October
25: FAQ
5.2 has been clarified and expanded. Please see
the FAQ page for more details.
September 27: Three
new FAQs have been added (2.2c, 2.6b,
and 2.11), and three others have been updated (5.1, 5.2, and
7.7b). Please go to the FAQ page
to see what's new.
September 19: Though
ODJFS did not present a new distribution model at today's
public hearing on HCAP 2008 as announced,
two OHA representatives, Senior Vice President John
Callender and Manager of Health Policy Ryan Biles, testified
at the hearing on behalf of Ohio hospitals today. OHA
outlined the importance of protecting HCAP to hospitals,
which count on the federal funding to allow them to continue
to provide free care to individuals under the poverty line,
withstand losses from Medicaid shortfalls and provide
uncompensated care to the uninsured. For more
information, please see
John Callender's Testimony and
Ryan
Biles' Testimony (Attachment
1;
Attachment 2).
September 18: A
message from ODJFS:
JFS has
resolved the issues which caused a large number of the HCAP
payments to be made as warrants rather than EFT. This
spreadsheet
indicates which type of payment a hospital may expect for
the payment scheduled for September 28th. The
payment types are based on the type of payment which has
been received in the past. For those which indicate "EFT",
no further action is required by the hospital. If the
payment type is "CHK," the next HCAP payment will be a
warrant.
If you
would rather receive an EFT, you should first contact the
JFS HCAP staff at 614.466.6420. They can check to see if an
EFT option is already available for a specific hospital. If
you have never had EFT and which to establish EFT payment,
you should complete
this form and submit it to the state. Submitting this
form now, however, does not guarantee that your next
HCAP payment will be by EFT. Please contact the Office of
Budget and Management directly at 614.466.5670 with any
questions about the form.
September 13: More
on the OAKS implementation issues...ODJFS has informed OHA
that due to the implementation of the new system, some EFT
routing information was not transferred, and the affected hospitals had
their 1st HCAP payments physically mailed to them. If
your hospital has still not received its 1st HCAP payment,
please check to see if it has arrived in the mail. If
you do not receive the payment by tomorrow, please contact
Ryan Biles at 614.221.7614.
For
hospitals that would prefer to receive the 2nd HCAP payment
this year via EFT, as well as all future HCAP payments,
please contact Aggie Howard at the Office of Budget and Management (OBM) at
614.466.5670 to set
up (or re-set up) your account information with the state.
September 7: ODJFS
has just announced that the 1st HCAP distributions will not
go out on Monday as scheduled. Instead, the 1st
payments should reach hospitals on Tuesday. The one
day delay is due to the implementation of the new Ohio
Administrative Knowledge System (OAKS), and should not
affect the timing of the 2nd assessment or 2nd payment.
August 23: An
error involving a 2007 HCAP cost report entry for a
supplemental upper payment limit payment was discovered and
corrected today. The correction does not affect the
assessment rate or assessment/payment schedule.
However, the correction does entail an aggregate
redistribution of approximately $240,000 statewide, so
please check the
model again for your final, final numbers.
We apologize for any confusion.
August 21: The
Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review (JCARR) yesterday
approved the 2007 HCAP assessment rate rule, thereby setting
the stage for $326.4 million in federal funding to be
distributed to Ohio hospitals over the coming weeks. ODJFS
has issued final assessment notices to all hospitals that
participate in HCAP, including the due dates of assessments
and expected payment dates. The
Final 2007 HCAP Assessment and Distribution model, along
with two model descriptions (first,
second) and
OBRA cap analysis
are now available.
As in
years past, ODJFS will collect assessments and return
payments to hospitals in two equal installments. ODJFS
requires all assessments and payments be made via electronic
fund transfer (EFT). Hospitals can ensure they are set up
for EFTs by contacting the Office of Budget and
Management (OBM) at 614.466.5670. The dates for the assessments and
distributions are as follows:
-
First
½ Assessment due
Aug. 30
-
First
½ Payment sent Sept. 10
-
Second
½ Assessment due Sept. 17
-
Second
½ Payment sent Sept. 28
Finally,
the data verification process for HCAP 2008 has already
started and hospitals should soon receive a certified letter
from ODJFS and OHA’s HCAP data verification package, which
includes a summary of the data that will be used to
determine HCAP 2008 payments. ODJFS sends letters out in
batches of 10-20 hospitals, so this process will take a few
months to complete. Hospitals have only 30 days from
the receipt of the certified letter from ODJFS in which to
correct any errors in the as-filed Medicaid cost reports.
