15904. (Amended by Stats. 2007, Ch. 483, Sec. 52.)

(a) The State Department of Health Care Services shall issue a request for applications for funding the Health Care Coverage Initiative.

(b) The department shall allocate federal funds available to be claimed under the Health Care Coverage programs.

(c) The department shall select the Health Care Coverage programs that best meet the requirements and desired outcomes set forth in this part.

(d) The following elements shall be used in evaluating the proposals to make selections and to determine the allocation of the available funds:

(1) Enrollment processes, with an identification system to demonstrate enrollment of the uninsured into the program.

(2) Use of a medical record system, which may include electronic medical records.

(3) Designation of a medical home and assignment of eligible individuals to a primary care provider. For purposes of this paragraph, “medical home” means a single provider or facility that maintains all of an individual’s medical information. The primary care provider shall be a provider from which the enrollee can access primary and preventive care.

(4) Provision of a benefit package of services, including preventive and primary care services, and care management services designed to treat individuals with chronic health care conditions, mental illness, or who have high costs associated with their medical conditions, to improve their health and decrease future costs. Benefits may include case management services.

(5) Quality monitoring processes to assess the health care outcomes of individuals enrolled in the Health Care Coverage program.

(6) Promotion of the use of preventive services and early intervention.

(7) The provision of care to Medi-Cal beneficiaries by the applicant and the degree to which the applicant coordinates its care with services provided to Medi-Cal beneficiaries.

(8) Screening and enrollment processes for individuals who may qualify for enrollment into Medi-Cal, the Healthy Families Program, and the Access for Infants and Mothers Program prior to enrollment into the Health Care Coverage program.

(9) The ability to demonstrate how the Health Care Coverage program will promote the viability of the existing safety net health care system.

(10) Documentation to support the applicant’s ability to implement the Health Care Coverage program by September 1, 2007, and to use its allocation for each project year.

(11) Demonstration of how the program will provide consumer assistance to individuals applying to, participating in, or accessing services in the program.

(e) Entities eligible to apply for the initiative funds are a county, city and county, consortium of counties serving a region consisting of more than one county, or health authority. No entity shall submit more than one proposal.

(f) The department shall rank the program applications based on the criteria in this section. The amount of federal funding available to be claimed shall be allocated based upon the ranking of the applications. The department shall allocate the available federal funding to the highest ranking applications until all of the funding is allocated. The department shall select at least five programs, and no single program shall receive an allocation greater than 30 percent of the total federal allotment. The department is not required to fund the entire amount requested in a program application.

(h) Each county, city and county, consortium of counties, or health authority that is selected to receive funding shall provide the necessary local funds for the nonfederal share of the certified public expenditures, or intergovernmental transfers to the extent allowable under the demonstration project, required to claim the federal funds made available from the federal allotment. The certified public expenditures, or intergovernmental transfers to the extent allowable under the demonstration project, shall meet the requirements of the Special Terms and Conditions of California’s Section 1115 Medicaid demonstration project waiver number 11-W-00193/9 relating to hospital financing and health coverage expansion that became effective September 1, 2005.

(i) The federal allocation shall be available to the selected programs for the three-year period covering the Health Care Coverage program pursuant to the Special Terms and Conditions of California’s Section 1115 Medicaid demonstration project waiver number 11-W-00193/9 relating to hospital financing and health coverage expansion, unless the selected programs do not incur expenditures sufficient to claim the allocation of federal funds in the particular program year. Selected programs shall expend the funds according to an expenditure schedule determined by the department.

(j) The department may reallocate the available federal funds among selected programs or other program applicants that were previously not selected for funding, if necessary to meet federal requirements regarding the timing of expenditures, notwithstanding subdivision (f). If a selected program fails to substantially comply with the requirements of this article, the department may reallocate the available federal funds from that selected program to other selected programs or other program applications that previously were not selected for funding. If a selected program is unable to meet its spending targets, determined at the end of the second quarter of each program year, the department may reallocate funds to other selected programs or other program applications that previously were not selected for funding, to ensure that all available federal funds are claimed. Selected programs receiving reallocated funds must have the ability to make the certified public expenditures necessary to claim the reallocated federal funds.

(k) Federal funds provided for the initiative shall supplement, and not supplant, any county, city and county, health authority, state, or federal funds that would otherwise be spent on health care services in the county, city and county, consortium of counties, or a health authority region. Federal funds allocated under the initiative shall reimburse the selected county, city and county, consortium of counties, or health authority for the benefits and services provided under subdivision (d) of Section 15904. Administrative costs associated with the development and management of the initiative shall not be paid from the Health Care Coverage program allocation, and any allocations for administrative funds shall be in addition to the allocations made for the initiative.