MHLA Newsletter – March 2022

MHLA Community Partner Connection Newsletter

Community Partners,

Happy Spring to you all. With just one month until the Older Adult Expansion takes effect, we are working to ensure a smooth transition for our participants aged 50 and older. We plan to send you a list of your 50+ participants, along with the Medi-Cal status for each one, in early April. Please continue encouraging them to sign up for Medi-Cal. And as a reminder, you will need to guide them through the Health Care Options process to help them stay with your clinic.  We will provide more details on specialty care as they become available.

We also wanted to provide a few program updates and changes:

• The MHLA Mental Health Prevention Services will become voluntary in Fiscal Year 22-23. Over the past nearly two years, many CPs have successfully provided prevention services to their participants. However, the data show that the project has not always worked as intended. That, along with feedback from CPs, has prompted DMH and DHS to conclude that it makes more sense for the project to be voluntary moving forward. We will send you an email asking whether or not you want to continue the project for FY 22-23 and describing next steps with the contract amendment, finance, and more.
• As we shared with you earlier, Alluma will be sunsetting the One-e-App enrollment and eligibility system. The organization just announced that it will not be replacing the system as planned.  We are exploring with our IT department options for how to proceed after One-e-App ends, likely in early 2023. We will engage you all in the process as it moves forward.
• We will be holding a webinar entitled “Annual Clinical Audits: Guidance for Improved Outcomes on the Medical Record Review” in April. The webinar, for audit leads and providers, will be on Thursday, April 14 from 11 a.m. – 12 p.m. The nurse auditors will describe objectives of the Medical Record Review, offer tips on improving audit performance and review frequent deficiencies. Click here to join the meeting or call in +1 323-776-6996 Code: 478524505#
• One quick reminder on DHS Central Pharmacy: It is a mail order pharmacy and participants should not be directed downtown to pick up medications.

Finally, our longtime colleague, Ray Plaza, is retiring this month, after 32+ years working for LA County. You all know him well as a MHLA program advocate since the very first days of My Health LA. We will miss him very much and know you all will too. Read more about his career below and join us in wishing him the very best!  —- Anna Gorman, COO, Community Programs