News and notes from Imagine! and the Imagine! Foundation.
Message From Colorado Department of Health Care Policy & Financing
Mar-18-2024
Services
Please see the message below from the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy & Financing (HCPF), written to assist members and families in understanding the current challenges and issues facing the Long Term Services and Supports system.
Dear Long-Term Service and Supports Members,
The Department of Health Care Policy & Financing (HCPF) is the state agency that oversees Health First Colorado (Colorado’s Medicaid program). HCPF acknowledges the current challenges that may be impacting both you, as a member receiving Long-Term Services and Supports (LTSS), as well as the community of providers that support you. We are concerned about reported delays in accessing case management and direct services and are acting with urgency to address them.
Case Management Agencies are a critical partner to HCPF. They are the lynchpin for supporting people with disabilities to navigate, enroll, and manage services to live and thrive in their communities. Unfortunately, there are three different challenges impacting all of our valued case management agency partners at the same time and their related services to you. These include: increased county partner workloads due to both a record number of Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) requests as well as the impact of the end of the federal public health emergency; the implementation of a new IT system used by all case management agencies; and a case management program redesign. In the coming months, the related innovations and modernizations will create a better system for members, providers and case management agencies. But the impact of all three occurring at once - which was not intended - is causing short term challenges to member program eligibility, provider reimbursement, case management agency processing and member service response time.
Case management agencies are not to blame for these challenges. The dedication and resilience demonstrated by case management agencies, counties and providers in navigating these complex changes has been commendable. We are very appreciative of their shared efforts to serve our members and to solve transition-related issues with us during this time.
We want to assure you that HCPF is aware of and addressing these issues on multiple levels and with a sense of urgency, in support of our members, providers, counties and case management agencies. We remain dedicated to collaboration with case management agencies, providers and members to navigate the current challenges to ensure you and your families are supported.
