Public participation

The Health Care Administration of the Department of Human Services seeks public comment on the draft Blueprint for the Basic Health Program (MinnesotaCare) that would be effective January 1, 2020. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid has updated the template for the Blueprint for 2020 and subsequent years to remove the list of standard health plans serving BHP enrollees. We are not proposing any policy changes for the BHP.

Please note that we are posting the draft Blueprint as two separate documents because of formatting issues. 

• The first document is the full draft of the Blueprint, but page 16 has been left blank. (Basic Health Program Blueprint (PDF))
• The second document is the updated version of the same page. (Section 5: Standard Health Plan Contracting (PDF))

Please submit comments to Mark.Siegel@state.mn.us no later than 4 p.m. Central Time, on Tuesday, November 12, 2019.

The Disabilities Services Division of DHS seeks new members for the Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Interventions (EIDBI) Advisory Group. 

The advisory group’s purpose is to advise DHS about the ongoing development and implementation of the EIDBI benefit, a Medicaid health benefit for people under age 21 with a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or related conditions. 

Related conditions include, but are not limited to, Asperger’s Syndrome, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, Rett Syndrome, and Pervasive Developmental Disorder—Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS). 

The term of office is two years, and the new term begins in January 2020. Meetings are held quarterly. 

There are openings for members in the following categories: 

• Adult with a diagnosis of ASD or a related condition
• Parent/unpaid caregiver of a person under age 21 with a diagnosis of ASD or a related condition
• Licensed professional (such as a psychologist, nurse, physician, social worker, special education teacher, speech therapist or occupational therapist) with professional experience directly serving people under 21 with a diagnosis of ASD and related conditions.
• Developmental disabilities (DD) or Behavioral professional with direct experience serving people under age 21 with a diagnosis of ASD and related conditions.
• Academic whose field (such as medicine, psychology, social work, etc.) and professional experience directly relates to ASD or related conditions.
• Advocate with paid or volunteer experience with an organization that directly serves people under age 21 with ASD and related conditions.

Interested people should apply on the Secretary of State’s Boards and Commissions website for open positions.

Applicants who apply by Oct. 31 will receive first consideration for the current vacancies.

DHS is seeking public comment through Sunday, June 9, 2019, on the second batch of evidentiary packages written for home and community-based settings (HCBS) across the state. 

The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) requires states to submit evidentiary packages for settings that CMS presumes are not home and community-based. On March 22, 2019, CMS issued guidance describing the new heightened-scrutiny process for prong 1 and 2 settings (PDF). According to the guidance, CMS will randomly select prong 1 and 2 settings to undergo the heightened-scrutiny process using a list provided by the state. DHS will submit two batches of prong 1 and 2 settings to CMS to go through their random sample process.

See the full announcement for more details, instructions for submitting comments and contact information.

Federal law requires states to monitor and report trends in the numbers of people who receive cash assistance through the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program. Minnesota uses TANF money to fund the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP).

Federal law requires states’ TANF and related federal programs to meet a 50 percent work participation rate. The "work participation rate" (WPR) measures the proportion of recipients who take part in federally defined work activities for a sufficient number of hours each week. The 50 percent rate may be adjusted by historic reductions in caseload for reasons other than eligibility changes.  This is called a caseload reduction credit. 

To determine the caseload reduction credit, a state must calculate the percentage change in the number of families served in the most recent federal fiscal year compared to a historical base year of 2005. This percentage change must then be adjusted to take into account any policy changes implemented after 2005. 

Minnesota’s caseload reduction credit calculations based on 2018 data are as follows: 

• The average monthly number of families receiving TANF and related federal program assistance was 17,649 in 2018. This is a 45.3 percent decrease from the historical base year of 2005.  
• Most of this decrease (30.3 percent) can be explained by funding changes that made families designated to receive Family Stabilization Services and families with two parents ineligible to receive TANF funding.  Instead, these families must be funded with state funds.  
• Other policy changes that increased the number of families eligible to receive TANF and related benefits in 2018 include changes in how Supplemental Security Income affects a family’s cash assistance, higher asset limit and higher exemption levels for vehicles counted in determining a family’s eligibility for cash assistance, changes in rules around child support assignment and child support disregard, changes in earned income disregard, and implementation of MFIP Housing Assistance Grant. Together these changes are estimated to result in 17.4 percent more families receiving TANF and related federal program assistance relative to the base year of 2005.   
• In January 2015, the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians implemented its own TANF program and this resulted in 2.1 fewer families eligible to receive Minnesota TANF and related federal program assistance to the base year of 2005. The Northstar Care for Children program implemented in January 2015 consolidates Foster Care (FC), Adoption Assistance (AA), and Relative Custody Assistance (RCA) into one program. Children who would have been in RCA and are now in the kinship assistance component of Northstar are no longer eligible for TANF and related federal benefits. This change is estimated to result in 3.2 percent fewer families eligible to receive TANF and related federal program assistance relative to the base year of 2005.

Taking these policy changes into account, the estimated caseload reduction credit is 45.3 percent - (30.3 percent -17.4 percent + 2.1 percent + 3.2 percent) = 27.1 percent. This credit will be used to reduce the “target” work participation rate for Minnesota next year (federal fiscal year 2019). 

Federal rule also allows a state to further reduce the target work participation rate by claiming more than the minimum required state funds for the TANF program. These funds are referred to as "excess Maintenance of Effort (MOE)." The working family tax credit and other qualified expenditures have the capacity to provide excess MOE for this purpose. The number of cases that can be served with Excess MOE, as determined by average annual spending on TANF assistance cases, can be claimed as further caseload reduction. Minnesota will claim excess MOE in order to increase the caseload reduction credit. 

Citizens are invited to submit any comments on the above methodology to the DHS Office of Management and Budget by email to: dhs.reportsandforecasts@state.mn.us. Or by regular mail to this address:

Minnesota Department of Human Services 
Reports and Forecasts Division 
PO Box 64996 
St. Paul, MN 55164-0996

Under federal law, a state can make changes to its Medicaid program through certain waiver authorities to test new ways of delivering and paying for health services. A state can also amend its Medicaid state plan. The plan is an agreement between the state and federal government about how the state will administer the Medicaid program. 

Read more about Minnesota’s Medicaid waiver requests and Medicaid state plan amendments. 

Many advisory committees provide expertise and input on a regular basis to help DHS create and implement program changes. Most committees are comprised of members from outside DHS. A complete list of DHS advisory committees is online.

DHS welcomes volunteer help on an ongoing basis at the Forensic Mental Health Program in St. Peter.