REPORT TO SHASTA COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

BOARD MEETING DATE:  May  16, 2017
CATEGORY:  Consent - Health and Human Services-7.

SUBJECT:

CMSP: County Wellness & Prevention Pilot Project

Supervisorial District No. :  ALL

DEPARTMENT CONTACT:  Donnell Ewert, Director Health and Human Services Agency, (530) 245-6269

STAFF REPORT APPROVED BY:  Donnell Ewert, Director, Health and Human Services Agency

RECOMMENDATION

Approve and authorize the Chairman to sign: (1) A retroactive revenue agreement with the County Medical Services Program (CMSP) Governing Board in an amount not to exceed $300,000 for the County to provide Whole Person Care services to CMSP beneficiaries and eligible individuals, as well as beneficiaries of other public health insurance, for the period January 1, 2017 through June 30, 2020; and (2) the CMSP Governing Board Grant Data Sheet (Exhibit D to the agreement).

SUMMARY

Approval of the recommendation will allow Shasta County Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA) to utilize $300,000 in grant funds from the County Medical Services Program (CMSP) Governing Board over three years to support the Whole Person Care (WPC) Pilot Program. This grant funding will help the HHSA enhance health care systems/processes and deliver services to individuals that address their complex medical, behavioral health, and social determinants of health.

DISCUSSION

The County Medical Services Program provides limited-term health coverage for uninsured low-income, indigent adults that are not otherwise eligible for other publicly funded health programs. It is designed to assist counties in meeting their indigent health care responsibilities under state law. The CMSP seeks to support local health care systems to develop strategies to reduce barriers between health care providers and systems and promote collaboration and system linkages to facilitate timely and effective delivery of health care services to enrolled CMSP members, potential CMSP members, and other persons receiving publicly funded health coverage. One means to accomplish this goal is through the CMSP County Wellness and Prevention Pilot Project. Under this Pilot Project, approved by the CMSP Governing Board on May 26, 2016, up to $7.65 million will be allocated to CMSP counties to test the effectiveness of providing local-level wellness and prevention services to CMSP eligible and potentially eligible persons. Shasta County HHSA has been approved for  $300,000 over three and a half years to support a WPC Pilot Program that the agency is developing to better integrate health care systems and deliver services to individuals that address their complex medical, behavioral health, and social determinants of health. Shasta County HHSA has been approved to take part in the WPC Pilot Program under California’s 1115 Medi-Cal Waiver. The CMSP funding will be leveraged by Shasta County HHSA to take advantage of the federal match through the WPC Pilot Program and to deliver Whole Person Care services to CMSP recipients and CMSP eligible individuals that meet the criteria for the CMSP pilot program.

The WPC Pilot Program is designed to identify CMSP recipients, CMSP eligible individuals, Medi-Cal members who are homeless or at risk of serious mental illness, substance use disorders, and/or opioid addiction that have had two or more hospital Emergency Department visits or a hospitalization in the last three months. These individuals must be identified in order to assess their unmet needs and to provide sustainable solutions.  The WPC Pilot Program will act to identify the key services, interventions and care coordination strategies to best serve the targeted population. Shasta County is well positioned to implement the WPC Pilot Program as many of the essential components of the program currently exist in the region, including local attention and action to address homelessness, federal qualified health centers serving the target population, substance use disorder treatment providers, and an array of social services and community support partners. What is needed is the infrastructure and collaborative leadership to coordinate the services and systems. In order to build the local capacity for cross agency coordination, the WPC Pilot Program will enable Shasta County to create new linkages and referral relationships between health provider systems and share data across systems to better understand and address needs.

This agreement is retroactive due to the department not receiving the grant documents not being received by HHSA until January 24, 2017.

ALTERNATIVES

The Board could choose not to approve the agreement.

OTHER AGENCY INVOLVEMENT

County Counsel has approved the agreement as to form.  Risk Management has approved the agreement.  This recommendation has been reviewed by the County Administrative Office.

FINANCING

These funds from CMSP will be used as local match to draw down additional federal funds through the WPC Pilot Program.  There is no additional General Fund impact with the proposed recommendation.