WWC Care Coordination final diagnosis and lost to follow-up in eCaST

Clients enrolled into the Care Coordination Grant Program (CCGP) follow the same final diagnosis and lost to follow-up guidance as those who are enrolled in Clinical Services. Please ensure that the Final Diagnosis section is completed for all WWC Care Coordination and Clinical Services clients. If the Final Diagnosis is “Lost to follow-up," three attempts or interventions to contact the client must also be documented in eCaST under Case Management Information.

Cervical cancer screening expansion is coming to WWC Clinical Services and Care Coordination!

Women’s Wellness Connection (WWC) is expanding cervical cancer services to include women ages 21-39, tentatively starting January 2017, coinciding with Cervical Health Awareness Month. An initial announcement was made to WWC agencies and stakeholders May 2016. This policy change allows the WWC program, both Clinical Services and Care Coordination, to align with national guidelines for cervical cancer screening age recommendations. Women must continue to meet all other WWC eligibility requirements (income, lawful presence, insurance status) for enrollment. WWC age eligibility for breast cancer screenings will remain for women ages 40-64. To start preparing for this policy change:

• Look for additional information in the WWC Forum and WWC Update in the coming months, including a Cervical Expansion FAQs sheet and cervical case studies involving women 21-39.
• Attend the clinical webinar scheduled for October 5, 2016 from 12-1 p.m. Dr. Jan Shepherd will be discussing cervical cancer screening, diagnostic and treatment services for this younger age population.
• Start planning for EHR and form changes, staff training needs, and internal policy/workflow updates that will include enrolling women ages 21-39 into WWC for cervical screenings.

Please contact the nurse consultant, Angela.FellersLeMire@state.co.us with any clinical questions, including questions regarding the upcoming cervical cancer screening expansion.

Tips on preparing for mid-year data clean up

Budgets for WWC clinical services, WWC care coordination, and WISEWOMAN programs will be reviewed and adjusted based on spending as of the Jan. 15, 2016 bill run. Therefore it is important to make sure you data is up to date in eCaST before that time. The data team compiled tips to ensure your agency’s data are an accurate reflection of services provided since July 2015.

Updated guidance on combined WWC clinical services and care coordination consent

We’ve received a couple of questions from agencies regarding the combined WWC clinical services and care coordination grant program consent, specifically regarding clients who move between the two programs and whether or not the same consent is valid for both programs.

After reviewing the current combined consent, our legal staff person noted that the instructions say “Please choose the left or right box to complete.” This means that the client is consenting to only one of the programs and therefore the client would need to fill out a new consent to enroll in the other program. In addition, if the client did not check all of the boxes on the current consent, the agency would need to go back and have the client to check the boxes to make their consent official.

To making obtaining consent from clients easier, we will be modifying the combined WWC clinical services and care coordination consent by changing most of the check boxes to bullets and changing the language to allow the client to consent for either program if they are eligible or become eligible.

We apologize if we have given conflicting guidance on these consents previously. Please assist us in ensuring your clients have a complete and signed consent for the program(s) for which you are requesting reimbursement. Please go back and obtain appropriate consents if you find you do not have them. We will let you know as soon as new consents become available.

If you have any questions about this, please contact your program coordinator.

December bill run is complete!

Your December 2015 grant activity statement is now available. Please run your grant activity statement from eCaST using December 1-31 as your date parameters. Make sure to select fiscal year 2016. When choosing the contract type, select "WWC" for WWC clinical services or "CCGP" for the care coordination grant program

Please contact either Nick Roth or Marina Milzer for any questions regarding viewing your reports.

If you have questions about your bill or spending in general, contact your WWC program coordinator, either Ivy Hontz or Kris McCracken.

Provide advice: How do you talk to clients about care coordination?

The most frequently asked question I get about care coordination is, “How do I get insured clients to sign the consent form for care coordination?" It’s much easier to explain a program that pays for breast and cervical cancer screenings (WWC clinical services) than it is to explain a program that provides patient navigation services (WWC care coordination).

I know some of you have had some luck enrolling clients into WWC care coordination. What works for you?

