Empowering Members Together

Together, we are helping Health First Colorado and Child Health Plan Plus members get the essential health care services they need, just like Jessica’s family. In our concurrent quest to save Coloradans money during this unique chapter, we also invite you to partner with us on providing the below timely information to our members and other Coloradans on unique economic opportunities to help them thrive.

Free training to become a health care worker. This first opportunity is especially important to help us achieve our shared, health care workforce goals. Specifically, we invite you to join us in promoting tuition-free health care training and education available through Care Forward Colorado, which helps Coloradans qualify for job openings in the health care field: certified nursing assistants, emergency medical techs, medical assistants, dental assistants, phlebotomy techs and pharm techs. These zero-cost, short-term training programs through community and technical colleges can be life-changing, especially for our members. Please consider how you and your organization can communicate this incredible opportunity to help our members and other Coloradans thrive by starting on a new career trajectory in health care. Many thanks to the General Assembly for passing Senate Bill 22-226, signed into law by Gov. Polis, which dedicates $26 million in state recovery dollars to train health care workers.

Discounted internet service. The Affordability Connectivity Program offers people who qualify up to $30/month discount on internet service, up to $75/month discount on internet service for households on qualifying Tribal lands, and a one-time discount of up to $100 for a laptop, desktop computer or tablet.

Updating members’ contact information and communication preferences. So that members get important updates about their health coverage, please help us make sure we have our members’ most up-to-date mailing address, phone numbers and email address. This is especially important as we prepare for the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency. Members can update their information in any of the following ways:

1.   Visit CO.gov/PEAK.

2.   Use the Health First Colorado app on your phone. This free app is for Health First Colorado and CHP+ members.

3.   CHP+ members can call 800-359-1991.

4.   Health First Colorado members can call or mail their county human services department.

Supported employment for people with disabilities. October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, which celebrates the contributions of people with disabilities to our workplaces and the economy. A related initiative is the Supported Employment program, which helps Coloradans with disabilities find employment, get reimbursed for professional development, and more.

Thank you for all you are doing to help our Health First Colorado and Child Health Plan Plus members rise and thrive through this unique economic chapter. We appreciate your collaborative partnership!

Registration Now Open for HCPF’s Continuous Improvement Learning Sessions

Calling all Eligibility Sites! You’re invited to join HCPF’s Continuous Improvement Learning Sessions...

Feeling anxious about the end of the Public Health Emergency (PHE)? We’ve got you covered! The Continuous Improvement Team will be hosting Learning Sessions to prepare your Eligibility Site with the ending of the PHE! These sessions will:

• Provide Lean tools and best practices to prepare your site for the end of the PHE. 
• Provide new pending workload toolkit which will demonstrate how to monitor pending workload and reach performance measure targets. 
• Share best practices on how to reduce cycle times when processing MA Renewals.

All Eligibility Sites are encouraged to have at least two Eligibility staff members attend. The recommended participants for Small & Medium Counties are Director, Supervisor, and Lead Worker. For Large Counties we recommend the Division Director, Manager, and Supervisor. Those attending will need to RSVP through CoLearn. Please click the following link to register. Please note staff do not need to attend all sessions, only one is needed as the same information will be presented. 

To register, search in Colearn under the subject “Continuous Improvement Learning Sessions,” and select the date and time you will be attending. The respective dates and times are as follows: 

For any questions, please contact the Continuous Improvement team at HCPF Performance Improvement.

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Family Planning Limited Benefit Plan FAQ

The Department of Health Care Policy & Financing (HCPF) is releasing this communication to notify Eligibility Sites that the Family Planning Limited Benefit Plan FAQ has been released. 

The Family Planning Limited Benefit Plan FAQ includes guidance for all Medical Assistance eligibility sites and workers. The FAQ discusses scenarios that have come to the Department from different avenues regarding the Family Limited Benefit Plan. The scenarios include, but are not limited to, who is eligible, opt-in and out options, and secondary benefits such as MSP.

View the Family Planning Limited Benefit Plan

Questions regarding this communication may be directed to: HCPF Medicaid Eligibility.

Help build the health & child care workforce by spreading the word to your patients, community, and staff about these once-in-a-lifetime educational opportunities!

