Transcript: All VR Call
March 10, 2015
All State Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) Agency Call
3 – 4 p.m. EST
The OSM provides transcripts in a rough draft format created via Live Captioning which was performed to facilitate Communication Accessibility. These transcripts are not verbatim records of training sessions, webinars or conference calls.
Operator:Ladies and gentlemen, thankyou for standing by. Welcome
to the national vocationalrehabilitation conference call.During the presentation allparticipants will be in listenonly mode. Afterwards we willconduct a question and answersession. At that time if youhave a question please pressthe 1 followed by the 4 on yourtelephone. If at any timeduring the conference you needto reach an operator, pleasepress the star followed by thezero. As a reminder thisconference is being recorded
Tuesday, March the 10th, 2015.I would like to call theconference over to Mr. NateArnold. Please go ahead, sir.
Nate Arnold: Thank you, operator. Goodafternoon, everybody. Thankyou for joining us. Those ofyou that don't have a copy ofthe agenda today in front of youor aren't looking at it, I’mgoing to do a quick update onCost Reimbursement then talk alittle bit about SVR electronicfiles. I think the feature oftoday's call is the TicketPortal demonstration which I know you are all lookingforward to. I can give you alla few seconds to get popcornand candy if you need it atthis point, but I know that's
the main thing so we won't holdup too much trying to get to
that.
In terms of the Cost Reimbursement update, lastmonth we paid out just about 12million in Cost Reimbursementclaims. That puts us almostexactly 11 million where wewere last year at this samepoint in time. We are stillworking some October claims butgenerally speaking if you haveany claims that you show as
still having not been acted forthat were September or before,
then feel free to either shootan email into the VR help deskor if it's a list, fax it tothe VR team. Before I get aquestion to that effect, thefax number is 410-366-3210.We'll check on any cases thatmay have disappeared for you.
Desiree Fitzgerald: Before we move on with theagenda I wanted to make sure
you are aware of twocommunications that Maximussent you all recently. Therewas a GovDelivery message thatcame out on last Friday and itwas the title was about theunavailability of the
QuarterlyBeneficiary Earnings Report andthat that is going to lead toexpanded ePay. We are goingto have to make that file
unavailable for the future,we're not sure how long, but we
will let you know as time goeson where we stand with that.
But we need to be able tofulfill some requirementsincluding a new agreement withOCSE and some privacy anddisclosure requirements but inthe meantime we are happy toannounce that we are going tomake e pay available across theboard for those of you who areVRENs that would actuallymean that you would get yourpayments electronically -- you have an e pay file soyou are getting your paymentselectronically so you are in agood position, but theseelectronic payments would
affect milestone and outcomepayments.
The other change for CostReimbursement, which is ofgreat interest to everybodyhere, we are going to have amodified service. We realizethat this is important to youand while we are not able tocontinue with the current QBER,we want you to be able torequest payments so we aregoing to notify you of those
individuals who have 9 monthsof SGA based on the recordsthat we have so that you willat least be able to continue to
request payment base order thatdata. We understand that someof you are using that datadifferently but that's the best
that we can do right now. Wethink that that would do us all
a great service because youwould still be able to file for
Cost Reimbursement based on theinformation we provide you.
The other communication thatcame out probably came out as
you were signing on or justbefore you left for this call,there's a message from DavidWeaver and it's about the newTicket Portal. And it's just,he is wanting to reach out toyou all and make sure thateveryone is aware that we'redrawing closer to time and thatthis is something that we areexcited to share with you alland so he's outlining someinformation in there about thePortal and there's somereminders about the things that
you may already be aware ofconcerning the requirements.
But David is really happy forthe progress that we are making
and he's looking forward toyour partnership and joiningand using the new Portal. So I just wanted to make sure youwere aware of those twocommunications.
Nate Arnold:Thank you, Desiree. Looking at the chat linebriefly, well, Cindy Kingdoesn't think I’m going toactually answer any of those
faxes that you get, but Cindy,I understand the request yousent in was quite lengthy,apparently about 200 cases. Soit is still being worked on,hopefully we'll have answers toyou very shortly on all ofthose. I encourage all of younot to let them build up quiteto that extent. Obviously ifit's not as many cases we canturn it around quicker. Whenit's a real big list rather
than get a bunch of peopleworking on it, it tends to take
one person a lot longer and itcan take a while to get back to
you given all the stuff that'sgoing on in here right now.
At this point if we're goingto talk about In-use SVRelectronic files. Katie, areyou on the line?
Katie Striebinger:Hello, everyone, my name isKatie and I work for Nate and I
want to give you an update onthe in use electronic files andhow it's going to work when weswitch over to the new Portal.The first thing I want tostress is you are not going to
make any changes to your in usefiles that you send us or the
files we send back in response,letting you know whether or not
the file has been put in use.So I hope to alleviate thoseconcerns that you were going tohave to make any programmingchanges.
