STATE OF ILLINOIS

Host: Michael Pelletier

August 1, 2012/10:00 a.m. CDT

Page 26

Final Transcript

STATE OF ILLINOIS: Singer Rebalancing RFI

August 1, 2012/10:00 a.m. CDT

SPEAKERS

Michael Pelletier

PRESENTATION

Moderator Welcome to the Singer Rebalancing RFI Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session. Instructions will be given at that time. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded today, Wednesday, August 1, 2012.

I’d now like to turn the conference over to our host, Mr. Michael Pelletier. Please go ahead.

M. Pelletier Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Appreciate your time this morning for us to go over the Singer Rebalancing request for information that we published on Thursday the 26th. The predominant purpose of the call is to hear from you in terms of questions and responses and inquiries specific to that document and to go over a brief things in terms of timelines for your general information.

Obviously, we published that on the 26th. All the materials that are relevant at this point and time, the RFI itself and the four attachments, are currently on the website as indicated before to you that those materials are available both in PDF form, and the attachments are available now in either Word or Excel format. So, you can download those, complete those and incorporate those with your submission.

We are requesting for return of your proposal by close of business on Monday, August 13th. We’re requesting that you submit an electronic copy of that both in Word, Excel and the attachments in either Word or PDF for the narrative response to the RFI. In specific, we also ask that you send us a postdated or postmarked paper copy to Jackie Manker by the close of business on Monday, the 13th as well.

The process that we’re going forward with is again, we’re expecting your responses on the 13th. We will assemble and review those responses between august 14th and August 24th, and we expect to start negotiations with persons and agencies specific to those proposals starting on August 27th, hopefully, obviously through that entire week. If we need to go into the 4th, that’s fine. So, we expect to have our negotiations through August 27th to August 31st and hopefully start contract distribution, execution and other matters on or about September 14th and then initiate trainings around or about the 17th of September through the 15th of October.

Those are the timelines specific to how we’re proceeding with this request for information. Again, I think the predominant purpose is for us to hear comments and questions that you may have specific to the RFI. I don’t believe that there’s anything of significance in the RFI that, at least on our end, needs change or modifications.

We do note on page 56 a table that has an inaccurate number for the adults with disabilities in Stephenson County. It’s misrepresented there as 10,898 and it should be 1,098. Other than that, at least in our review of the document, there doesn’t appear to be any gross or significant errors or problems that we didn’t foresee in the distribution of the document.

I have with me today Dan Wasmer, who all of you know is the Regional Manager for DMH; Amparo Lopez, the Regional Director for Region 2 West; Jordan Litvak, the Regional Director for Region 3 North; Dr. Seth Eisenberg, Medical Director for DASA; Jane Antonacci with DASA; Brian Brinker with our Fiscal Office; and Dr. Anderson Freeman who is our Forensic Director; and Elaine Novak, who’s our Director for Hospital Operations. So, operator, I think that we can proceed to questions and comments the participants may have.

Moderator Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. There are no questions in the queue at this time, Mr. Pelletier. We have a question from the line of John Reinert with North Central Behavioral Health System. Please go ahead.

J. Reinert I had a question regarding crisis services put in Plan 580. Is this identified as being supplemental to current funding we would have for that program or would this be in lieu of?

M. Pelletier We’re asking for specific reference to the Singer RFI with the supplemental funding, and that would be based on the projection of the volumes and the anticipated volumes and the historical volumes.

J. Reinert Okay. Thank you.

M. Pelletier Obviously, we are also interested as you’ve seen in a number of instances throughout the document when you respond to the narrative we’re asking how you’re going to use all the existing capacity that may be at your agency, either your DMH contracted capacity and/or your DASA existing capacity in other programs.

J. Reinert In the absence of any other waiting questions, I also have one regarding Attachment C. If we are looking at program—obviously, there’s a huge number of programs on Attachment C. If we’re not identifying any work in those programs under this RFI, need we bill in current annual funding correct capacity amounts or only those programs that will be targeted by our proposal?

M. Pelletier We’re specifically interested in the areas that are related to the contracting. We’re more interested in the Attachment C being filled out for the community mental health section rather than the 132 section. So, all of the programmatic capabilities that you’re getting in terms of annual funding, current capacity, and then obviously, for only those programs that you’re adding or requesting new funding for would incur any entry in those columns for new capacity or new cost.

J. Reinert Thank you.

Moderator Our next question comes from the line of Jim Sarver with Sinnissippi Centers. Please go ahead.

W ... and I’m also asking on Attachment C, and can we have clarification on the first four? So, we’re not going to—if we currently deliver a service on Attachment C, but we’re not going to deliver it in our RFI, we don’t need to put anything down. Is that the comment?

M. Pelletier We’d be interested in completing those sections for the programmatic areas like community mental health, all of the program 350, 510, 515, 574, 575, 580 all the way through 860 and permanent supportive housing. We’d like to know your existing capacity and funding and the average number of people served in those programs because all of those programs may or may not have relevance in terms of capacity. Obviously, you only fill out the columns specific to new capacity and new costs for programs that you’re asking funding for. We’re less interested in the 132 section of that information.

So, I don’t believe that that’s necessary except for if you’re asking for services related to any of those specific things like ACT or CST. We would then want to have an estimate of your existing capacity both in volume and in cost so that we can assess your proposal and the monies that you’re asking for to enhance those programs and those services against what you’re already providing.

