEC assist the District?

Margaret Roux — Fri, 12 May 2006 18:52:25 GMT

• Provide guidance and program information to the MAA coordinator.
• Oversee the LEA time survey process.
• Submit detailed quarterly invoices to DHS on behalf of the LEA.
• Review the Operational Plan for quality assurance and compliance.
• Offer customer support, both program and fiscal.
• Monitor compliance of LEA with all Federal, State and CDHS program requirements.
• Represent the LEA at the statewide LEC Committee and in workgroup meetings.
• Receives and distributes reimbursements.

How Can My District Get Started?

Margaret Roux — Fri, 12 May 2006 18:32:40 GMT

To participate in MAA, each district/LEA contracts with their LEC, the designated county office of education in their region. Please contact Kern County Superintendent of Schools, Margaret Roux at 661-636-4769 or maroux@kern.org for more information.

What is MAA all about?

Margaret Roux — Fri, 12 May 2006 18:29:49 GMT

What is MAA all about?

 MAA reimburses County Offices of Education, school districts, and community colleges for the Medi-Cal Administrative Activities that they may be already doing. For example, time spent referring students to health care services during School Attendance Review Board (SARB) meetings, Student Study Team (SST), Crisis Intervention Meetings, and IEP’s may be billable through MAA.

What kind of reimbursement are we speaking of?
UNRESTRICTED!

• Example of program staff that might perform MAA activities:
• Special Education Staff
• Nurses, Health clerks, Health aids
• School Psychologist, Counselors
• Speech Language Pathologists
• Healthy Start Staff Members
• Child Development Programs
• State Preschool Programs
• Principals, Administrators
• Teachers, Teachers Aides and Clerical Staff
• Superintendent (if not an elected official)

1

Margaret Roux — Fri, 12 May 2006 18:29:31 GMT

What is MAA all about?

What kind of reimbursement are we speaking of?
UNRESTRICTED!

What Exactly Are MAA Activities?

Margaret Roux — Fri, 12 May 2006 18:23:42 GMT

Administrative Activities that facilitate enrollment into Medi-Cal and assisting students and families to access Medi-Cal services such as:

• Outreach-Providing Medi-Cal information to students and their families. Initial referral of
students to medical services.

• Facilitating Applications-Referring or assisting families with the Medi-Cal application.

• Monitoring, Coordination, or Referral to Medi-Cal Covered Services-Such as; speech,
   OT, PT, counseling, and any follow-up on these issues.

• Arranging Transportation to medical services within the community or IEP services at the
   school site.

• Translation-Arranging or providing translation for medical services, e.g. speech, counseling.

• Program Planning, Policy Development & Interagency Coordination-Developing strategies
to improve the delivery or coordination of medical services.