We are, however, going to addan option where on the file we
send back to you we're going tohave extra information at the
end of the file that will havea little bit more specificinformation for why anassignment or unassignmentdidn't go through. Right nowthe current codes you get arepretty broad and they do go -
they do not go into as muchdetail as we will be able toprovide you in the future. Ifyou are interested in receivingthe extra information at theend of the file then you willhave to make a programmingchange but I wanted to stressthis is optional and in thefuture if this is something youwould like, we can work withyou to make sure you have testfiles and make sure this is
working for you before you makethis change.
At this time in order to usethe new Portal and to submitand use SVR electronic filesyou will not have to make anyprogramming changes. We willalso have guides to come outgiving you information aboutthe new information and whatit's going to mean and you cansee whether or not it'ssomething you want to use. Andwe will have a complete guideto what it's going to mean foryou and the error code. So I hope to…some concerns
there, we are trying to makethe transition as easy aspossible, we didn't want tohave to make programmingchanges and if you do we hopeit will be worth theinformation we are going to
attach at the end. And I willsend it back to Nate.
Nate Arnold: Thank you Katie. Des, do you have anything toadd to that?
Desiree Fitzgerald: No.
Nate Arnold:We're ready then for theTicket Portal demonstration.
Michelle, I’m going to turnit over to you.
Michelle Laisure: Thank you, Nate, and thankyou for that update. We havegotten some inquiries and goodto hear we are continue to gogrow on the Cost Reimbursementside. That's all good news.
Yes, as part of the messagefrom David Weaver we are
excited about the new prospectsof the new Ticket Portal will
provide to our serviceproviders. So at this point weare going to go to a PowerPointdemonstration and our speakerthis afternoon is Adelle Barrwith Program Integrity. So I’mgoing to turn it over to Adelle.
Adelle Barr:Thank you very much,Michelle. As you mentioned,yes, my name is Adelle Barr andI am with the Program IntegrityDepartment and I thank everyonefor joining us today as we
explore the new Ticket Portal.We have designed thispresentation in an effort tosimulate the experience you
will have once you are able toaccess the Ticket Portal. So
we will navigate through thesystem by clicking on links so
again just a reminder, it's asimulation of what you will
experience.So first we will get to themain menu of the Ticket Portal.Let's go ahead and review whatyou will find here.
The assignment list sectionallows you to view a list ofthe beneficiaries currently orformerly assigned In-use SVR,
to the State VR agency. Thepayments section allows you to
review payments already made toyour VR the assign and
unassign beneficiaries sectionwill allow you to check the
assignability of thebeneficiary by Social Securitynumber, assign and unassignTickets, upload a file to check
assignability or processassignments or unassignments
for multiple beneficiaries andcheck the status of the
uploaded files and download theresponse when ready.
The “About your EN or SVR” section allows you to download
a PDF that displays directoryinformation about your State VR
agency. Finally, the casenotes section allows you tosearch for case notes youentered for a beneficiary.And if you make note there'salso a site map on your screenat the bottom left-hand corner.This displays the outline ofthe Ticket Portal application
and the screens associated witheach action. To the right of
the site map is the bottom ofthe screen is “My EN SVR
capabilities” link whichdisplays the action your StateVR agency can perform or accessusing the Ticket Portal as wellas any restrictions SocialSecurity has set for yourparticular State VR agency.
And to the right of my EN/SVRcapabilities is my own rights
and capabilities. Now, thiswill display the actions youcan perform or access using theTicket Portal. And to theright of my own rights andcapabilities is links whichdisplays links to useful websites.Next to links is a referencetable link which provides
access to information likedenial reason codes, SGA andtrial work levels, and to getpayment amounts. This will bea pop-up window that you canreference as you are actuallyworking within the TicketPortal. The announcements linkat the bottom right-hand cornerof the screen will allow you tosee the announcements at anytime. And finally from thisscreen there is a sign-outbutton in the upper left-handcorner. It is important thatyou do sign out by clicking thesign-out button instead of
closing your web browser. Andbe careful of using the back
button on your web browserbecause it will actually log
you out of the Ticket Portaland you will have to sign back
in.
Okay, we will now look intoassigning a new Ticket. The
first step is to determine ifthe Ticket is eligible. Andduring your initial interviewwith the beneficiary you candetermine if his or her Tickethas been assigned by going tothe check assignability by SSN link.The individual state and use history screen willdisplay. You must enter aSocial Security Number to
review the Ticket status andTicket use history. Enter theSocial Security Number andselect search.
