1 LIGHTLY EDITED FILE VRS Community Partners & VRS Staff Forum Vocational Rehabilitation Services Remote CART April 2, 2024 10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. * * * * * This text is being provided in a lightly edited draft format, and is the work product of the CART captioner. Any reproduction, publication, or other use of this CART file without the express written consent of the captioner is strictly prohibited. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility, and this lightly edited CART file may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. Due to the live nature of the event, some names and/or terms may be misspelled. This text may also contain phonetic attempts at sounds and words that were spoken and environmental sounds that occurred during the event. * * * * * CART Provided by Jayne Carriker, RPR, CRR, CRC Paradigm Reporting & Captioning, a Veritext Company 612.339.0545 captioning-paradigm@veritext.com CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 2 >> Janeen: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our April 2 VRS Community Partners and VRS Staff Forum. Just so you're aware today, chat is disabled as well as reactions, so you'll be submitting all of your questions or your feedback through the Microsoft form which will be posted multiple times in the chat. We also have closed captioning today, and there is a link in the chat. Welcome, everyone. >> Janeen, you're muted, hon. >> Janeen: Thank you, Jess. Sara, can you go to the next slide please. Welcome, everybody. Good morning. I just wanted to let you know that we have disabled the chat today. You are only able to chat with hosts or cohosts if you have a concern about technology or something like that. Otherwise we ask that you submit all your questions today through the Microsoft form which is in the chat. We also have a closed caption CART captioning link, and you can e-mail Jess Outhwaite if you are having any sort of issues. This meeting is recorded today. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 3 And we are so glad you're here, take time to rename your name that shows on your Zoom screen, please. We're going to give it just one more minute to see if we can get a few more folks joining us, and then we will kick off our agenda. Welcome, everybody. I don't know about all of you, but it is a lovely snowy April 2. We knew winter would have the last word, right? But here we are, it's happening. We're getting snow in April when we didn't have snow in February practically, so I'm trying to tell myself it's good moisture for plants, but I'm not convincing myself at this time. All right. I'm going to go on mute for just a second and handle something behind the scenes, and then we will get started. Thank you. Good morning. I'm trying to talk with my mute on over and over again. Welcome everyone to the April 2 VRS All Staff plus our Community Partnership Staff Forum. Just a reminder today in the chat you will find a closed captioning link. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 4 You will also find a way to submit your questions through our MS form, and can I have a cohost support please unmute Lori. Thank you. And then also you will find that chat today only goes to hosts or cohosts. So just go ahead and share your thoughts and your ideas through that Microsoft form today. If you need support with pinning the ASL interpreters today, we have Kathie and Gina with us, please reach out to one of the hosts or cohosts, and we can support you with that. But otherwise welcome. It's great to see everyone today. We are going to -- has someone unmuted Lori? Hello? Any of the cohosts? >> Apologies. You made me a cohost, but I don't know how to unmute her. >> Janeen: Okay. Just a second. Let me see what's going on with that. >> Lori: We're good. Thank you. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 5 >> Janeen: Oh, Lori, you got it. Great, thank you. >> Lori: Thank you, thank you. >> Janeen: Did you have anything you wanted to add before we get started with this awesome agenda? >> Lori: No, I'm just so glad so many of you could be here and looking forward to this time together, so thank you, Janeen. >> Janeen: Okay. Yeah, so we're going to kick it off with Lori Thorpe along with Dee Torgerson and Chris McVey talking about VRS spending authority. After that I will give you a little bit of an update from contracted services review workgroup and our work. And then Anne Paulson, our awesome program specialist, will be sharing about the July 1, 2024, contracting process and timeline. Sara Sundeen will be sharing some other updates, and then Lori and I will do the questions and answers later. Again, just a reminder, please submit all your questions, all your thoughts, all your feedback through the Microsoft form link that is in the chat. Okay. And with that we will pass it over to Lori. Thank you, Lori. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 6 >> Lori: Hello. Good morning. Thank you for unmuting me. First of all, we're going to kick off today talking about the 2024 VRS spending authority, and with that I'm going to invite Dee, our director of VRS, to share some information with us, so Dee, welcome. >> Chris: Thank you so much. This is Chris McVey. Can you hear me? >> Lori: Oh, yes, Chris McVey. >> Chris: Yeah, yeah, so I just -- I wanted to -- I'm thrilled to be part of this meeting today and to share with you around our 2024 VRS spending authority presentation to both our VRS staff and our community partners. I'm really pleased that we are at a point in our history with VRS but also a place with the leadership that we have with Dee Torgerson, our director, and also Lori Thorpe and her community partnership director position, and our fiscal director Jacque Christopherson. We've done a lot of looking at our spending authority, looking at how much we're spending versus how much we're actually paying, and we are making some changes that we want to share with all of you today. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 7 And one of the things that I'm excited about is that Dee is able to join us this morning, and she has some really good insights of course as the director but also about the difference between how much money we have versus the amount that we're encumbering, and there's some pretty big differences between those two numbers. And I just wanted to invite Dee now to share her thoughts as we get started with this presentation. Thank you. >> Chris, Chris, could you take just a moment. We need to stop sharing screen and I'm going to get -- [muted] >> Sara: Can you see my screen now? >> Janeen: We can, Sara. Were we able to open the current one? >> Sara: Okay, that is what I thought I was sharing is hitting auth max, no? >> Janeen: Yeah, yeah, that's fine. Go ahead. All right. Thanks a lot. Go ahead, Dee. >> Dee: Great. Thanks. Sorry everyone. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 8 Some technical difficulties on this snowy April but welcome. I'm Dee Torgerson, the director with VRS, and Chris did a kind of great overview and introduction of some of the things we want to talk with you a little bit about today. And I want to share some good news first on this snowy April day. Some good news is that we are now seeing more participants than -- I won't say than we ever have, but we are definitely back to where we were pre-pandemic in terms of the number of people we're seeing come into the program and therefore the number of people that we are asking partners to work with, so that is very, very good news for us. The other good news for us is that we do have a -- we have a steady, healthy budget that we're working with. Here's the issue that we have run into recently. So many of you who have been working with VRS for a number of years are aware of, you know, how we authorize for services. And when we authorize for those services, especially PBAs and some of the other things, we sometimes have as high as like 50 or 60% cancellation rate or people who end up not utilizing the full amount of those funds. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 9 And every year part of our budget process within VRS and DEED is that we have to work with state authorities to get an approved amount that we're going to be able to authorize for and budget. And the State of Minnesota has already said because they understand how we work with, you know, PBAs and authorization of services in order to then reimburse for those services, they understand that process, and so they've already said, hey, we're going to allow you -- to me I liken it to a credit card. We're going to allow you to be able to authorize over two and a half times what your current budget is that's already approved. And due to our awesome influx of both, you know, new community partners and participants that we're serving and the way that we're authorizing for services right now, we had asked the State of Minnesota to increase that amount that we're able to authorize, so, again, you're thinking of it in terms of like a credit card, sometimes we're like, oh, we're getting close to maxing out our credit card, I'm going to ask if I can get a spending, a credit increase on that. So we did make the ask, and that ask was denied. The State of Minnesota is telling us, no, like you cannot authorize for services, you know, three times CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 10 more than what your current budget is. We're not going to allow that. So I get that. I understand that. And what we then need to do is look into some of our internal processes and how we are managing those funds and managing our budget. So this is going to have an impact on our internal staff and some of our internal processes as well as all of you as providers, and we want to make sure that we go through some of the details of these changes. This is something we have to implement immediately because if we don't get control over our authorizations, we're going to max out on our spending limit before the end of this state fiscal year, and the state fiscal year goes until June 30. So there are already some things we have done internally to open up that amount of money, and there's more that we have to do to get through the rest of this state fiscal year and then looking ahead to the next state fiscal year. And so our team is going to be walking through some of the details of that with you and sharing information and again, as Janeen has indicated, please go into the chat and ask questions if you need to. