June 9, 2016
Fiscal Year 2016-17 IPRS-State Funded Contract Information
Partners Behavioral Health Management (Partners) has been preparing Fiscal Year 2016-17 provider contracts for IPRS-State Funded services. This is a very challenging task, since the amount of IPRS-State funding has not changed in the last three fiscal years. However, we are continually faced with a growing demand for IPRS-State Funded services, while being dramatically constrained by funding from that source.
FY 2016-17 IPRS-State Funded Contracts
Due to current demands and funding limitations, FY 2016-17 IPRS-State Funded contracts will continue to have an annual funding cap. However, it is not likely that we will have additional funds to supplement providers who exhaust their IPRS-State funds mid-year. We encourage all providers to monitor their expenditures against their contract limits very closely in order to stay within their annual amount.
Contracting is currently underway. Partners determined the contract amounts for FY 2016-17 by reviewing the actual utilization of IPRS-State funded services as of March 31, 2016, then annualizing the year-to-date utilization. Your contract amount is set at either the annualized claim amount in Fiscal Year 2015-2016, or the same amount as your FY 2015-2016 IPRS-State Contract.
Moving Forward
We have been working with our provider community in looking for ways to maintain or improve the amount of IPRS-State funding. One way has been to encourage providers to retool their services to include Medicaid b(3) services, or other Medicaid services, to Medicaid-eligible consumers in lieu of certain state funded services.
We also encourage providers to work with the local Department of Social Services to enroll state funded consumers into the Medicaid program.
Partners has completed an extensive review of IPRS-State Funded Services and utilization over the past year. We will be working with our Provider Council early in the next fiscal year on the findings of this review. There are likely to be service areas that may need to be increased in FY 2017-2018, and others that may need to be reduced. We understand the need for provider planning and adjustment time, as any change inevitably impacts our provider community, and more importantly, our members and stakeholders. As we have tried to do in the past, we will be as transparent, communicative, and interactive as possible as we address these critical funding and service issues.
Please note that:
- You, the provider, are responsible to ensure that your agency is managing within the contract budgets. Please do not assume that additional funds will be available this year. Plan to stay within your original capped amount.
- Partners will not be accepting Funding Request Forms from providers since all expected Federal and State Funding has been fully allocated. Instead, we will review utilization data to determine if any re-allocation of contracted funds is possible and to ensure that all funds are utilized within the State Fiscal Year.
If you have additional questions related to this topic, please contact your Account Specialist.