Now, the screen will displaythe information for the Ticketstatus and Ticket use historybased on that SSN in thisexample we will assume that thebeneficiary's Ticket has notbeen assigned. And since thebeneficiary does not have anopen VR case, you can completeand sign the individualizedplan for employment. In alater release before April willallow additional
functionalities to open a VRcase for single beneficiaries
will be included here.Let's assume that we are aState VR agency where we do nothave to submit IPEs but have
them stored in our office.With this being the case, aState VR agency would be ableto open a VR case. From thisscreen the State VR agencywould click the open a VR casebutton.
The State VR would input thebeneficiary by entering thedate and clicking submit. Ifyou want to submit a file withmultiple beneficiaries foropening a VR case, you will beallowed to upload the filefollowing a standard format andwe will circulate thespecifications of the fileformat later to all the serviceproviders.When uploading such a file,depending on the number of beneficiaries and the load onthe system, you may have tocome back at a later time tosee the results of the
submission.
Now you have the fileprocessing status of uploadscreen that displays and thisis a display screen. This willdisplay the processing statusof uploads for the State VRagency. You can also downloadthe processed files for youruse and the values in thefollowing cal ums can beselected and a pop-updescription box will display.File types, processing statusand downloaded. We will nowselect the main menu button toreturn to the main menu.
Assuming that the fileuploaded you can check the listof beneficiaries currentlyassigned to me to make sure the
Ticket for the beneficiary wasassigned. The list of
beneficiaries currentlyassigned to me screen displays
a list of beneficiariescurrently assigned to yourState VR agency and you can usesearch filters such asassignment date ranges, eitherby using the calendar icon ortyping it in or the name tonarrow the search results.
We have actually blurred outsome of the beneficiaries'names but will click on theactions link circled in rednext to one of the
beneficiary's information.What this does advances to themore action screen and willtake you to a list of actionsyou can perform for thisbeneficiary. Please note thatthis is a dynamic list and willshow you only those actionsthat are applicable for thisbeneficiary.
In this example, it displays eight different menu items for this
particular beneficiary. Themenu items should beself-explanatory. The showpayments option will display
payments for the beneficiary.The show pending payments will
display any pending paymentsfor the beneficiary. And this
link will only display if thereare pending payments for the
beneficiary.The show assignments link willdisplay the Ticket status ofthe beneficiary. The show TPR link allows you to see thestatus of the beneficiary'sTimely Progress Review. Review
and managed case notes link allows you to enter case notes.Now, this section isconfidential information that
can only be viewed by yourState VR agency and not by
social security or theOperations Support Manager.You may wish to includeimportant informationpertaining to the client's caseor to a future activity for aclient.We have the request of
payment. This will allow us tosubmit a payment request and
the unassign or close this caselink allows you to unassign a
Ticket. And finally convert VRcase to the Ticket link will
allow you to convert a VR caseover to the Ticket program.
Let's select unassign or closethis case to unassign a Ticket.
To unassign a Ticket enter theTicket unassignment date and
specify who requested theTicket unassignment. Once theEN clicks submit, a screen willappear to confirm that theunassignment was successful.Let's go ahead and close to
return to the more actions menu.Now, if you want to see
payment requests that completed processing, either paid or
denied, we will have to use theshow payments link from the
more actions menu. And whenyou select the show payments
link the individual Ticketpayment summary screen will
display.
If we want to see why JohnDoe's payments on 12-10-2012
was denied, you notice there isa denial code of 02. To find
out what that code means we caneither select denial codes at
the top left-hand corner of thetable circled in red, or you
can click on the denial code bythe transaction in question.We'll go ahead and click onthe denial code circled in redby the transaction for12-10-2012. As you can see,this displays a pop-up with thedenial information. We'll goahead and close the pop-up byselecting the x in the topright-hand corner.
We'll go ahead and select theclosed bullet to close outthe payments screen and we'llselect the close button toclose out of the more actionscreen. Now we will select themain menu button to return tothe main menu.
Now we're back to the mainmenu and we will now explore
another option to check if apayment is finished processing.
We'll now select the viewpayments already made to me.You may search here forpayments already made to yourState VR for all thebeneficiaries based on date anddenials whereas the showpayments screen displayspayments for just one
beneficiary. The “paymentsalready made to me” screen is
similar to the employmentnetwork payment status report
on the old Portal. Now hereyou enter the dates that youwish to search and please notethat the start and end datescannot be more than a yearapart. The results willdisplay which you can view on aspreadsheet by selecting theoption download entire list toexcel.
We will go ahead and click onthe main menu button to go back
to the main menu. Let's take a look at TimelyProgress Review status. We'llselect beneficiaries currentlyassigned to me from the mainmenu. Here we'll selectactions link to go to the more
actions menu. We'll select TPRstatus and then from there the
more actions menu.Now the TPR status screenallows you to see the status ofJohn Doe's timely progressreview and we'll click on theprovide TPR assistance link.This takes you to a screen thatallows you to enter TPRqualifying criteria and also
optional comments online. Youwould press the submit button
once you entered all theinformation.