W So, current capacity in the community mental health section, let’s just say special projects we have that, but it has nothing to do with the RFI so that path would be blank?

M I’m looking at ....

W So, is that what you’re getting at? Did I not make sense?

M We would have the program, the annual funding amount, current capacity and the average number of individuals served per month for that. We’re not asking for anything in that program for new services being projected in response to Singer closure. So, we would not fill anything to the right of that. Is that correct?

M. Pelletier For the programmatic mental health services, we’re asking you to complete all the columns. For the Rural 132 services, we’re asking you to fill out the columns that are relevant to the programs that you’re seeking funding for.

W Okay. So, I’ll just put zero in for the proposed new capacity if we don’t need that service for the program. So, if we have—if these are non-MRO individuals and we want to provide therapy, which there’s no current funding for, that’s where we would put that under the 132 ... line items then, correct?

M. Pelletier If that’s going to be part of any of your other part of your narrative, that would be where we would want to see it.

W So, then are you looking for because you have a—I know in the directions it says you can add a narrative here, but also you have a column for notes and details. Can you give me an idea of how much narrative you’re looking for?

M. Pelletier In notes and details, if you could reference it back to a page or a section in your narrative, that would be sufficient.

W Okay. Now, when we don’t have—if we fill something in under the 132 line item, we don’t have to reference a program code? The program codes are only for the community mental health section.

M. Pelletier That’s correct.

W Onto something else, can a community behavioral health center, can we ask for money that we would buy services from a local hospital? Is that allowable on this?

M. Pelletier It would be depending on what services you’re asking to buy and where it would fit in with the categories of service that we’re asking for within the scope of the RFI.

W Let’s say ..., let’s say that. So, we could put that community behavioral health center, could ask for that funding and explain that we would work with a local hospital.

M Contract with a local hospital.

M. Pelletier The interest in Bilt is for the hospitals to provide that for themselves. You would have to explain why you’d want to do that differently rather than us having the hospital being the contractor for that.

W So, if we chose to do that then that explanation would need to be there?

M. Pelletier Yes.

W Okay. That's what I have so far. Thank you very much.

Moderator Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mike Kennedy with the Human Service Center. Please go ahead.

M. Kennedy Good morning. I’m looking at page 13, which has the chart, the Northwest Crisis Care System. As you get about two-thirds of the way down, there’s a line that says authorization for Northwest Crisis Care Alternative. Can someone describe what that is? Is that if we have an individual, are we going to call in and get an authorization to proceed or is that our internal authorization system?

M. Pelletier I’m going to go to the page where that’s referenced. It’s referenced in the document on page 26. That’s the adult care and referral entry services program that’s accessed. We’ve contracted with the Illinois collaborative for access and choice to provide our registration authorization concurrent review and reauthorization functions for the Region 1 South Program and we’re extending that same service to the Northwest Crisis Care System.

This would be a process where the evaluators either and the Crisis Intervention program, the EDAs or the Bilt persons as the evaluators, person in crisis would call that access line, review the case history of that person consistent with our medical necessity and our review criteria and that service would then approve and authorize services into any of the purchase services that we’re purchasing under this RFI, and yes, you would get an actual authorization number.

M. Kennedy Okay. So, is it only the services at the point of crisis or is it like act services that they’ll be ongoing authorization for services?

M. Pelletier Again, that's something that right now we have reauthorization processes only in place for the CHIPS and current review process, and we’re considering the opportunity to have reauthorization to this access line for ACT and CST.

M. Kennedy Thank you.

M. Pelletier Thank you.

Moderator Our next question comes from the line of Michael Freda with the Robert Young Center. Please go ahead.

M. Freda The RFI is proposing a CHIPS rate of $650 per day. Given the intensity of some of these patients that may need one-to-one services, that could add anywhere in excess of $300 per day if we have to have one-to-one services. Have you entertained having a two-scaled rate for one-to-one versus non one-to-one types of patients?

M. Pelletier No. We’ve never considered that under any other previous CHIPS contracting.

M. Freda Given the extra cost that would be incurred for the one-to-one services, would you entertain it for this?

M. Pelletier I don’t believe so, sir.

Moderator Thank you. We have a followup question from the line of Jim Sarver with Sinnissippi Centers. Please go ahead.

W ....

M. Pelletier Could you come off the speaker phone please? We can’t hardly hear you.

M We’ll get closer to the phone. Page 17—

W This is ... from PPH. We are looking at the Bilt case of those ... when it describes the Bilt model, it refers a lot to designated areas that are similar to the ED or around the ED or distinct service areas. If the proposal—at this point, we’re under construction to be able to build out those distinct areas. In the RFI, do we need to actually designate an alternative space or can we refer to a department that we designate specific beds? How does that work? Because there’s not going to be an ED initially.

M. Pelletier The reference to the site is an example in terms of how our programs are typically segregated or set up, and I don’t believe that that's a significant issue that would preclude your responding to that proposal one way or the other. Just a description to us in terms of how you’re going to handle these consumers and what manner and what direction you’re going to handle these consumers, I think would be sufficient. If that’s a process, that’s going to be changing over time because of modifications, constructions, I just think you just need to explain to us what the current setting might be and where you think you might be headed in terms of how you’re going to handle these consumers in a specific way.