To:  SPOE Directors, Service Coordinators, DMH, Consultants, First Steps Team

From:  Joyce Jackman, Coordinator Early Intervention Services

Subject:  Process for Suspending Service Authorizations for non-payment of Family Fees

Date:  January 25, 2007

The following procedure will apply to the suspension of service authorizations for children with Family Cost Participation (FCP) payments 90 days or greater in arrears.  

On January 29^th the Central Finance Office (CFO) will complete the February FCP invoice processing for all applicable families in First Steps.  The “Cost Participation Aging List” located on each service coordinator’s home page in Web-SPOE will reflect the February invoice information for each assigned child on January 30^th.  Service coordinators are expected to suspend all service authorizations except for service coordination and evaluation or assessment for every child with an FCP aging designation of 90 days or greater.  This action must be taken as soon as possible between January 30^th and February 1^st.  

The Division has attempted to give all families as much additional time as possible to bring their FCP account current during this first 90-day period of Family Cost Participation.  Thanks to the work of service coordinators in contacting families about the importance of paying their participation fees, we believe that the actual number of children whose services will be suspended is a very small percentage of First Steps participants.  Many of the families in this group have children who will be aging out of the program within the next couple of months.

From this point on, service coordinators are expected to complete this process at the end of each month.  After much discussion with the CFO, it was decided that the timeliest point in a month to suspend services was within two (2) business days of the 27^th of each month.  The 27^th is the designated date on which the CFO calculates FCP invoices for the next month.  By the second business day following the 27^th, the information will be viewable to service coordinators in the Web-SPOE system.  Service coordinators then have three business days to complete the necessary action to suspend service authorizations.