Please help us grow the health care workforce as well as the child care workforce to directly support our shared goal of getting women back into the workforce. Please print and display these time-limited training opportunity communications in your patient waiting rooms, exam rooms, staff break rooms and other related areas. The links below include a poster that can be printed and a digital display that can go on TV screens in patient or staff areas. Print and digital resources are here: hfcgo.com/assistance. 

The first poster communicates free, short-term training for in-demand health care professions (i.e. CNA, EMT, MA, pharm tech, etc). The second poster also communicates free early childhood education courses to become a certified child care professional. Both of these free education opportunities are essential to revitalizing the health care workforce, while offering upward mobility for low income Coloradans seeking new career paths. If these communications get to the right people - specifically Medicaid members - they can be life-changing, giving people a once-in-a-life-time opportunity for free certifications that create a meaningfully different income trajectory, while helping grow the workforce. 

Please help fully leverage these unique educational and career advancement opportunities by displaying these important communications today! 

Community-Based Organization Ambassador Program

The Colorado Department of Health Care Policy & Financing (Department), which administers Health First Colorado (Colorado’s Medicaid Program), is working with Colorado communities to start an Ambassador Program. The goal of the Ambassador Program is to work with Health First Colorado members and people who might be eligible for services to improve the letters and other written information the Department uses to communicate with Coloradans about Health First Colorado. The Department is focusing first on Spanish- and Vietnamese-speaking communities.

Ambassadors are people who will help us understand the needs of the communities they live in. They will partner with community organizations that work with Health First Colorado members to help make the information members and people who may be eligible get easy to understand in their native languages and in culturally responsive ways. 

Ambassadors will help Health First Colorado with: 

• Leading interviews, focus groups, and listening sessions 
• Getting feedback about the best ways to communicate with members and potential members
• Sharing guidance for policies and programs
• Providing important information to Health First Colorado members and potential members

Ambassadors will be paid an hourly wage and get training and support from the Department.

We are asking for trusted community organizations to contact our subcontractor, Health Management Associates (HMA), if they are interested in supporting the Ambassador Program. This could include hosting an Ambassador or providing information about potential Ambassadors in their community. The program will be run by the Department’s Member Experience team.

Please contact Lee Repasch or Kelsey Moore for more information about the program and how to participate.

Overflow Processing Center

The Overflow Processing Center (OPC) will accept requests for assistance from Eligibility Sites beginning Nov. 1. The OPC is located in Prowers County and was created to benefit Eligibility Sites, and therefore benefits applicants and members, by providing support processing cases when needed, including: 



• Partnering with the Eligibility Site when a disaster strikes, or a scenario exists where the Site cannot process applications, renewals and case changes due to extenuating circumstances. 
• Processing applications, renewals and changes from Eligibility Sites to maintain statewide timeliness targets according to state and federal eligibility guidelines.
• Assisting the Site when staffing or vacancies are impacting performance measures and the ability of the site to process cases timely. 
• Helping the Eligibility Site to reduce eligibility determination wait times for applicants and members, helping to ensure quicker access to care for Coloradans. 

Types of OPC Assistance 

The OPC is currently accepting MAGI and Non-MAGI cases including the processing of: 

• Applications 
• Redeterminations 
• Case Changes 
• Combination cases with other high-level program groups, where the OPC would process the MA portion of the case only 

How to request Assistance

When an Eligibility Site is facing circumstances that will impact its ability to keep up with and manage their MA workload, the Eligibility Site will have the ability to request support from the OPC. To request assistance from the OPC, all Sites are required to submit the OPC Request Form located on the HCPF website. Once submitted the Department will review the request and prioritize it according to the amount of work and type of work the OPC is already assisting with. Sites that are mandated to work with OPC or other scenarios the Department deems as an emergency may be prioritized higher than a standard request. 

OPC Memo & FAQ: HCPF OM 22-048

OPC Request Form: OPC Request Form

OPC Webpage: www.colorado.gov/overflow-processing-center

OPC HCPF Contact: Jesse Trujillo

Request an Open Enrollment Kit from Connect for Health Colorado (C4HCO)

With less than two months until Open Enrollment (OE), C4HCO is getting OE Kick-Off Kits ready as a way for you to help spread the word about health insurance options! As a reminder, Coloradans who don’t qualify for Health First Colorado and don’t get health insurance through an employer can sign up for a health insurance plan and apply for financial help through Connect for Health Colorado from Nov. 1, 2022 - Jan. 15, 2023.

