In May, the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) brought forward a proposal that would allow beneficiaries who are unable to update their authorized representative designation in the Medi-Cal eligibility system to designate another individual, or an “enrollment assistant,” to make enrollment decisions on their behalf.
Over the past few months, DHCS has shared the details of this proposal with stakeholders and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). We have received positive feedback, helpful comments, and suggestions on improving the process and strengthening safeguards for beneficiaries. DHCS has continued to put the pieces in place to implement this change – ensuring that screening questions used by Health Care Options (HCO) are clear, and HCO staff are trained and prepared to respond to beneficiary questions. We’re excited to report that this work is now complete and that enrollment assistants are able to call HCO and make enrollment decisions.
We know this is an important issue to some beneficiaries. As you know, the legal and technical complexities — as well as concerns about protecting beneficiaries — made it difficult to tackle. But as we have said in the past, we are committed to working with all of you to find ways to meet our beneficiaries’ needs, and our work to design and implement the enrollment assistant process is part of that effort. We hope to continue working with all of you and other stakeholders to find areas where we can make our programs work better.
For more information on the enrollment assistant process, please refer to the Enrollment Assistant fact sheet. If you have any questions about the process or the fact sheet, please let us know at info@calduals.org.