Manage Programs

Funding Source Administrator 3 Manage Programs In this lesson you will learn how to enter data that describes your agency’s ride program(s) and let others know who can ride, who can drive and what kind of documentation they need to receive reimbursement. Select A Menu Option: On the left side of the screen is the Main Menu. Options may be selected by clicking on the words listed in the menu. The third item on the menu is Manage Programs. Move your mouse to Manage Programs and select that option. When you have done that, you should see a screen like the one shown in Figure 1. Figure 1 Add Program The menu in Figure 1 allows you to add, modify or delete any ride program you create. You will use this option most often as a funding source administrator. The first item on the program management menu is Add Program. This option is pre-selected and used when you wish to start a new ride program. Select the Add Program option. Then click on the Submit button. You should see the screen shown as Figure 2. Funding Source Administrator 4 Figure 2 Read this first You may want to try out this screen but please take a minute and read this information first. Figure 2 shows the first of several screens that will lead you through the process of adding a new ride program. Hint: During training you are only going to enter practice or bogus ride programs. Don’t spend hours typing in long descriptions of the ride program you hope to create and use in the pilot test. Keep things short and fun. You will get the gist of what to do and be able to apply that later. Remember: The information you enter on this screen (Figure 2) will be available to program managers to help them decide if consumers are eligible for your ride programs. These program managers may be located anywhere throughout your state. The rules you set up will be the ones they follow. This is your chance to make sure that everyone will see the same information. Since data for your agencies’ transportation programs may be defined in law or in formal regulations it is important that you enter them accurately. Hint: You can simply “copy” the information from another document and paste into the appropriate textboxes in IBUSS to save time. Text boxes for your ride program Program name This gives your program a name, for handy reference. Program’s image This option will allow you to go to your browser and select an icon for your agency that you wish to be printed on vouchers for your ride program. You are customizing the vouchers for your agency! This becomes Funding Source Administrator 5 important if there are other agencies in your state that are supporting different ride programs. Program purpose Here you will describe the purpose of this ride program or the outcome you hope to achieve. For example: Help consumers obtain health care, or assist consumers to meet employment goals. What kind of ride program will you create? Consumer eligibility criteria Next you will list the criterion consumers must meet in order to be eligible for the ride program. Who is going to be able to access rides funded with your agency’s money? Is this for anyone? Who qualifies? Ride criteria Here you will describe the types of rides that may be taken using this ride program. Will the consumer be able to use this ride program to go to work, to doctor’s appointments, or for recreational purposes? What are the rules—you decide! Changing your mind One great feature of IBUSS is that after you set up a ride program you can modify all or any part of the program or even delete the program if you change your mind. The workbook will show you how to do that a little later. Finish reading all the related information and the practice activity. Make a rider/bus choice At the bottom of the screen in Figure 2, you must make a choice between single rider programs and bus programs. For purposes of this training, you will create a single rider program. You will learn how to create a bus program in a later lesson. Single rider programs The term single rider program refers to programs that are restricted by person and purpose criteria. For example, a vocational rehabilitation program that supports transportation to jobtraining experiences for VR clients who have disabilities would be classified as a single rider program. Funding sources providing single rider programs want to know whose trip they are funding and they want to be assured that the trip is for a fundable purpose. A single rider program can be used when the rider is transported by a friend or neighbor but also on a bus. The important point is to decide if you want a program that tracks individual people against the criterion you set for rides. The type of vehicle is not important. Funding Source Administrator 6 Bus program The term bus program refers to programs that are restricted by schedule and route. A program that funds a van carrying several people from a small town community center to a distant mall at 9:30 am each Monday for any purpose would be classified as a bus program. Although bus program funding source personnel may want to know about group characteristics describing aggregated riders and trips (e.g. age, disability) they don’t really care about the characteristics of any individual rider or the purpose of any individual trip. Sometimes in remote rural communities an agency may find this to be the only practical way to get around. For example: The Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribe in Montana uses a bus program because local cars are often simply not available. If a VR office wanted to provide a client with a bus ticket or voucher VR would use a single rider program. If however the Department of Transportation wanted to monitor its vehicles they would probably use a bus program. On screen shown in Figure 2 you must classify the new program you are entering as a single rider program by selecting that option. If you classify your ride program as a bus program, IBUSS will follow an entirely different screen sequence not shown in this part of the workbook. Directions for the bus program are seldom selected and are available in the appendix. Make a site payment or driver payment choice Will your agency make payments to sites or directly to drivers/riders? At this point IBUSS lets you choose to: Sites: Pay the voucher site and then let the site pay individual drivers or to Drivers/Riders: Bypass the site and pay the driver directly. Most agencies will choose to work with an established business that can be audited as a voucher site and have the site pay the driver. This saves on time and paperwork. Remember: You can track any of the ride programs you set up and keep informed about consumer choices and voucher site activity without leaving your office. In a few states, large agencies have insisted on paying only drivers directly, even requiring them to become certified providers. This arrangement is cumbersome for consumers and drivers. AND it is really no longer necessary with a program like IBUSS in place to help track program usage and reduce fraud. However, because some states still operate on that basis IBUSS provides the option. Most agencies will use a voucher site. For purposes of this training, you will select the Sites option as is shown in Figure 3 Funding Source Administrator 7 Figure 3 If your agency has rules that ONLY allow you to reimburse a driver, and not a voucher site, contact the instructor and he or she will take you through the other option. Detailed instructions for that choice are available in the appendix. Practice what you have learned Let’s use what you have learned. Begin to describe a sample ride program for your agency by entering the information that describes your ride program in the textboxes as described above. Remember to choose Single rider and Sites payments for now. Click on submit at the bottom of the page. View a New Screen After you click on submit you should see a screen like the one shown in Figure 4. Figure 4 Read this First Select data: The first option on this screen allows you to decide what documentation you wish the voucher site to submit when invoicing your agency as the funding source Funding Source Administrator 8 for the ride program you are creating. Whatever information you select will be printed on the voucher so that the driver and voucher site know which information to gather. Two options are pre-selected because most funding sources require those as a minimum amount of information. The beginning and ending odometer reading is preselected because most funding sources want to know how far the individual traveled. The date and time of the trip is also selected. This information can be kept at the site for review during an audit (the option chosen by most funding sources) or sent to your office with the invoice. Either choice is up to you. Simply change the location of the pre-selected radio button by clicking on the option under the other column. Set mile/day limits: The next option allows you to set limits on the number of miles or the number of days that program managers can approve a trip using your ride criteria. You can leave this option at No Limit which is pre-selected for your or simply type a number in the box. Some agencies set limits on miles and others on days (e.g. a limit of 60 days would mean a program manager could only approve rides for two months at a time). The choice is up to you. Set payment date limit: This option allows you to indicate to voucher sites the time limit in which your agency will honor an invoice from a voucher site. Will you pay after one month, two months, two years? The choice is up to you. Simply enter whatever number you wish or leave the field blank. Invoice Location: This final option allows you to indicate to the voucher site what person at your office will receive the invoice. Will you name yourself, an administrative assistant or some other employee? Names of the person who will receive an invoice can be entered or changed on this screen by selecting MANAGE INFORMATION in the Main Menu when you have finished setting up the ride program. Just select any name for now and modify later. Special Options: Before you leave the screen take a look at any of the special options that are available to your company. Other data fields: Below the pre-selected options are two blank boxes. You may add your own data requirements in addition to those pre-selected. This can include the age of the rider, the purpose of the trip or any other option you care to select. Remember: the more criteria you include, the longer the text will be on the voucher. If you support consumers who do not read, this can become problematic. Funding Source Administrator 9 If you enter text in these boxes, new screens will appear after you hit submit. These screens will ask you to further define the criterion. You can probably proceed through those options on your own after looking at the screen and examples below. Figure 5 In this case the rider’s age has been selected as a criterion. The screen allows the viewer to choose whether that criterion will be listed as: Text: Yes/no question: Is always a question to which you wish a reply. For example: What is the rider’s age? Is also a question but put in a yes/no format. For example Is the rider over age 55? yes___ or no___ Statement: Is NOT a questions but a statement of information that is required. For example: A doctor’s signature is required: Category: Is a multiple choice statement. For example: The rider’s age is: ___under 18 ___ over 18 ___ over 55 For each text box, you can select the option that best suits your need. For example if age Is data that you wish to select you would probably choose a yes/no option or a category. Funding Source Administrator 10 Set a flat rate: Often, agencies set a rate in cents per mile, per trip. However sometimes an agency wants to set a flat rate. The directions for doing this cover steps that must be completed on several screens. To make this easier a help option with the words “Need to set a flat rate” is available directly on the screen. If you select that link the following directions will be provided, taking you through subsequent screens. We recommend that you finish practicing with this screen first. Need to set a flat rate? Set the maximum number of miles by replacing with 1 Submit Make any changes you wish to the next page as needed. Submit Set the vehicle reimbursement rate as the # of cents represented by your rate. Example: If your rate is $1.75 per mile you would type in 175 cents. If your rate is $2.00 per mile you would type in 200 cents Make other additions or changes to the page as needed. Submit Now you have set a flat rate limiting the ride program to i.e. 175 cents per every 1 mile and limited all rides to 1 mile. Need to set a variable flat rate? Simply put in a separate ride program for each rate. Remember you can cut and paste and set up separate ride programs rather quickly in IBUSS. Practice What You Just Learned No Lim Let’s use what you have learned. Fill out the fields shown in Figure 5. When you have made all the choices you wish to make on the screen in Figure 5, click on Submit View a New Screen After you click on submit you should see a screen like the one shown in Figure 6. Figure 6 Funding Source Administrator 11 Read This First The screen in Figure 6 asks you to make several new choices. As a funding source for this program you have a lot of control over how your money is spent. Select an invoice format: You can select any format you wish for invoicing your agency. The standard format in the first textbox is available to any agency. It is also the only one listed. If you wish to use a form specific to your agency, simply send it to NDCPD in the mail and we will enter that option into IBUSS for your ongoing use. Enter reimbursement data: Indicate the rate in cents per mile that you will use to reimburse voucher sites. Does your agency pay for meals and lodging? That may be something you want to add to the criteria you listed in the first screen. You can go back and add items to the ride criterion later. For now just enter specific amounts. Driver criterion: Only a few agencies have specific driver criterion. Some programs have rules indicating that the driver may not be a member of the immediate family (not something NDCPD recommends) or that drivers must carry a certain type of insurance. Whatever your criteria might be, simply enter that in the field. Hint: If your agency does wish to specify driver criteria, keep it simple. Otherwise, leave the field blank. Driver registration: Only a few programs specify driver registration. Some programs have rules indicating that the driver must be a registered Medicaid provider in the state. Again we recommend against that formality but the choice is up to you. Rider registration form: Do NOT select this option unless such a form was listed as a criterion in your program purpose fields and you selected payment of drivers as an option. For right now, leave this field blank. Practice What You Just Learned Let’s use what you have learned. Fill out the fields shown in Figure 6. When you have made all the choices you wish to make on the screen in Figure 6, click on Submit. Funding Source Administrator 12 View a New Screen Figure 7 Read this First The screen in Figure 7 asks you to make choices about program managers who will follow your ride program rules and approve rides for consumers. Remember a program manager is the person who meets with consumers, helps them identify a ride program for which they are eligible and approves rides based on the criterion set by the funding source. You are the funding source. In this screen you make very important decisions about whom you will trust. Set Limits: The first statement allows you to set limits on the number of trips that a program manager may approve each day, week, month, quarter or year. If you do not wish to place limits on their authority, simply leave the words no limit and day in the fields as they are written. You can also set limits on the length of time that the authority stands. When ride programs are new you may wish to limit authority. Once you are satisfied that an agency is implementing a program as you intend you may wish to extend authority. Remember, the more limited the authority the more often you may be consulted for exceptions. How much time do you have? Set Match: This option allows you to require a match from the local voucher site. If the voucher site is run strictly by volunteers, in a remote rural community, then match requirements may be too much for the organization to raise and it could jeopardize your new ride program. If however, a transportation provider is also serving as the voucher site, you may already require match for operating expenses. This requires a community commitment. Whether you as for match is up to you. Match will require the voucher site to keep certain records that IBUSS easily handles for them. Funding Source Administrator 13 Practice What You Just Learned Let’s use what you have learned. Fill out the fields shown in Figure 7. When you have made all the choices you wish to make on the screen in Figure 7, click on Submit View a New Screen: Once you have selected Submit the following screen should appear on your computer. Figure 8 Read This Information: This screen allows you to select which program managers whose names have been entered by your agency (you will learn how to do this a little bit later in the course) will have the authority to work on this particular ride program. The system is set up so that you merely highlight names and then click on the up arrow above the lower box. This is much easier than typing in the names of the program managers again. IBUSS was designed to support a lot of different scenarios. Suppose you are the state Medicaid office and you have hundreds of county social workers who will be using IBUSS. You may wish to give them all permission to authorize rides for this ride program. On the other hand, maybe not. Maybe you are piloting this program in just a few counties. In that case, you may want only a few of the available staff to authorize rides under this ride program. IBUSS is designed to work with any/all of these possibilities and more. Funding Source Administrator 14 Simply scroll down the lower box in the screen highlighting those names that you wish to use. Depress the shift key while you select names to select multiple names in a row. Since this is just an exercise in the workbook, it really doesn’t matter which names you select. There should be a few test names in the box. Select any or all of those. Then click on the up arrow above the lower box. The names you select will then appear in the higher box. You have given these specific people authority to authorize rides and the responsibility of following the rules/criterion that you set. Consumer Control: In theory it is consumers who should decide where they want to go and how they will get there. However most agencies with money for rural transportation are not free to give it out for any purpose. IBUSS balances the risks that agencies take in working with an informal network of drivers in remote communities by using program manager oversight to assure eligibility. Practice What You Just Learned Let’s use what you have learned. Fill out the fields shown in Figure 8. When you have made all the choices you wish to make on the screen in Figure 8, click on Done.