Assessment & Support Plan (A/SP) Pilot Information

The Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (the Department) revising its assessment and support planning processes to create a more comprehensive, person-centered process that uses items with established reliability and validity. To test the contents of this process, the Department is conducting a series of statewide pilots with case managers from a variety of agencies to test the content and automation of Colorado’s new assessment and support planning process for long term services and supports (LTSS).

These pilots will occur in two primary phases to capture data from four primary populations: children; individuals with IDD; individuals who are elderly, blind, or disabled (EBD); and individuals who experience mental health needs. The pilot steps and timeframe can be found in the graphic below:

The pilots are further described below.

Pilot Phase 1

The first phase of the pilot will occur in the Aerial CarePlanner tool, which is not the primary system that will be used upon rollout. This system, CarePlanner 360, is currently being finalized and will be implemented prior to phase two.

The first component of the first phase of this testing will be the level of care (LOC) pilot. During the LOC pilot, case managers will be using both the ULTC 100.2 and the new LOC pilot screening tool. The purpose of the pilot is to be able to compare responses in across the current and new items. The pilot will also provide valuable information about how user friendly the current automation is.  The Department will use this information to determine how to structure the pilots for the rest of the new assessment and support planning process. During this phase case managers will conduct approximately 1-2 LOC Screens for a total of 85 samples.

The second component of the first phase is the Nursing Facility (NF)/Hospital (H) LOC and Reliability Pilot (NF/H-LOC & Reliability Pilot). This pilot will collect data necessary to fulfill the following functions:

  • Replicating the NF-LOC for adults
  • Establishing a more objective NF-LOC criteria for children
  • Establishing objective and prospective H LOC for all of Colorado’s HCBS waivers
  • Testing the reliability, including the inter-rater reliability, of select items in the new assessment potentially used for NF-LOC, H LOC, and resource allocation

During this phase case managers will be conducting approximately 6-8 assessments for a total of 275 single assessor assessments and 150 paired assessors assessments. The paired assessor assessments will provide insight on inter-rater reliability.

Pilot Phase 2

The second phase will assess the workflow of the process using the automation that is intended to be used in the field, CarePlanner 360. During this pilot, a smaller group of case managers (approximately 26) will conduct the comprehensive assessment and support plan (A/SP). This phase includes the following sub-phases:

  1. Case managers will first be introduced to the comprehensive assessment.  After receiving training, they will conduct this assessment on a minimum of two participants.
  1. Case managers will then be trained on the Support Plan.  They will be expected to conduct comprehensive assessments and develop Support Plans with three participants.
  1. The data from the first two steps will be analyzed and the first group of feedback sessions will be conducted with case managers and participants.  The assessment and Support Plan will be updated based on these results and the changes will be incorporated into the automation.
  2. The case managers will be trained on the updates and will begin working with participants as part of the Time Survey pilot. This pilot will collect data to understand how long the new process takes.  A second waver of feedback sessions with participants and case managers will be conducted during this step.

This pilot will collect 48 samples for the comprehensive assessment, 78 samples for the entire A/SP process, and 100 samples of the A/SP for the Time Study sub-pilot.