Please let us know if you would like an OE Kick-Off Kit mailed to you. The kits are free, and we’ll mail one right to your door in mid-October.

Open Enrollment Kits include:

• Connect for Health Colorado overview brochures.
• Posters highlighting key Open Enrollment deadlines.
• A message board for you to hold up in a photograph and post to your social media platforms.
• Brochure for OmniSalud, a new health insurance program for Coloradans who are undocumented.

Contact: To order your FREE kit, email madams@c4hco.com by Friday, Sept. 23, and include the following information:

• Your name and your county’s name.
• The address to which you would like us to mail the Open Enrollment Kick-Off Kit.

COLearn Access - Capacity Limit for User Accounts

Did you know COLearn has a capacity limit for user accounts?

There are only so many active accounts that we are able to carry. Because of this, if an account shows no activity for a year, we deactivate the profile. Removing inactive accounts helps make room for new workers to register for a COLearn account. This may impact workers who are still active CBMS users. If they have not logged in to COLearn for a year to take training, their account may be deactivated. Effective Nov. 1, 2022, the Staff Development Division will deactivate accounts that have not been active for one year.

If an account does get deactivated due inactivity for more than 30 days but the user should still be active, there is no need to create a new account. Reach out to the SDD, we can reactivate the account and no transcript data will be affected.

Questions: If you need additional information or have questions regarding this email, please email the SDD Team at SOC Staff Development.

Individual county contracts for County Incentives Program FY 2022-23 are in process with Procurement. Both the County Incentives Program Contract and FY 2022-23 Funding Table are posted on the County Administration Resources website: County Incentives Program.  

EQA results are paused while Eligibility Quality Assurance hires and onboards new staff. Reviews will resume in December 2023. While there is a pause in results, this might be a good time for you and your teams to reflect on your Accuracy Performance Incentive data and outcomes in FY2021-22. Have you integrated this work into your operations? Are there opportunities to re-train your teams based the most common errors made in FY 2021-22?  

MAP Dashboard Performance: Both Court Ordered Application and Renewal Timeliness dashboard calculations were updated in August for July data to exclude all system generated authorizations. This could potentially decrease or increase timeliness. As a result, no Management Decision Letters (MDLs) will be issued for non-compliance with both Court Ordered Application and Renewal Timeliness for the first five months of data (July – Nov 2022) as the baseline resets. The earliest an MDL will be issued for Timeliness is February 2023 based on December 2022 and January 2023 performance.   

The purpose of this change was to ensure only actions taken by eligibility sites are counted against their performance by measuring actual authorizations that are completed by eligibility site users and filtering out system authorizations. There are two general types of System Authorizations you can identify when reviewing the County Dashboard: Real Time Eligibility (RTE) and Mass Updates (MU). This includes all Ex Parte and RTE cases. These system authorizations can be filtered out using the County Dashboard.  

Please be aware, the County Dashboard uses a different data set being generated from a unique Structured Query Language (SQL) than the MAP Dashboards. However, eligibility sites still use the County Dashboard to identify individual untimeliness; you can filter to exclude System Authorizations and generate reports for Untimely Applications and Renewals. By using the filter, you will be able to identify your untimely count using the County Dashboard. Please use the Researching Untimely Members in County Dashboard Desk Aid.  

It is critical for counties and eligibility sites to monitor Court Ordered Timeliness before you are held accountable, taking steps to improve performance if a decrease in timeliness performance is occurring.   

Is your county or eligibility site entering cases into CBMS timely? (Preferably the same day the application is received; best practice is within 1-2 business days.)  

Be certain you have assigned staff to monitor the MAP Dashboard data with special attention to pending - those coming due and those that are past due.  

Identify the root cause(s) of timeliness decreasing and implement a plan to improve your timeliness to meet or exceed the target before you are held accountable to timeliness performance.  

** Counties and eligibility sites will continue to be held accountable for meeting targets for Pending EPG 45, Pending EPG 90. Pending Member Past Cert Period No EDBC and Pending Member Past Cert Period EDBC. MDLs will continue to be issued for these performance measures for non-compliance with Director-level performance targets.  

Timeliness for all Medical Assistance applications was measured at 98.25%.

Timeliness for all Medical Assistance redeterminations was measured at 98.22%.