(a) Each county shall work, on a routine basis, any error alert from the department‘s Medi-Cal Eligibility Data System (MEDS). Any alert that affects eligibility or the spend down of excess income that is received by the 10th working day of the month shall be processed in time for the change to be effective the beginning of the following month. Any alert that affects eligibility or the spend down of excess income that is received after the 10th working day of the month shall be processed in time for the change to be effective the beginning of the month after the following month. The department shall consult with the County Welfare Directors Association to define those alerts that affect eligibility or the spend down of excess income.

(b) The county shall submit reconciliation files of its Medi-Cal eligible population to the department every three months, based upon a schedule determined by the department and in a format prescribed by the department, to identify any discrepancies between eligibility files in the county records and eligibility as reflected in MEDS. Counties shall be notified of any changes to the standard format for submitting reconciliation files sufficiently in advance to allow for budgeting, scheduling, development, testing, and implementation of any required change in county automated eligibility systems.

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(c) For those records that are on the county’s files, but not on MEDS, the county shall receive worker alerts from the department that identify these cases, and the county shall fix any data discrepancies. Any worker alert received by the 10th working day of the month shall be processed in time for the change to be effective the beginning of the following month. Any worker alert received after the 10th working day of the month shall be processed in time for the change to be effective the beginning of the month after the following month.

(d) In regard to any record that is on MEDS but not on the county’s file, the county shall either correct the county record or MEDS, whichever is appropriate, within the same timeframes specified in subdivision (c).

(e) The department shall terminate a MEDS-eligible record if the person is not eligible on the county’s file when there has been no eligibility update on the MEDS record for six months.

(f) (1) If the department finds that a county is not performing all of the following activities, the county shall, within 60 days, submit a corrective action plan to the department for approval:

(A) Conducting reconciliations as required in subdivision (b).

(B) Processing 95 percent of worker alerts referred to in subdivisions (c) and (d), within the timeframes specified.

(C) Processing 90 percent of the error alerts referred to in subdivision (a) that affect eligibility or the spend down of excess income, within the timeframes specified.

(2) The corrective action plan shall, at a minimum, include steps that the county shall take to improve its performance on the requirements with which the county is out of compliance. The plan shall establish interim benchmarks for improvement that shall be expected to be met by the county in order to avoid sanctions.

(g) (1) If the county does not meet the interim benchmarks for improvement standards, the department may, in its sole discretion, reduce the allocation of funds to that county in the following year by 2 percent. Any funds so reduced may be restored by the department if, in the determination of the department, sufficient improvement has been made by the county in meeting the performance standards during the year for which the funds were reduced.

(2) No reduction of the allocation of funds to a county shall be imposed pursuant to this subdivision for failure to meet performance standards during any period of time in which the cost-of-doing-business increase is suspended.

(h) The department, in consultation with the County Welfare Directors Association, shall investigate features that could be installed in MEDS to reduce the number of alerts and streamline the reconciliation process.

(i) Notwithstanding the rulemaking provisions of Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 11340) of Part 1 of Division 3 of Title 2 of the Government Code, the department may implement, interpret, or make specific this section by means of all-county letters, provider bulletins, or similar instructions. Thereafter, the department may adopt regulations in accordance with the requirements of Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 11340) of Part 1 of Division 3 of Title 2 of the Government Code.

(Amended by Stats. 2023, Ch. 42, Sec. 154. (AB 118) Effective July 10, 2023.)