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 11 We'll make sure there's time for us to answer as many of those as possible. And, again, I just want to emphasize our goal is to serve as many participants as possible, continuing to work with as many of our awesome rehab community providers as possible, and by addressing some of these things and managing our budget in a more controlled way, it's going to help us to get there and to accomplish those goals. So with that, Chris, I think I'm going to turn it back to you. >> Chris: Thank you so much, Dee. Appreciate it. So wanted to walk through around that authorization max that Dee was referencing earlier. So VRS has been authorizing at a rate of two and a half times more than the actual amount that VRS pays for services. We have a set authorization limit in place related to each fiscal year budget, and because, as Dee indicated, we would typically ask a state authority to give us that ability to increase our credit limit essentially and that they've said no. We need to adjust our current authorization methodology to remain within our authorization limit, and it's all CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 12 about, you know, for our VRS staff we know when we hear authorizations are bombing out, it means that we've hit our allocated or authorizing max, and then we have no way of being able to do additional authorizations for people who are participants who need services immediately. Next slide, please. So VRS and all of our staff have been proactively working to maintain continuity of services for our VRS participants and our Pre-ETS students. We exceeded this authorization limit last year, so this year we are working to stay within the limit with intention. We wanted to ensure that we are not going over that limit and staying under, and we've been employing a number of practices, and I'll go over that in future slides here. We have sufficient funds to pay for services. However, together we need to reduce our open authorizations to stay within our authorization limit. To give you an example, two examples actually, one is going to Kohls and I need one pair of pants I think, but I'm actually going to buy four because I think, you know, it's possible I might like all four of them, or it's possible that I'm wanting to buy just one of them. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 13 But I purchase the four, but I returned three of those pairs of pants and just have the one pair at the end, and I get the pair that I want. So a lot of times in authorizing for services, VRS staff will do that when they are let's say encumbering a PBA, and as we've been doing, there are a lot of individuals our staff who are also encumbering our job coaching at that time when we don't know what the outcome is going to be for that person. Another example of, you know, just our work in real life is that a counselor will go ahead and authorize 20 hours of job coaching for that participant anticipating they will need those 20 hours. Well, that participant in this scenario actually catches on very quickly, there are wonderful natural supports in place, and they only need five hours of that job coaching. We have 15 hours then that can be canceled, and then that money can be freed up to be put towards other authorizations to encumber funds for participants who are wanting to move forward with their employment plans. So, again, we have the funds and the budget to pay for it, and we just need to reduce our open authorizations to stay within our authorization limit. So next slide. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 14 Just to give you an idea for our community partners about what our VRS teams, our field teams are doing, we've asked -- this has been about sometime in early March actually, we asked our VRS RAMs to meet with their staff, their teams each week, and that is counselors and VR techs, to review existing authorizations. We want them to look at those open authorizations and in conversation with community partners to know what -- [frozen] >> Chris, we lost your audio. >> Janeen: It looks like Chris is also frozen, so Dee, would you or someone be willing to kind of take over at this point? >> Sure. I can take over. This is Lori. >> Janeen: Thank you, Lori. Appreciate it. >> Lori: Yeah, so our RAMs are meeting -- as Chris was saying, they're meeting with their team every single week to talk about authorizations, what can be closed, what can be reduced. You might have -- you are partners, you may have been getting phone calls or e-mails from VRS staff asking, hey, can we reduce this, do you think you will be using CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 15 those hours, and if not, on our end then we are closing some of those authos that aren't necessary. And next slide. Thank you. So here's where we're going to talk kind of about more in-depth about what's happening right now, what VRS -- what we're changing on our end, and also, partners, where we're going to need your help to ensure that this is a relatively seamless process and that we can reduce our encumbrances. And, again, we have the money. We just have to reduce what we're authorizing for if it's not necessary. So one of the things that we're going to do, and you may have heard this from some of the teams that you're working with, but if hours remain on a Pre-ETS authorization, VRS on our end, we're going to extend the end date rather than creating a whole new authorization, so you know that with Pre-ETS authorizations we typically do those every quarter, so in this case we're extending a lot of the hours to either June 30 or the graduation date if they're a senior in high school. So just know that's something a little different that we're doing right now. New authorizations for Pre-ETS will be created if CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 16 it's -- you know, if additional hours are really necessary and if you the partner reach out to the VRS staff and talk that over, then we can still do new authorizations, but we'll primarily be extending those. Things VRS will do, we're going to ensure that the provider that you are partners are receiving a copy of the authorization, and that can be the old-fashioned way, which is through e-mail, unless you and your VR team have been trained in Workforce One access, then the provider is able to go in and see that authorization. VRS will also authorize based on the actual need of the individual, so again a lot of communication between the partner and the VRS staff to talk about what does that individual really need, how many hours do they truly need at this time. And then VRS, we're going to be especially careful to not over authorize for services, and we'll talk more about that throughout this PowerPoint presentation. Next slide. And, again, I know Janeen said this, but right now we don't have chat enabled, so if you -- as we're going through this if you have questions as we get through, there's about 15 slides here total, you'll put them in that Microsoft form, and then we will be taking questions on this as well. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 17 Okay. Now we get into PBA authorizations, and as you can all guess, that is where the bulk of our authorizations are is within the PBA system. So historically, and everyone knows this, what we do is we authorize all three or four milestones depending on if it's a general PBA or if it's an E1MN milestone. We authorize all four lines or all three lines on one authorization. And with that when you look at just the PBA plat placement authorization, so the second milestone, we have an actual attrition rate of approximately 50% on those where it doesn't come to fruition. So it's a lot of money that is being encumbered in these milestones for PBAs. Okay. Next slide. So with that being said, beginning today April 2, all new PBAs, what VRS is going to do on our end and when you see an authorization, we're going to encumber milestones 1 and 2 just like we always do, so the full amount will be written for milestone 1, the full amount of the authorization for milestone 2. But then you're going to see milestone 3 and if it's an E1MN milestone, we're going to put $1 on the CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 18 authorization, so when you see that, providers, you might think what the heck, $1. No, no, no, you're going to still get the full amount. It's just by VRS putting $1 on those two lines of the autho, then we're not encumbering that full large amount, so bear with me. We're going to get into how this is going to happen. Yeah, so like I said, all the milestones will appear on one autho just like always, you're just going to see those $1 placeholders. Next slide. So now here's where you get your money. So once you invoice us for milestone 3 and milestone 4 as applicable, you will get the full amount, so for milestone 3, which is that successful placement closure, you'll get your 1270, and when you -- for E1MN milestone, which takes place at 120 days from the day of your intake with the individual, you'll get your $1200. And with that of course, and this is always the case, you'll invoice us, and with that you'll send the progress report, and then we'll be able to process those invoices, so don't be worried when you see the $1. It's strictly a placeholder on our end, but you'll get your full amount. Okay. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 19 Next slide. And then also beginning today if a participant has not yet started a job, VRS is in the next -- you know, in the next week or so VRS on our end, we're going to go into Workforce One and we're going to reduce PBA milestone number 3 to $1, and, again, that way we're not encumbering that full 1270. Instead we will encumber $1, and then we're going to cancel any job coaching that isn't currently happening. So, you know, any job coaching that we pre-encumbered, we're going to cancel that for now, and as you can guess, that is going to require very detailed communication between our partner staff and our VRS staff when an individual does get a job, so that we can get in there, VRS can get in there and reauthorize for any job coaching once we know what that job is and once the partner talks with the counselor or the rehab rep and talks about, you know, how many hours of job coach are they really going to need up front because we're going to really want to hone that in on what's really necessary given the situation we're in right now. So yeah, communication is key. So we'll talk a little bit more now about -- oops, sorry. Okay. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 20 Sorry, sorry. I jumped ahead too far. I got excited. Okay. Next slide, please, Sara. So timely authorizations. And as I've been saying and you've heard it, it's essential and it's always essential. It just becomes even more essential right now so that we don't -- VRS can't be encumbering what we call MS16s either. So it's imperative that authorizations are in place, and this is for any service but especially as we think about job coaching in these instances, and providers, we would ask that when you need an authorization that you allow enough time, you know, a day or two for VRS to get in there and create that autho and make sure that everything is in place. And it takes a village. I know that. We all know that. It's like, oh, my goodness. Great. Next slide. So now this is a big change. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 21 This is language that it does -- it's on every authorization that we send out to our providers, and it's the 90-day invoicing requirement, and we realize this is a big change, so I'm just going to walk through it here. The language on the authorization, it's way at the bottom, it currently reads, Invoices must be submitted within 90 days of the end date of the work authorization. Invoices not submitted within 90 days of the end date of the work authorization will be considered a material breach of contract. This will result in non-payment of this service. So given the situation we're in with the authorization limits and the encumbrances that we have on -- in place already, starting immediately VRS is going to be enforcing a 90-day invoicing requirement on all invoices that are submitted to VRS. And this is for the fact that we have increased oversight and accountability for the funding we receive and our overall budget. And for this reason we really need to start adhering to this policy that it's always been a place we've just been a little bit lax, and so we know that this is coming to you today April 2, and you might be thinking, CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 22 oh boy, you know, how do we do this as providers. And for that reason if you have -- if you have an invoice that you haven't invoiced us yet or we haven't received an undisputed invoice and they're at 90 days past due, we are going to give you until April 15, so tax day, to get those undisputed invoices submitted to your local VRS office to be paid, and then on April 15 that's when we just won't be paying any invoices that are beyond the 90 days. So what I propose today is if you're a provider and you're thinking, oh, my goodness, how are we going to do this, we're not getting them billed within 90 days, please I beg you to reach out to me or one of our community partnership staff, and we'll do whatever we can on our end to help you put procedures in place to ensure that you are invoicing us within the three months after the service ends or the end of the work authorization, whichever is earlier, because we want you to be paid for the services you provide. We are a team, and we are a community, and it's in everyone's best interest if you are paid, but we absolutely have got to have those invoices within the 90 days or the three months after that service ends or the end of the authorization. So let us help you if we can but... CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 23 >> Dee: Lori, this is Dee. I just wanted to reemphasize. You know, I know like Lori is presenting it as new, and it really is -- the new part is that we are going to be stepping in and enforcing it because we have to. But this is not new language. It's been in our contracts actually for several years, so this has always been a requirement, but quite frankly we've been a little bit loosey goosey on that. So, again, as we're needing to tighten down many of our internal processes and internal controls, this is one of the things that we need to tighten down. And, again, I mean I used to run a small business and I'm like I want to get paid within 90 days. We want to pay you within 90 days. So hopefully that is not going to be a problem and you're going to be able to meet that requirement. But we're putting you on notice today about that requirement that we're not going to be able to pay those any longer if it's beyond the 90 days. So I just wanted to emphasize that, Lori. >> Lori: Thank you, Dee. That was right on. Thank you so much. Okay. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 24 Next slide. We're going to talk just a little bit more about communication, and, you know, you just can't have enough of it. I mean isn't that the case? But providers, I beg you to just ensure that you have an authorization in hand before initiating any service. So if you've already been trained or the teams you're working with, the VRS teams have been trained in Workforce One access, then you have the ability to go in and look for yourself, you know, make sure you see the whites of that authorization with the black print. And if not, for those of you that aren't -- you don't have access yet to Workforce One, then please be connecting with that VRS team to just ensure that the authorization is in place, everything is -- it's ready to go, so always, always a good practice. Also again, I know I mentioned at the beginning, but VRS teams are going to be reaching out to you if they haven't already for ways that we can reduce authorizations that aren't necessary or maybe we overauthorized on our end and we will be bringing that back down a little bit potentially. So if you get those kind of e-mails or a reachout, if you could get back to the VRS staff as soon as possible, CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 25 that would be great just so we can right size all of this. And if possible, providers, please indicate on the invoice if it's a partial invoice or a final invoice because if it's a final invoice, then our VR techs know to go in there and can close it out and we'll go from there, so that's really helpful on our end. Next slide. Key messages, so, again, we will be enforcing that 90-day requirement for all invoices, so that's probably the biggest change on your end or all of our ends actually. And then Pre-ETS authorization end dates will be extended in most cases for unused service units rather than developing a whole new authorization. If additional hours are needed, providers, please reach out to your local VRS staff as you normally would and really discuss the need. Next slide. And VRS staff will contact providers to determine which authorizations -- again, I know I've said this like three times, but yeah, just that communication is so critical. Monthly progress reports from partners should arrive to VRS by the 10th of every month, so we will be enforcing CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 26 that pretty strongly as well going forward. So again this all goes back to communication, so by the 10th of the month we want to see those progress reports. And VRS may decide that fewer hours are authorized initially depending on the needs of the individual, and what I mean by that is, for example, with work experiences, you know, maybe in the past we've authorized the full 120 hours up front for work experiences. Going forward that's likely not going to be the case, and instead we'll do them in 30-hour increments or 40-hour increments, and this again will just help reduce those encumbrances that are open on our end. So you're going to see more of that kind of chunking out authos, and that's where it goes back to the essential factor of making sure that authorization is in place before you begin any services or even continue any services, just make sure you see that autho for our providers. Great. And like I said, we're not going to be -- I know we don't have the chat open right now or the mics, but please be submitting your questions because at the end we will be answering all those as well, so thank you so much. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 27 Lots of news today. Back to Janeen. >> Janeen: Thanks a lot, Lori. Oh, go ahead, Dee Torgerson. >> Dee: No, I was just going to say Chris is back. Chris, I don't know if there's anything you want to add. I just thought I would open it quick. Lori did a smooth takeover. >> Chris: Oh, thank you, Lori. Yeah, I lost my wi-fi for a few minutes. That's special. Anyway, I do want to just say that we have all 23 VRS field teams working really hard on this. And we have our RAMs that are connected very closely to our regional directors and of course our field operation specialists, so for our VRS staff who have already been looking at ways to cancel any unencumbered -- I'm sorry, any funds that can be canceled, thank you, thank you, we're really making a big difference in terms of like making some more room before we hit the ceiling of that authorization limit. And I believe that these next steps that we're going to take are really going to significantly decrease those numbers so that we'll still be encumbering new funds but it will be for participants that are in need of services CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 28 and there will not be delays. So I want to thank our VRS staff for your commitment to this. I know many will tune into this later when it's recorded and available, but just thanks to our VRS staff and thank you to our partners for coming along with us. We want as Dee had said deliver those services in a timely way without delays, and this is one of the key ways that we can do it. And it's not just for a short time. This is our business as usual going forward. So thanks, everybody. >> Lori: Thank you so much, and now we will hear from Janeen. >> Janeen: All right, thanks a lot to our executive leadership, Chris McVey and Dee Torgerson for joining with that important message today and Lori Thorpe, director of our contracts and partnership. I'm going to move on to our contracted services review workgroup. Not going to really reiterate who we are and what we are. I think that has been communicated pretty frequently but just want to give you a brief update on quarter one of 2024 and the work that we accomplished. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 29 Thank you to everyone who gave feedback on OCSS which is related to a differential for our performance-based agreement, utilizing American Sign Language or other communication skills for the deaf and hard of hearing and deafblind populations. And we also looked at social coaching, which in and of itself is sort of a niche service within VRS. We've updated our definitions and best practices documents, and those are going to be submitted to VRS executive leadership for review shortly. Once and if, as always that's the disclaimer, approved as is, the community partner website will be updated to show an updated definition along with that list of kind of best practices. This is going to be particularly helpful for both VRS staff but also partner staff. If you are new to your agency or if you're one of our new providers, those best practices list really give you a flavor of how the service should take place. If you submitted any feedback that was outside the scope of our workgroup related to fees, potentially changing when and how these services are paid for, etc., that's going to be shared with the appropriate groups and our VR staff to kind of figure out where those recommendations best live. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 30 Thank you. Just a reminder again these two definitions and documents are not only for our community partners, although they live on the community partner website, they are just such a great resource for VR staff as well. If you have not already bookmarked that site on your desktop or your internet browser, please do that now because really we do want everyone going to a uniform definition and looking at those best practices when thinking about authorizations, which we just heard about, and then reviewing invoicing and billing. So on to quarters 2 and 3. This is going to take us April through September I want to say. Let me do the math, April, May, June, September. I got it. And we are working on our PBAs, our performance-based agreement. We dedicated six months to it because it's going to take every minute of six months to really look at, you know, what's working well for our performance-based agreements. Oops, we lost our screen share. And then also what isn't working so well. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 31 We also are really going to look at what are the requirements within performance-based agreement and that sort of thing. I'm just going to pause for a second. Sara, did you need anything to support screen sharing again? >> Jess: I think Sara got kicked off as well or she -- >> Janeen: Okay. So I am going to share my screen. Let me pull up my document. I'm not going to do it nearly as beautifully as Sara Sundeen, but we will make that adjustment. >> This is Lori and I blame the snow. I think the snow is causing issues. >> Janeen: It's also mercury retrograde. I just want to let everyone know this is not our fault. >> Lori: That's it. >> Janeen: And I am not the greatest at knowing where to do -- all right, you guys, I'm not good at finding the presenter mode. Where is it? I'm figuring it out. >> Okay. >> Janeen: I just need to move my tool bar for a second. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 32 >> Sara: I am back. >> Hi, Sara. Welcome. >> Sara: I can share. >> Janeen: Okay. I will stop sharing. Thank you so much. >> Sara: Sorry, you guys, I lost internet as well. Okay, so just give me a minute, I will start presenting, and keep talking, Janeen. >> Janeen: Okay. Well, I might break into song because it's just that kind of day. How do I quit screen sharing? Good night! There we go. Thank you. All right. So PBAs, we all love them. They are the most frequently purchased service on our contract. I anticipate that quite a bit of our feedback might be around rates. Just a reminder that that is outside the scope of this workgroup. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 33 We are focused on the definition, so if you give us feedback on the rates, we're going to scoot it on over to probably Miss Jacque Christopherson or someone on the executive leadership team because that's not something we can impact as a workgroup. VRS staff, you're going to have your opportunity to give feedback to peers. That means that the RAMs are going to be talking with their RAM representatives at upcoming regional meetings. During April and May Luke and Eric will be reaching out to all VRS counselors. There's going to be a form and a survey as well as some virtual discussion forums that will be offered, so look for those invites to come from your RAMs. And then VRS support staff, you have an MS form that Felicia Madsen has created. Christina Rocky is out on leave, so please reach out to Felicia via e-mail or phone if you have additional feedback you want to share. Next slide. Community partners, we are going to have three potential upcoming feedback sessions where you or any staff from your agency are welcome to attend and share their feedback on performance-based agreements. I will be sending out an e-mail via GovDelivery that has CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 34 these three sessions listed as well, so don't panic if you are grabbing the PDF out of the chat or that sort of thing. I will make sure everyone gets these registration links. Those are coming up Tuesday April 9 at 1:30 in the afternoon, Friday April 26 at 9:00 in the morning, and then Wednesday May 15 at 3:00 in the afternoon. We tried to offer a variety of times. So yeah, we hope to hear from all of you. Thank you. And then I believe I'm passing it off to Anne Paulson. Thank you. >> Anne: All right. Holy smokes. I only have a couple slides, so let's cross my fingers that we all get through this. So I think most people understand that all of our contracts are expiring 6/30/2024 and we're stepping into the renewal process. Most of us, by us I mean the specialists on the team, have completed our amendments with our CRPs, so our CRPs we're going to extend those contracts. Limited use vendors, most of our LUVs have been contacted and who is going to renew their contract, we've got lots of applications we're going through, CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 35 we're setting up the consultations. The goal this round is to be way ahead of that July 1 start date, so we should have most things executed waiting to go live on July 1. So knock on wood, cross your fingers, look to the sky. I think we're going to be doing it. I think most of our -- once again, most of the amendments, we're just extending that end day to 6/30/2027. We looked at some fee negotiation and we're going to be increasing budgets, all that fun stuff, and then limited use vendors the RFP is open, go ahead and apply. Get your stuff in. Sometimes there's -- I'll get a message and they'll be like, oh, I'm not quite sure what we're doing. And I'm like get your stuff in and we will get your consultation scheduled and we'll get everything moving. I think that's it for me. We did it. >> Sara: Thanks, Anne. This is Sara Sundeen, and I am back on line, so that's good. Just a couple of reminders and updates from our community partnership team. We have a couple of things coming up actually this week. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 36 So the first one is our community partner conversation, and our community partnerships team hosts monthly office hours called community partner conversations. So we strongly encourage any of our community partners to attend, come any month that it works. We host them on the first Wednesday of the month from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m., and there's a reoccurring Zoom link. What we usually have at these community partner conversations is a time for our team to provide you with any updates that we have and then really we want to leave time for questions and answers or any consults you might have. So strongly invite any of our community partners to come. It is not for VR staff. It's just for our community partners and just a time to connect with community partners and anything we might have for you. The next update we have is we also have a VRS learning connections, and this is jointly between our community partners, our internal VRS staff and SSB. And we try to bring three to four training sessions in for everyone. The next one is this Thursday April 4 from 11 to 12, and it is an understanding and supporting autistic CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 37 individuals on the job. So we hope that you'll come. We have a CRC credit ready for that. The session will be recorded. Registration for the event is in the PowerPoint, and accommodations for the session will include closed captioning and ASL interpreting. If you need other accommodations for Thursday, please contact our staff development department. So strongly encourage you to connect with us through the conversations and through our learning connections. So with that I'm going to turn it back to Janeen. >> Janeen: Thank you so much, Sara. Thank you to everyone for hanging in today during our technical issues. I give zero guarantees that we won't have at least three more situations, but we will see how it goes. So we are going to start off with questions and hopefully answers. Just a reminder please don't chat the cohosts or hosts with your question. Either submit them through the Microsoft office form. You should see a beautiful uniform pop up for the month of April, and that is your form to submit everything. Thank you. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 38 So hot seat first is going to be our exec team on the VRS spending authority update. The first question is, for Pre-ETS authorizations to be extended, is that only for this year or quarter? >> Lori: No. This is Lori, and that will be the way we do it going forward because each year we anticipate potentially running into this authorization limit, this budget limit, and so yeah, we're just going to make it a best practice that we extend those Pre-ETS authorizations to the following quarter, extend the end dates. Great question. >> Janeen: All right. Next one, what needs to be done to avoid an MS16? >> Lori: That's a big question. So an MS -- this is Lori. An MS16 is when services begin without having that authorization in place, and so it goes back really to that communication, that, you know, as a provider you want to ensure that there's an authorization in place with the right dates, the right services listed, and then on the VR end we get them entered, our VR techs enter those authorizations into Workforce One, so I don't know if anyone wants to add anything, but it really goes back to that communication. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 39 >> Chris: I'd like to add a few things. Thank you, Lori. As it relates to MS16s, we try very hard not to get MS16s. There are just things that happen at some times it just can't be prevented. However, there is a lot of scrutiny on state agencies including DEED and including DEED VRS around -- I mean they are purchasing violations, and there's a lot of scary language that exists in the information about like what happens when you violate state purchasing policy. And so we are working really hard to bring down the number of MS16s that we have each quarter. I just got a report from some of our field operation specialists around, hey, how many MS16s occurred in each region of the state, so we're collecting that now. How do you avoid MS16s? I want to say that for any provider that has a verbal agreement, like, hey, I know that the staff I talked to is going to encumber those funds for the services that we talked about, I really -- you have to see an authorization in hand, you have to see it. You have to see it electronically. You need to see it somehow that says, no, the funds are encumbered, I can provide the services. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 40 Without having that, you should not be providing services. And for our staff on the VR side, it's imperative that you are -- in advance of any meeting that you're having including the start of a performance-based agreement for placement, you need to have that authorization in place prior to the day that you're meeting with that provider and the participant. We need to -- and I know that RAMs are working with their teams on this, our FOSs will be supporting this, our regional directors of course. We need to get our MS16s down to as close to zero as we can. Jacque Christopherson, our fiscal director, submitted a report to our deputy commissioner how DEED VRS is going to decrease -- what was our plan, to decrease MS16s. So I don't want our staff being put in a place where they have to sign off on an MS16, and it really behooves the VRS staff that are wanting the services for their participant and the community partner not be getting services before they see an authorization. That's how we avoid MS16s. Thanks. >> Janeen: Thank you, Chris. I know your slide also was very emphatic on CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 41 communication, right? Like counselors or rehab reps communicating to their support staff, you know, the communication back and forth between the partners and VR staff, whoever is going to be authorizing that spending. So yeah, fantastic. Thank you. This is just kind of a -- I'm going to skip some of the questions that might be able to be answered on a local level including some behind-the-scenes things with buyers. What if a partner submits the invoice within 90 days and it gets lost at the VR office level? Does anyone want to speak to that? >> Chris: Yeah, I sure can. This is Chris, and I'll start, and if anybody else wants to add. If the invoice gets lost, that's on us. Okay. And if you as a provider are hearing from our staff on the VRS side that the invoice is lost, can you resend, and so we'll take that into account as we're considering the number of days that an invoice has been open without, you know, being paid or that an authorization is open. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 42 I would consider that a contested kind of like this is not the uncontested just free flowing situation. I do believe that it's absolutely imperative, providers, as soon as you complete that service or within that like, you know, two weeks or whatever your framework is, get those invoices in early. We don't want to have suddenly a lost invoice at day 89 or a contested challenge that you're just bringing to light or that we're just talking about at day 89. That's not good, so really as soon as you possibly can, get those invoices to your VRS office and the staff and get those moving forward so that if there are those issues that come up, they can be taken care of well in advance of the 90 days. >> Janeen: That's fantastic, Chris, yeah, and that's a fair point. Most I think of our partner agencies have at the most a monthly billing cycle, so being really thorough and making sure invoices are submitted within that thirty-day timeline rather than pushing it to the 90 really helps everyone in this process. VRS techs currently are canceling 90-day authorizations, and they have to reach out about canceling them, they have to reach out to the partner. Do they get to quit reaching out and just cancel them at CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 43 90 days? >> This is Chris again, and I'll start. The bottom line is is that when there is a -- any service that you -- that me as a consumer, that I have requested and I get a bill, that provider or that -- I shouldn't be asking the provider or the store to contact them to ask them to bill me. Okay. So I realize that we're in a fluid situation, we're partners, we help each other. But really where this is at now is that if you are not billing prior to the 90 days, that's three months. At the end -- and three months from the end of the authorization. I believe that what we want to do, we're still building some things here, and I'll be working with the regional directors, the FOSs, and the RAMs to determine those 90 days past due and what we're going to do about them. The bottom line is that if you submit an invoice after that time and it's uncontested, you're going to be getting notified and not by the VR tech. You're going to be getting a notification from VRS leadership that we are not going to be paying that invoice. So this is going to be a hard, tough lesson for our CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 44 community partners. We want to extend as much grace as possible, but three months after the end of an authorization I believe is a lot of grace. So, again, we wanted to message this to all of you. It is being recorded. We will share this. I know Janeen and others will share this with our community partners that aren't able to hear this today, and if you need to listen to it a couple of times. But this is what it's going to be going forward. >> Janeen: Thank you so much, Chris. I appreciate that. What if someone gets a job and the start date is very quick to start and they're going to need job coaching? If we aren't able to get in touch with the VRS counselor quickly, is there another way to communicate to get the job coaching authorized? And I'm actually going to start off the answer on this one if that's okay, Lori. On your referrals I would recommend to all of our partner staff your very best friend is the name that's listed under support staff or VR tech. That is a person you can also reach out to about hours. And they can communicate with the RAM or other CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 45 counselors in the office if it's on the employment plan, you know, it's something that still can happen quickly. Again our rehabilitation area managers, RAMs, are the supervisors of staff, so if you are running into any sort of difficulty getting in touch with a specific counselor within a short turnaround, please reach out to the RAM and the VR tech or support staff and they are going to be your best helpers in that situation. You know, worst case scenario if there's another counselor in the office, whatever, just try to blast out as many communications as possible. But typically if you can't get ahold of the counselor, and I recall this often from my role as a VR tech previously, if you got ahold of the tech, we can make things happen, or we can track down where that counselor is or message them. Some of them gave me their personal cell phone numbers much to their detriment, you know, etc., but we always got it figured out, so please do reach out to everyone. Does anyone have anything they want to share further on that? >> This is Lori, and I would say in those cases where it's like, oh, my goodness, they're starting tomorrow, you know, tomorrow is a Saturday, it's Friday, I would pick up the phone. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 46 Like don't rely on e-mail and think that it's going to get done because it's likely not. But if you pick up the horn, the old-fashioned phone and talk to first the counselor, the VR tech, the RAM, somebody, but you want to get that verbal like, yeah, we'll do it, and then verify that it actually got done. So yeah, good. And the RAMs are very -- sorry, Chris. The RAMs are very amenable as well to like dig in and help get it done. Chris. >> Chris: Yes, I just wanted to go back to lost invoices. I understand that every VRS team has a secure e-mail address, and if as a partner you are not connected to Workforce One and if you are, then send that invoice through Workforce One, but if you aren't, utilize that secure e-mail address, and then it will not be lost. And if you had that issue where, oh, it did get lost, then I think we would want to elevate and like know why that happened and on the VR side of things. But it's my understanding that there is that secure e-mail. We want those e-mails -- or those invoices going directly to that secure e-mail and not to other staff CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 47 within that office like a VR tech. It needs to go to that secure e-mail to have the best chance of -- you know, 100% chance of getting paid as opposed to sometimes things getting lost in the shuffle. Thanks. >> Janeen: All right, thanks a lot, Chris. That was one of our further questions about just a reminder that there is the secure e-mail for each team so great. Just make sure you're not just sending invoices to a counselor, they're supposed to either go to that secure e-mail or they should be uploaded directly into Workforce One if you have access. Okay. Should -- wait a minute, I have to back up a little bit. If community partners write final invoice on the invoice, how do VRS staff know it's not an invoice that was accidentally missed prior, you know, they don't want to cancel authorizations after receiving an invoice that says final but then there were some invoices that got missed. I think again, Chris, that probably ties back into the what happens if it got lost. Maybe our staff being concerned about, gosh, we don't want to close out funding that's actually needed because CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 48 that's sort of its own fiscal situation. But, again, if partners are frequently and on time with their invoices and hopefully, you know, our staff are reaching out and connecting too a little more frequently than waiting for a 90-day report, looking more at like our 30-day and 60-day reports. That might be a little helpful with that, right, Chris? >> Chris: Right. And I would also just say that if there is a pattern where you're having invoices going missing according to the VR team, these are individual cases that we will want to have our managers just brought in to help and I'm sure the CP specialists to come to a solution because we don't want it to keep happening. We want it to be as smoothly as possible. So that would be an individual, you know, pattern that we'd want to dive into. Thanks. >> Janeen: And that's a great point. If you're not sure who to reach out to, your CP liaison except for an urgent authorization, please don't reach out to us for that, we can't do anything, but -- although they will try. But for all these other questions or concerns if you're concerned that you have had missing invoices, etc., CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 49 You know, if you're not sure who to talk to or if it's at more than one office, please feel free to reach out to your contract liaison as well. We will hand it off to the right people to get it solved. Okay? All right. Next question. Please restate what we need to do by April 15. I'm not sure if that's coming from partner staff or our staff. >> This is Lori. So if you -- you know, if you have a bill right now and you're at 100 days and you're kind of going back and forth with VR or you're like, oh, geez, I have some that are like 85, 90 days, get them in now, you guys, the partners. You have until April 15 to get those in, get those cleaned because starting April 16 we will be closing out authorizations -- or invoices that are after 90 days. We won't be paying those. So it really is just shy of two weeks that you have to get those all cleared up, and then from that date forward at 91 days we will be closing them down. >> Chris: Yeah, and then for our VRS staff to know CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 50 especially our VR techs to know that we are going to be giving this grace period from today's date April 2 through April 15, tax day. The time for providers that are over the 90 days to get their invoices in to process for payment. And that's on the VR side. So we have both community partners responsibilities and then also VRS staff responsibilities, and it's after April 15 that if we receive an invoice that's past the 90 days beyond the end of that authorization is when we are not going to be paying those invoices. But it's April 16 that we'll be doing that. >> Janeen: Okay. Thank you. Can offices or VR staff send the authorization with the correct hours, not send a new authorization with the same hours and not just -- but update the authorization with the hours only that will be used? And so I think that's for extending the end date on them, and unfortunately we cannot edit the units on an authorization, so that would be a no on that. You're going to get the same authorization, just with a new end date. However, if you're tracking on your billing side, you know kind of how many hours you've billed for at your CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 51 agency and then also, you know, it's possible to ask like can you let me know like where the funding is left on this. That's always something you can double check if you lost track of your hours on something. Okay. So should VR techs still be reaching out to PT providers to see if they need hours for the next quarter for Pre-ETS? Should a VR tech reach out about unpaid balances on authorizations before the 90 days unpaid date? That's a yes. And should our service providers be tracking this on their end? Also a yes. But as far as reaching out about new hours for the next quarter, I'll let someone else answer that. >> Yeah, this is Chris, and I would just say I think there's more conversation we need to have around what our VR techs are providing information or asking our community partners about. So I want to strike a balance here, but again it needs to be on the community partner and our authorizing staff, I mean like the counselor and the VR tech to have those conversations as opposed to asking the VR tech to CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 52 reach out. So this was not something that we covered in our previous meetings, but the regional directors or RAMs and our field operation specialists and Lori, you know, and Jacque, I want to have more conversation about this about what is reasonable, but to me I really -- we really need our VR techs to be focused on doing the work of supporting participants and getting authorizations in place, and there's many activities that our VR techs do. And so I really need to do some work with internally our teams and our leaders within teams to know what is the best way going forward that our VR techs are going to bottom line support our participants. But what we really need is our VR counselors and our community partners connecting together very regularly about what the needs are per participant. If there happens to be a VR tech that's supporting a counselor and they're doing it that way, I'm not going to get in the middle of that at all. I want to support how teams work together. But we've got to strike a balance so that we have VR techs who are doing the work and not, you know, doing the work of three or four, you know, people. I think that's for a next CP forum. I don't know what those changes would be. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 53 If there's something that happens before the next CP forum, we would certainly be in contact with you community partners. We want -- we need our community partners. I don't want this to seem like, oh, well, VRS is step -- no. We want to work with you. We want to have better communication with you. And I think it's on a both and situation with our community partners and our VRS staff to have that close, close communication. So more -- I'll be sharing more information in a future communication or a CP forum about what that's going to look like. Thank you. >> Janeen: All right. Thanks a lot, Chris. There was a question about do buyers have to change existing PBAs lines 3 and 4 down to $1? Is that more of a FOS question or something we're trying to figure out internally? >> Lori: Yeah, you will go in and -- this is Lori. You'll go in and reduce milestone number 3 to $1, and you can start doing that today, tomorrow, you know, in the next week, go in and reduce those to $1. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 54 And then with milestone 4 or the E1MN, that's a little trickier because that one is granted -- or the provider receives that milestone at 120 days, and that's from the day that we -- they did kind of their intake meeting with the individual. And so that one, it's a bit trickier because you'd have to look back at what day the authorization was created in the first place, and because 120 days may be coming up very soon, so then I wouldn't reduce it, yeah, but milestone 3 definitely go in and reduce those to $1. >> Janeen: Okay. And then can Pre-ETS authorizations be extended beyond the end of the fiscal year June 30, or will there need to be a new authorization starting July 1? And I can say pretty confidently that they will -- this extension is through June 30 and then a new fiscal year starts. So hopefully some real accurate, you know, authorizing will roll out on July 1. Okay? Oh, my goodness, hang on a second. It's tech issue number one. My form blanked out on the responses. Let me go back in. Okay. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 55 This is a big one. Chunking out the 120 hours for work experience wages is a nightmare, please don't do this. Hours get missed, dates end up with gaps, providers end up paying wages with no reimbursement, multiple reports and authorizations need to be tracked in. And this is stressing this person out. I'm not sure what that means completely. So I'm just going to leave it here and if anyone wants to speak to it, please do. >> Chris: What I would say is I would really appreciate Lori and I especially and the regional directors, we would be very interested in knowing like what specifically the feelings are around this, and so if you could reach -- this person could reach out to any one of us and we would like to understand more and set up a short meeting to review that. Thanks. >> Janeen: Thank you very much. Okay. And just a reminder a comment came in. The FOSs, field operation specialists, are going to be meeting with VR techs, and they're available to answer a lot of those questions from buyers, so anything that's coming in, you know, you can also check in with your CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 56 field operation specialist. All right. How long should we be waiting on contested invoices? So if an invoice is for January and has been sent back to the provider for edits, how long do they have to get the edited invoice back to VRS? >> This is Lori. I would say we would really be looking at that 90 days still, and so if it's been sent and they received it and they're in the process of making edits, then providers, you really need to get that back to VRS within those 90 days so we can get it paid. >> Janeen: Okay. Sounds good, Lori. Great. All right. Do we need to send a copy of the authorizations where we extended the date to June 30 or the graduation date? The answer is yes. If you have altered that authorization in any way, shape or form, send a new copy out to our partners. That's essential. Okay? Would VRS consider authorizing more generally for Pre-ETS rather than a line item for the different CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 57 services? This could help with needing to authorize extra hours in order to cover potential conversations and services in multiple areas, and the reports can still separate out services so those hours are tracked. So they're saying kind of do away with all the separate types and titles, having it be more generalized as an invoice or an authorized service but then the reports can track the different activities. That seems like kind of a big shift, maybe not to be solved in this answer period, but if anyone wants to speak to that. >> This is Lori, and that does seem -- you're right, Janeen, that seems like a bigger topic, and I can bring that back to Heather Kosak, she is our director of transition, and Alyssa Klein and their team to see if that's feasible even. So thank you, we'll check into that. >> Janeen: And I got a side chat, just a friendly reminder. When I said please send out a copy of that new authorization, if a partner has Workforce One access, which again that is still in the rollout process, most of the state does not have it yet, so I'm speaking generally, but of course if our partners have Workforce CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 58 One access, they can view the new updated authorization within that. Thank you. Would you summarize what is the correct way to authorize for PBAs and E1MN PBAs effective immediately. >> This is Lori. So yes, so beginning today any new PBAs you will authorize -- on the VRS end will authorize the full amount for milestone 1, so I believe that's 1270, don't quote me on that. And then we'll authorize for milestone number 2 the full amount, and then for milestone 3, which is successful closure, we will -- we'll do -- I'm sorry -- a placeholder for $1 on that line, that third line. And then if it's an E1MN PBA, for the E1MN milestone we'll also authorize $1 as a placeholder, and that way they're on the authorization, and then when we get the invoice from a provider with the report, everything is in order, then we will -- the invoice will be for the full amount, not $1 obviously, so the full amount of milestone 3 and the full amount of milestone E1MN. So I hope that helps. So it will all be on one authorization, and it will have either three lines or four lines depending if it's E1MN. Thanks, Janeen. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 59 >> Janeen: Yeah, and just kind of timely to our discussion around OCSS, just a reminder that at the placement plan meeting time is when that milestone is encumbered, so partners who meet the definition and have it on their contract are allowed, we should be authorizing for that differential, and then they bill on that pretty quickly along with the original placement plan. So this new authorizing doesn't impact that at all. Thank you. All right. Lori and Chris McVey, I think that is it on PBA authorizing so congrats. You made it. Questions about the performance-based agreements contracted service review plan. Will there be placement holder language on the authorizations that provide reassurance that the $1 -- wow, this is still about authorizing -- that provides reassurance that the $1 will be increased to the proper amount upon getting the invoice? Will that be printed as a boilerplate? >> Lori: Not -- I know Sandy is on, Makayla. What we're doing behind the scenes at VRS is what's called a blanket, and so the money is there. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 60 We're just not encumbering it on the authorization, but you will absolutely be paid the full amount as long as the progress reports are all in and the milestones have been met. It's similar to what we do -- and VRS staff are very familiar with this. Partners, you may not be. But when we do tuition and books, we often use the dollar blanket and again that way we're not encumbering a bunch of tuition up front, but the money is there, so fear not, you will be paid, so good. >> Yeah, this is Dee, and I was going to reemphasize that blanket piece. So our staff are familiar with it, but again we're doing something new with those blankets on the PBA milestone 3 and using a blanket for those because that gives us more control over the amount of money that we can increase and decrease those blankets, so that's how we're managing it internally. >> Janeen: Thank you, Dee. I'd like to take a moment to be sad because all of the questions that came in about contracted service review workgroup are actually about authorizing, so I'm just going to keep reading them. But friendly reminder if you go back and answer question CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 61 number 1, I will go back and check if we get new questions in there, so you don't have to sneak it in under my contracted review services line. All right. Here's another question. Do we authorize PBAs and E1MN PBAs the same way after July 1, 2024? Which I think has been stated a couple times, yes, this is the new practice moving forward. Job hire and job retention will now be only listed at $1. That doesn't mean you're only getting paid $1 for partners. It's just a placeholder amount because of the high attrition rate that we experience with participants not completing a performance-based agreement. >> Chris: So just want to be clear that the milestone 3 at $1, that is for 90 days of employment, so it's after that that milestone 3 would be paid. Just wanted to confirm that. >> Janeen: Okay. So when we get an invoice, the VR tech will have the line increased to pay the invoice of the respective PBA and milestones? And on current PBAs should I be decreasing all unbilled CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 62 lines to $1 or just the third milestone? Again that might be a FOS question, a field operation specialist question if you're having questions, you know, specific. I think we've talked about it a couple times but does anyone want to add anything else? >> Lori: So, yeah, you'll decrease milestone number 3 which is that 90-day retention milestone to $1 and you can start that today, tomorrow, whenever, and then take a look at regarding milestone 4 because that one is 120-day milestone, the E1MN. It could be coming up this week. It could be not coming up for a long time yet. So kind of do your best estimate on that, we're not quite as worried about that one, but definitely milestone 3 we would like to see that reduced to $1, and then going forward any new PBAs you'll authorize milestone 3 successful placement 90 days, I should say that 90-day one, and then the E1MN any new ones you'll do those both for $1. Thanks, Janeen. >> Janeen: Fantastic. Can I invoice milestone 3 on April 14 with my present authorization? Sounds like that's a yes because -- CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 63 >> Chris: Absolutely. I mean once somebody reaches that 90 days that's when you can invoice. Whether -- there may be some circumstances where we may not bring that down to $1 because the counselor knows is aware that that person is reaching their 90 days. You know, but no matter what if it's still there or if it's down to $1, if you invoice the person reaches their 90 days in employment, you can