Care coordination agencies only: Optional call on Dec. 8

Only if your agency holds a care coordination contract with WWC, please save the date for an optional call on Dec. 8, 10:30-11:30 a.m. This will be a conference call only. To join, call 1-877-820-7831 and enter passcode: 335241# (Press # after the passcode).

Do you have particular topic you would like to discuss? Are you facing a particular struggle with implementing your care coordination contract? We want to break down those potential barriers and ensure you are as successful as we know you can be. Comment below with topics you would like to see covered.

Does your agency have a new WWC clinical provider? Are you a new WWC clinical provider?

Welcome to WWC! As a new WWC clinical provider, you will want to become familiar with the Provider Resources web page and Part 4: Clinical Services of the WWC toolkit. These sections of the toolkit include the clinical policies and guidelines that both WWC Clinical Services and WWC Care Coordination programs must follow. 

November bill run is complete!

Your November 2015 grant activity statement is now available. Please run your grant activity statement from eCaST using November 1-30 as your date parameters. Make sure to select fiscal year 2016. When choosing the contract type, select "WWC" for WWC clinical services or "CCGP" for the care coordination grant program

Please contact either Nick Roth or Marina Milzer for any questions regarding viewing your reports. Nicholas.Roth@state.co.us or Marina.Milzer@state.co.us

If you have questions about your bill or spending in general, contact your WWC program coordinator, either Flora Martinez, Ivy Hontz, or Kris McCracken.

Reminder: Complete your progress report by Nov. 16!

You have less than a week to complete your agency's progress report. If you have questions, don't hesitate to contact your program coordinator as soon as possible! We are here to help you and want the progress report to be a useful tool.

Can't click on the link above to complete your progress report? Here is the link to copy and paste in your web browser: https://www.colorado.gov/cdphe/wwc-progress-report.

New progress report is ready for you!

The new progress report is available for your submissions! Reports are due through the Survey Monkey tool by end of business on November 16. You will be reporting on clinical services and/or care coordination contracts. To assist in completing all sections, a training video and worksheet were developed available for download here: https://www.colorado.gov/cdphe/wwc-progress-report. 

This report submission will cover: June 30, 2015 through October 31, 2015

The format is much different than you are used to with WWC. Our goal through this change was to empower your agency to take ownership of your award and streamline requests from your agency for additional information throughout the fiscal year. Please use this time to thoughtfully communicate your struggles and successes. 

If you have not already done so, please coordinate with your agency staff to ensure only one report is submitted per agency. 

If you have questions or concerns, contact your program coordinator as soon as possible!

Funding opportunity: WWC request for applications (RFA) now open!

The Women’s Wellness Connection (WWC) program is currently accepting Request for Applications (RFA) for both clinical services and care coordination funds as part of an Open RFA. The intention is to increase the number of women screened for breast and cervical cancer in the state of Colorado. For more information about the two funding opportunities, please see below:

Clinical Services Program

This program provides financial support to clinical services organizations to provide breast and cervical cancer screening and diagnostic services for uninsured and under insured women who meet WWC’s age, income, and lawful presence criteria as outline in the WWC Provider Toolkit.

Care Coordination Grant Program

This program provides financial support to clinical services organizations to increase care coordination related to breast and cervical cancer screening for insured women who otherwise meet WWC’s age, income, and lawful presence criteria as outlined in the WWC Provider Toolkit.


Applications are due by November 16, 2015 and March 14, 2016
Application documents and information can be found at www.colorado.gov/cdphe/wwc-funding. 

Please forward this information to any organization that might qualify and be interested in this funding. If you have any questions, please email them to the WWC program staff at cdphe_wwc@state.co.us.

Ford partners with Lyft to provide free rides to treatment

Ford has partnered with Lyft, a peer-to-peer ridesharing program, on an initiative that will allow anyone in Lyft’s 60 US markets to request a free ride to and/or from breast cancer treatment. Patients that would like to request a ride can visit lyft.com/moregooddays and click “get a ride” or “give a ride." Please share this information with your local communities and help Ford reach its goal of 10,000 rides!

October 2015 Bill Run Complete

Your October 2015 grant activity statement is now available. Please run your grant activity statement from eCaST using October 1-31 as your date parameters. Make sure to select fiscal year 2016. When choosing the contract type, select "WWC" for WWC clinical services or "CCGP" for the care coordination grant program

Please contact Nick Roth if you have questions regarding viewing your reports at nicholas.roth@state.co.us.

