| The Department
of Social Services' FamilyNet system takes a proactive
approach to paying contracted service providers
by "invoicing" them. On the first day
of each month, FamilyNet processes the referrals
for services for the children and families for
any period of time in the previous month and calculates
the appropriate payment based on days of service,
level of service, and the contracted rate for
the service. Each provider receives a detailed
invoice and uses this document to make corrections,
adjustments, and reconciliations based on its
own records. The invoice is mailed back to the
Department so that bill-paying staff can make
the appropriate corrections online in FamilyNet.
This process has multiple built-in strengths,
among them the reliance on clinical case data
as the source for provider payments and child
costs. Specifically, caseworkers are more inclined
to enter service referrals for children in FamilyNet
since they know that payments to providers are
dependent on them. This process also compensates
for the lack of automated capacity of many of
the provider agencies. Finally, FamilyNet's proactive
approach to paying providers, coupled with a daily
interface to the Commonwealth's Comptroller's
Office, decreases the amount of time that providers
actually wait to receive their payments and gives
the Department the ability to quickly realize
actual monthly costs. |
