Medicaid Messenger Personal Care

If you need assistance, have questions or would like to schedule training, please contact a member of the Wayne RESA, Medicaid School Services Program Team.

We're here to help!

Michelle Maxfield - (734) 334-1461 ~maxfiem@resa.net

Leanne Smith - (734) 334-1464 ~smithle@resa.net

Tia Williams - (734) 334-1397 ~williat@resa.net

When logging into Service Tracker to create your Medicaid caseloads for 2024-25, you may see students from the previous school year are still listed on your caseload.

Follow the steps outlined below to remove students from your caseload.

As auditors for the State of Michigan have been releasing audit results from around the state, we noticed a trend in the findings that were being reported. Each time an individual Personal Care Aide/Paraprofessional's activity log had a blank space, regardless of a submitted Medicaid bill or claim, the auditors would ding that county Intermediate School District (ISD) or Regional Education Services Agency (RESA) and the local district or academy.

What this means is that when an auditor reviewed anyone's activity log, and found a blank date box, that district would get a finding that resulted in corrective action plans, and in some instances, districts/academies and their ISD/RESA owing money back to the state. Even if the district and County could show that no billing happened on that specific date, the auditors still wanted to see the reason for the blank space on the Activity Log. In essence, we need to provide complete documentation with no empty boxes on Personal Care Activity Logs.

In order to help support your work, we wanted to provide you with a log that would give you codes that will cover times when:

• you are absent,
• school is closed,
• the student is absent,
• you had a substitute, or
• your student is doing well and did not need your assistance.

The updated Personal Care Activity Log is a County-wide form and must be adopted by every district and academy who have Personal Care Aides, Paraprofessionals and any staff who function in this role, completing Medicaid billing.

Lastly, MISTAR>Service Tracker remains the same. The only thing to point out is that while your paper/written Activity Log cannot have blank spaces, it is acceptable for billing in Service Tracker to have blank dates, which could happen when you are absent, had a substitute or your student did not require your assistance on a specific date.

When preparing your monthly Activity log, you must include all of the students you provide services for, whether the student's are Medicaid eligible, or non-Medicaid eligible. By including all of your students on your Activity Log, you are not distinguishing between Medicaid and non-Medicaid eligible students. All students are treated and cared for equally. Your Activity Log is the official documentation of the services provided to everyone.

Additionally, students can become Medicaid eligible at any time. Your completed Activity Log will allow you to add newly eligible students to your MISTAR Service Tracker caseload so that you can bill for your services.

You will track one service per student, per day.

When you start using the updated Personal Care Activity Log, please note that the numbers or codes representing the services you provide have changed. The services you can provide and bill for are the same, the list is simply alphabetized, making it easier to find the correct code.

Remember that you only need to log one activity per day per student on your monthly log. For instance, if your students need Redirection/Intervention for BEHAVIOR, which is now code 12, you would right 12 in each box for each student, each day you provide this service.

The non-billable section is new. There is now a code for your absence (17), school closure, which is used for a district holiday or building closure day, perhaps due to weather (18) and student absence (19).

Code 20 'Student Present, and assisted by "unqualified" staff' is used when another school staff member provides services for your student(s), which could be used when you are absent, if you were out of the room, or assisting another student. An "unqualified" staff member is someone who cannot bill as a Personal Care Provider/Paraprofessional. For instance, the classroom teacher may need to provide the services you would normally provide because you were assisting another one of your students by walking with them to their speech therapy session. You would write 20 on your Activity Log, and not bill for that date, since the teacher cannot bill under your Medicaid code.

Code 21 'Student Present but did not require assistance' is used when your student is able to perform the service you would normally provide, for themself. Perhaps you provide Redirection/Intervention for BEHAVIOR (12) and one of your student is having a really good day and didn't need to be redirected, then you would use code 21.

When you are absent and a substitute Aide/Paraprofessional provides services for your students, the substitute will write your student's names on their caseload and write the letter 'T' next to the names of your students. The 'T" indicates that the student(s) were put on the substitutes caseload Temporarily.

The substitute would then add the temporary students to their caseload and bill in Service Tracker for the services they provided in your absence. A substitute will log into MISTAR>Service Tracker, click Add Students, which brings up the search box that you will need to Temporarily add students to your caseload and bill for the service you provided.

The video link below will take you to a short training video that details the updates made to the Personal Care Activity Log.