If you have questions about your bill or spending in general, contact your WWC program coordinator, either Flora Martinez, Ivy Hontz, or Kris McCracken.

Promote preventive services for your Medicaid clients

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is offering a set of engaging materials to help Medicaid and CHIP beneficiaries understand and access preventive services available to them.

Living Well is a set of outreach and education materials that connects preventive care in the clinical setting with everyday life. The Living Well toolkit features a number of customizable posters, fact sheets, social media posts, and strategies for getting the word out about Medicaid coverage of preventive services.

Visit the Medicaid website for a toolkit, posters, factsheets, social media graphics, and image library. 

How you doin'? A new way to report your progress!

This fiscal year, Women’s Wellness Connection (WWC) will be changing the format of the periodic progress reports for Clinical Services and Care Coordination contracts. Instead of WWC generating progress reports every four months, we created a new report to empower your agency to take ownership of your program progress, while keeping lines of communication open with CDPHE staff. We understand the format is different than you may be used to with WWC. This report will provide agencies the opportunity to thoughtfully review progress and communicate successes and struggles. We also anticipate it will reduce some of the sporadic back and forth communication between your agency and WWC. 

In the past, WWC had to complete CMS three times per year. Beginning this fiscal year, CMS will be completed annually. The modification in CMS schedule has allowed for the program to make these changes. The prior version of the progress report will be provided annually with CMS.

In the new reporting format, agencies will report on WWC contracts awarded (clinical services, care coordination, or both). To assist in the reporting transition you may use the worksheet that will be provided to you via email on October 1. WWC encourages you to review the worksheet prior to the Health Improvement Team (HIT) Call on Oct. 15 and engage in discussion with the WWC at that time. There will be a training video on how to complete the progress report produced by October 31.

Please communicate with your WWC program coordinator to ensure only one report is submitted per agency. Reports will be due back to WWC on November 15.

A Brand New B7 for CCGP!

Hello CCGP eCaST Users ☺   It’s your Data Coordinator, Nick Roth, here with a reminder on the changes coming to CCGP billing levels.  

Many of you provided feedback on lack of payment for CCGP cases when no mammogram is provided. We have heard you and are adding a new CCGP B7 level to reimburse $15 when health education and/or a clinical breast exam (CBE) are completed without a mammogram. The new bundles will look like this:

Level	Services	Payment
B 7	Patient navigation to a completed breast cancer screening office visit.	$15
B 8	Patient navigation to a completed screening mammogram.	$45
B 9	Case management to a final diagnosis. The final diagnosis may be cancer or non-cancer.	$105

Follow me on this one: 

Those cases with an error which used to be deleted due to the client not coming in for their mammogram after their CBE will now instead achieve a B7 pay out! 

What used to be a B7, will now be a B8… and you guessed it, the former B8 will become the brand-new level B9! 


The Takeaway:  Do not worry about the CCGP error “CCGP breast screenings must have a mammogram,” as this error will eventually, magically turn from a dreaded red triangle to an awesome green box with a 7 in it!

Note:  this transition with be retroactive to June 30, but applies only to fiscal year 2016 clients, so only clients with CBEs on July 1, 2015 to present. 

One more thing:  Have a lovely day!

Two easy steps to enrolling a client in the Care Coordination Grant Program

Your agency has now gone through or is in the middle of the contracting process with CDPHE for the Care Coordination Grant Program (CCGP). That is the most difficult part. Enrolling clients into CCGP and getting paid for things you are already doing, well that’s a no-brainer on your part. Follow my quick, two step process to enrolling a client into CCGP:

How to find your last FY2015 bill

Care Coordination Grant Program (CCGP) agencies should be expecting checks for their end of year grant activity statement soon! This statement was generated on July 31, 2015 and can be a little tricky to find in eCaST.

To view your statement in eCaST run the Grant Activity report by selecting:

4 Resources for Helping Clients Understand Insurance

The Care Coordination Grant Program focuses on insured clients, including helping them understand and use their insurance. This is something that may be new to them (and to you as you assist them), here are four resources we've found about helping the newly insured understand insurance, in no particular order.