Make sure you call us when you need help with something,

By Brian Sanker, PLGIT Senior Marketing Representative

By Gary Nicholson, CHSP, Loss Control Services Manager

National Fire Prevention Week, according to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), is October 9 through October 15. Fire Prevention Week was established to commemorate the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. During this annual commemoration, attention is focused on promoting fire safety and prevention; however fire safety should be practiced every day all year long.

There is no easy button to create a safe office workplace. The most common type of hazard in an office is a fire hazard which might cause personal injury to employees. The main reason for office fire hazards are combustible materials, poor maintenance of equipment, poor standards of housekeeping and poor maintenance of electric circuits. Office fire hazards could cause serious injuries to employees and could even lead to loss of life.

Workers play a major role in creating a safe office workplace. It is important that each employee does their part to control workplace hazards. Through a program of scheduled inspections, unsafe conditions can be recognized and corrected before they lead to a serious problem. Look around you! Take a few moments each day to walk through your work area.

By John Sallade, Managing Director

CCAP is pleased to report the implementation of changes which will provide counties with access to significant savings on inpatient inmate medical costs, in many cases 50% or greater, and possibly even more on outpatient costs! The payment process for these savings will begin October 10, 2011.

For several weeks CCAP has been working closely with the Governor's Office, the Department of Corrections and the Department of Public Welfare on the implementation of Act 22, Inmate Medical Provisions. As you are likely aware, Act 22 allows certain county jail and prison, as well as state prison inmates to qualify for Medical Assistance coverage for hospitalizations, and caps medical provider rates at Medicaid rates for inmates not qualified and Medicare rates for outpatient services provided to inmates. The Act was signed into law with an effective date of July 1, 2011, requiring significant work on the part of DPW and DOC since no systems were in place to process Medicaid claims for inmates. In late August, a procedure for billing Medicaid for inmates in State Correctional Facilities was finalized and implemented. Since then, the focus has shifted to establishing the structures for billing for county jail and prison inmates. The process will go live on October 10, as a result of decisions involving CCAP's Prison Inmate Medical Cost Containment (PIMCC) program serving in a special intermediary role to facilitate some provisions of the Act.

In preparation for implementation, we have surveyed all counties on inpatient admissions and taken steps to have counties register as COMPASS Partners. The COMPASS system will be utilized to qualify inmates after a hospitalization, leading to hospitals billing through the PROMISE system, Pennsylvania's system for Medicaid invoice processing. According to the Act, the county of residence of inmates in county jails and prisons will pay the State portion of the hospital bill, about half of the total bill, as a result of provisions in Act 22 that will draw down federal funds for the other half. In order to achieve timely reimbursement to DPW of the county portion of hospital bills, CCAP has agreed to serve as an intermediary between DOC and DPW to collect and remit the county share of the inmate medical costs. CCAP's PIMCC program is the State approved liaison between DPW and all 67 counties and will be the single entity for counties to reconcile their portion of hospital bills for qualified inmates.

PIMCC is a medical cost management and education program dedicated to assisting county prisons/jails with the containment of all costs relating to prison inmate medical expenses. Since 1995 PIMCC's overall goal has been to train, educate, and provide a quality managed care program which allows counties to develop a medical cost saving program that fits into each county's unique inmate health care situation.

For the 19 counties which are currently PIMCC members, procedures may change but the membership relationship will remain the same. PIMCC members will continue to receive the same benefits they have traditionally enjoyed along with the new Act 22 service at no additional cost. Cost Management Plus, the administrator of PIMCC, will continue to provide PIMCC member services, and will assist CCAP with the administration of the Act 22 service.

For counties not in the PIMCC program, membership is not required for the basic Act 22 service. There will be a small administrative fee to cover CCAP's costs of administering the Act 22 service. The fee will be part of the calculation of payments to the escrow fund being established to make counties' payments to DOC (see below).

CCAP will be establishing an Act 22 service escrow fund, into which each county will provide funding for their portion of inpatient costs. Each month DOC will be billing PIMCC for the counties' share of inmate inpatient costs, and the escrow fund will make one payment to DOC on behalf of all 67 counties. We will be in touch soon to establish payment procedures and amounts for the escrow fund so payments can be made to DOC in a timely manner.

With the start date for the inpatient billing process set for October 10, CCAP will be providing counties with detailed step by step instructions on what to do it an inmate is admitted to the hospital. It is important to note you will not be registering all your inmates, just those who have received inpatient services.

Inpatient costs include:

• All hospital inpatient admissions
• Lifeline flights
• Emergency room treatment which results in inpatient admission

Outpatient costs are capped under Act 22 at Medicare rates, and counties should ensure that providers of outpatient services are billing at Medicare rates. If you are interested in how the PIMCC program can assist you with this, please let us know.

In the weeks to come PIMCC will provide detailed procedures and announce training. To prepare, please be sure that while your prison is registered as a COMPASS Community Partner, you have also registered users (Delegated Administrators) who will be the staff submitting the actual MA applications on the COMPASS system.

CCAP would like to express its thanks for the assistance provided by the Department of Corrections, Department of Public Welfare and the Governor's Office for their work to implement the provisions of Act 22.

For questions on PIMCC or the inmate medical provisions, please contact Christie Ward at cward@pacounties.org or (800) 895-9039.

Coverage Corner

Reminders and Pointers about Insurance Coverage
and Risk Management 

By Karen Cohen, Property and Casualty Programs Manager

Rails to Trails

Managing your rails to trails system effectively includes adopting risk management strategies to minimize the potential for injuries on the trail. New trail managers are often concerned that managing a trail will expose them to liability for trail-user injuries. However, trail managers have a number of legal protections that limit their exposure to liability. As a result of these legal tools, when coupled with sound risk management practices, liability concerns should not normally be an impediment to the development or management of a trail.

Questions or comments? Contact Karen Cohen, CCAP's Property and Casualty Programs Manager, here.

CCAP Insurance Programs
 PO Box 60769, Harrisburg, PA 17106-0769
Phone (800) 895-9039 - FAX (717) 526-1020
Claims Fax (888) 692-2368

 Click here to go the Insurance Section of the CCAP Website.

email: jsallade@pacounties.org 

Insurance Matters is published monthly by CCAP's Insurance Programs for the use of members of CCAP's UC Trust, PCoRP, PComp, PIMCC, COMCARE, COMCARE PRO, PELICAN, Health Alliance and other insurance programs, and insurance producers of these members.

Advice contained in this publication is not legal advice and members are encouraged to seek the opinion of their solicitor.

The information provided in this publication is not intended to take the place of professional advice. Readers are encouraged to consult with competent legal, financial, or other appropriate professionals. Statements of facts and opinions expressed in this publication, by authors other than Association staff and officers, are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent an opinion or philosophy of the officers, members and staff of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania (CCAP). No endorsement of advertised products or services is implied by CCAP unless those products or services are expressly endorsed, or are owned or managed by the Association programs, or our affiliates. This publication may not be reproduced, modified, distributed, or displayed in part or in whole, by any means, without advance written permission of CCAP. Please direct your requests to John Sallade, Managing Director, CCAP Insurance Programs, jsallade@pacounties.org

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