invoice for that amount for that milestone 3 amount. >> Janeen: Perfect. And that ties into a question from our staff. Once the third milestone is met, that 90 days retention, then the amount is increased, you know, to pay that invoice. Won't we still have to send the -- to the partner the revised autho so they can see that money is there? And I would just say practically speaking your time is better spent just getting that invoice processed and paid. So partners, when you're invoicing for milestone 3, the person has met 90 days of job retention, you have submitted all of your monthly progress updates to that point, you submit the final one with all of that milestone 3 information filled out, you will get paid CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 64 that full amount. We don't I think need to send out a revised copy the final time, because we're paying that final milestone, we're closing out the authorization and it's fully paid. Because someone has been successful, which is our goal. It's pretty fantastic. This is a Workforce One question for our partners that have access. Just making sure that when they go to invoice within Workforce One that the full job retention amount and the Workforce One amount will be fillable in that invoicing section. So when partners are uploading invoices, they have to be able to put in I'm invoicing $1270 for milestone 3. Is that going to be available, fillable within Workforce One if the line is only at $1? And this might be a question I have to kick over to Laura Cheney and Jess Outhwaite with our Workforce One partner access and get back to you later on I'm thinking, because I'm getting some looks from Lori and Chris like, huh. So I'm guessing that means we will find out and make sure that that's in place. >> Lori: Yes. And bottom line is you -- and I know there's trust here, CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 65 but you will be getting your full amount. In fact, if we put it -- it just wouldn't even go through fiscal if we put it in at $1. You know what I mean? There's, I don't know, procedures in place that that won't happen. >> Janeen: Okay, cool, and we'll verify that. All right. Some new questions have popped in for question 1 again. Am I understanding correctly that VRS can only use the $1 placeholder blanket and increase it when it comes to PBA milestones 3 and 4 and postsecondary? They shouldn't be using it for other services such as job exploration, job coaching, work-based learning, work experience services, wages, etc. >> Chris: Correct, it's only for PBA and postsecondary. >> Lori: Yep. >> Janeen: Okay. And then please explain how to figure out how many hours we are at or -- okay, I can take this one. But yeah, please explain how we should figure out how many hours we are at for PBA milestone 4 prior to canceling it out. So it's not so much based on hours. It is 120 days that starts from the date of the CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 66 placement plan moving forward. So if I as a VR support staff were to go into a file and I see that we just had the placement plan last week and I do my math through June 30, I know nobody is billing for 120 days. It's not even possible, right? So I could reduce that line for now and get it down to $1 and then increase it as we near the 120 days. That clock can be slightly different based on if the participant went into a hold, etc., but I would say for purposes of folks, both our partner staff and VR staff trying to figure it out, just assume that it's a straight through placement plan, sign date to 120 calendar days after. Okay? All right. One more question came in. Oh, it's a question about authorizing that payment under my workgroup. All right. Once the third milestone is met, then the amount is increased. Okay. No, that's not necessary. All right. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 67 Thank you. We already answered that one. So questions about the timeline and process for contracts and amendments. And this is a specific question about actually open authorizations, so I will just pass that on to the appropriate on track liaison. Any questions about our other VRS updates, and these are all about authorizing. I'm so sorry, you guys, you answered every question with authorizing questions. And that's okay. I'm not -- I'm just teasing. It's fine. I apologize. Dee, Chris, and Lori, you've been on the hot seat the whole time. Like there are no other questions today. Hello, this is from a voc rehab counselor. We had canceled retention lines and 120-day service lines. Do we now go back and issue more for the $1 amount? Also we've been authorizing only the first two milestones. So on those do we go -- oh no, a VR tech. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 68 So on those do we go back and authorize again the dollar amounts? When these were done, it was noted to provider that the rest of the milestones were going to be issued in July. So maybe somebody got confused about -- >> Chris: Are confused about the question and it could be that -- I would really encourage that person to reach out to their manager about that and then the FOS may be of support to you with those questions. Yeah, I'm grateful for all these questions. I think they're really good. I think these are some pretty significant changes in some ways, but then once we get into a groove I think it will go really smoothly. So I would encourage that person to reach out directly first to their manager and then to their FOS. >> Janeen: And again, Chris, like I appreciate it because again there are no questions that are silly because maybe it's also highlighting for you and Dee and Jacque and Lori maybe some of the areas too where we want to make sure folks know exactly what to do and how to handle it, so that's great when we're messaging out to RAMs. For partners to move forward with services without an authorization in place, maybe due to miscommunication, CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 69 instead of an MS16 can we just not pay them for not doing due diligence? And I think that was answered earlier that we're going to avoid MS16s as much as possible. Chris, I don't know if you want to reiterate. >> Chris: Yeah, I would just say with just seconds remaining here we do not want a provider to provide services and not get paid for them. That's why even though I know it's -- you know, a lot of the services and the coordination just kind of happen with a snap of the finger, it's going to require both sides to just kind of slow it down a little bit. Providers, again, do not start services until you have an authorization in hand. If you don't, you can't provide the services. And VR techs, if for whatever reason -- or counselors, if for whatever reason that provider has gone out ahead of you doing that authorization, we're not going to be able to pay it. I don't want -- none of us, none of us wants this to happen. So it is going to be our VRS staff working to get authorizations in place and kind of that last minute kind of way that we can work sometimes when we know, oh, I forgot to do an authorization and I'm meeting with CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 70 this provider in 15 minutes. These are the things that are going to require people to slow it down a little bit, look at your week ahead of time into the next week, and say, okay, what meetings do I have, get those authorizations done. And these are things, RAMs, that I really want you -- and your regional directors, we really want you to be doing that kind of clinical supervision support of your staff and being able to think ahead and get those authorizations done. Because, again, we're just not going to be encumbering -- getting ourselves into places where we have a lot of MS16s. So I hope that helps. >> Janeen: It does, Chris. Thank you so much. And we are at time just a little bit over, but I just wanted to thank everyone again for the robust discussion, thank everyone that presented today and supported this. And again your patience. We've had some technical difficulties. We've had some silliness. Again, who knows why. Sometimes things go smoothly. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 71 Sometimes they go into the dumpster fire, but regardless I think we've gotten a lot of information out today. This PowerPoint, the recording, and the transcript will be sent out and updated to our community partner website as well, so please look for those within a business week I would assume we will have all those files and do a web update. And I would encourage anyone that submitted questions today that did not get answered or did not get answered to your satisfaction to please reach out to me directly providing your contact information so that we can follow up. And that is it for us today, so thank you to everyone and thank you to my lovely coworkers for their support. Lori. >> Lori: Yep, thank you all so much. It was so great to have you here, and it takes a village, and we are the village, so we've got this. We're going to just keep working closely and just value everyone in this partnership, so thank you all. Take care. >> Janeen: Great. >> Lori: Bye-bye. >> Janeen: Have a good day. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 72 [This text is being provided in a lightly edited draft format, and is the work product of the CART captioner. Any reproduction, publication, or other use of this CART file without the express written consent of the captioner is strictly prohibited. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility, and this lightly edited CART file may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. Due to the live nature of the event, some names and/or terms may be misspelled. This text may also contain phonetic attempts at sounds and words that were spoken and environmental sounds that occurred during the event.] CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT