SB1821eng 99TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

SB1821 Engrossed LRB099 10143 KTG 30366 b

AN ACT concerning public aid.

Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly:

Section 5. The Illinois Public Aid Code is amended by changing Section 11-5.4 as follows:

(305 ILCS 5/11-5.4)

Sec. 11-5.4. Expedited long-term care eligibility determination and enrollment.

(a) An expedited long-term care eligibility determination and enrollment system shall be established to reduce long-term care determinations to 90 days or fewer by July 1, 2014 and streamline the long-term care enrollment process. Establishment of the system shall be a joint venture of the Department of Human Services and Healthcare and Family Services and the Department on Aging. The Governor shall name a lead agency no later than 30 days after the effective date of this amendatory Act of the 98th General Assembly to assume responsibility for the full implementation of the establishment and maintenance of the system. Project outcomes shall include an enhanced eligibility determination tracking system accessible to providers and a centralized application review and eligibility determination with all applicants reviewed within 90 days of receipt by the State of a complete application. If the Department of Healthcare and Family Services' Office of the Inspector General determines that there is a likelihood that a non-allowable transfer of assets has occurred, and the facility in which the applicant resides is notified, an extension of up to 90 days shall be permissible. On or before December 31, 2015, a streamlined application and enrollment process shall be put in place based on the following principles:

(1) Minimize the burden on applicants by collecting only the data necessary to determine eligibility for medical services, long-term care services, and spousal impoverishment offset.

(2) Integrate online data sources to simplify the application process by reducing the amount of information needed to be entered and to expedite eligibility verification.

(3) Provide online prompts to alert the applicant that information is missing or not complete.

(b) The Department shall, on or before July 1, 2014, assess the feasibility of incorporating all information needed to determine eligibility for long-term care services, including asset transfer and spousal impoverishment financials, into the State's integrated eligibility system identifying all resources needed and reasonable timeframes for achieving the specified integration.

(c) The lead agency shall file interim reports with the Chairs and Minority Spokespersons of the House and Senate Human Services Committees no later than September 1, 2013 and on February 1, 2014. The Department of Healthcare and Family Services shall include in the annual Medicaid report for State Fiscal Year 2014 and every fiscal year thereafter information concerning implementation of the provisions of this Section.

(d) No later than August 1, 2014, the Auditor General shall report to the General Assembly concerning the extent to which the timeframes specified in this Section have been met and the extent to which State staffing levels are adequate to meet the requirements of this Section.

(e) The Department of Healthcare and Family Services, the Department of Human Services, and the Department on Aging shall take the following steps to achieve federally established timeframes for eligibility determinations for Medicaid and long-term care benefits and shall work toward the federal goal of real time determinations:

(1) The Departments shall review, in collaboration with representatives of affected providers, all forms and procedures currently in use, federal guidelines either suggested or mandated, and staff deployment by September 30, 2014 to identify additional measures that can improve long-term care eligibility processing and make adjustments where possible.

(2) No later than June 30, 2014, the Department of Healthcare and Family Services shall issue vouchers for advance payments not to exceed $50,000,000 to nursing facilities with significant outstanding Medicaid liability associated with services provided to residents with Medicaid applications pending and residents facing the greatest delays. Each facility with an advance payment shall state in writing whether its own recoupment schedule will be in 3 or 6 equal monthly installments, as long as all advances are recouped by June 30, 2015.

(3) The Department of Healthcare and Family Services' Office of Inspector General and the Department of Human Services shall immediately forgo resource review and review of transfers during the relevant look-back period for applications that were submitted prior to September 1, 2013. An applicant who applied prior to September 1, 2013, who was denied for failure to cooperate in providing required information, and whose application was incorrectly reviewed under the wrong look-back period rules may request review and correction of the denial based on this subsection. If found eligible upon review, such applicants shall be retroactively enrolled.

(4) As soon as practicable, the Department of Healthcare and Family Services shall implement policies and promulgate rules to simplify financial eligibility verification in the following instances: (A) for applicants or recipients who are receiving Supplemental Security Income payments or who had been receiving such payments at the time they were admitted to a nursing facility and (B) for applicants or recipients with verified income at or below 100% of the federal poverty level when the declared value of their countable resources is no greater than the allowable amounts pursuant to Section 5-2 of this Code for classes of eligible persons for whom a resource limit applies. Such simplified verification policies shall apply to community cases as well as long-term care cases.

(5) As soon as practicable, but not later than July 1, 2014, the Department of Healthcare and Family Services and the Department of Human Services shall jointly begin a special enrollment project by using simplified eligibility verification policies and by redeploying caseworkers trained to handle long-term care cases to prioritize those cases, until the backlog is eliminated and processing time is within 90 days. This project shall apply to applications for long-term care received by the State on or before May 15, 2014.

(6) As soon as practicable, but not later than September 1, 2014, the Department on Aging shall make available to long-term care facilities and community providers upon request, through an electronic method, the information contained within the Interagency Certification of Screening Results completed by the pre-screener, in a form and manner acceptable to the Department of Human Services.

(7) Effective 30 days after the completion of 3 regionally based trainings, nursing facilities shall submit all applications for medical assistance online via the Application for Benefits Eligibility (ABE) website. This requirement shall extend to scanning and uploading with the online application any required additional forms such as the Long Term Care Facility Notification and the Additional Financial Information for Long Term Care Applicants as well as scanned copies of any supporting documentation. Long-term care facility admission documents must be submitted as required in Section 5-5 of this Code. No local Department of Human Services office shall refuse to accept an electronically filed application.

(8) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Code, the Department of Human Services and the Department of Healthcare and Family Services' Office of the Inspector General shall, upon request, allow an applicant additional time to submit information and documents needed as part of a review of available resources or resources transferred during the look-back period. The initial extension shall not exceed 30 days. A second extension of 30 days may be granted upon request. Any request for information issued by the State to an applicant shall include the following: an explanation of the information required and the date by which the information must be submitted; a statement that failure to respond in a timely manner can result in denial of the application; a statement that the applicant or the facility in the name of the applicant may seek an extension; and the name and contact information of a caseworker in case of questions. Any such request for information shall also be sent to the facility. In deciding whether to grant an extension, the Department of Human Services or the Department of Healthcare and Family Services' Office of the Inspector General shall take into account what is in the best interest of the applicant. The time limits for processing an application shall be tolled during the period of any extension granted under this subsection.

(9) The Department of Human Services and the Department of Healthcare and Family Services must jointly compile data on pending applications and post a monthly report on each Department's website for the purposes of monitoring long-term care eligibility processing. The report must specify the number of applications pending long-term care eligibility determination and admission in the following categories:

(A) Length of time application is pending - 0 to 90 days, 91 days to 180 days, 181 days to 12 months, over 12 months to 18 months, over 18 months to 24 months, and over 24 months.

(B) Percentage of applications pending in the Department of Human Services' Family Community Resource Centers, in the Department of Human Services' long-term care hubs, with the Department of Healthcare and Family Services' Office of Inspector General, and those applications which are being tolled due to requests for extension of time for additional information.

(C) Status of pending applications.

(f) An applicant for long-term care services under the medical assistance program whose application remains open at least 15 days past the federally established guideline for processing applications shall be entitled to a temporary medical assistance card which shall be issued upon the applicant's request. The Department of Healthcare and Family Services shall immediately add the person to the facility's roster for payment and notify the managed care organization of the resident's change in payment status, if the resident is enrolled in a managed care organization.

(Source: P.A. 98-104, eff. 7-22-13; 98-651, eff. 6-16-14.)

Section 99. Effective date. This Act takes effect upon becoming law.