It is that time of year again! RMTS calendars are due soon! Every August, School-Based Claiming requires districts to upload their school calendar to the portal. While we still have some time before this task is due, we would like to review a couple of key items that may make your RMTS sampling more accurate and help ensure your participation rates remain high!
The calendar must include:
- Each school’s daily time schedule
- Any pre-scheduled school closures (i.e. holidays, vacation days, partial days)
- You are encouraged to create multiple schools/groups on your calendar. The calendar will be pre-populated from the prior school year, so if you need to add an additional group, you can call SBC at 1-800-535-6741. Detailing specific schools’/groups’ schedules increases the likelihood for a random moment to occur only while the specified groups of staff are expected to be at work.
- A group can have just one person
- Any provider with a non-standard schedule would need their own group (i.e. contractors only there for a single day); however, you can combine providers in the same group(s) if their non-standard schedules are the same (i.e. providers who work on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays)
- Teacher, professional days and state testing days are included in the time study; do not include them in the Holiday/Vacation day section of the online calendar.
For your RMTS lists this year, we are encouraging districts to conduct a thorough review as there have been some changes to RMTS guidance, including the addition of a 3rd cost pool for Autism services. Please remember that a provider’s credentials and job description are significant when determining to which cost pool they belong. You should be including any staff member who is reasonably expected to provide direct, IEP ordered, covered services regardless of Medicaid eligibility of the students they meet with, as well as staff members who are reasonably expected to manage or coordinate the delivery of these services and/or provide information to students and families that assist with their access to Medicaid coverage.
If you have any questions regarding your RMTS process, please do not hesitate to reach out to either your Program Specialist – Patricia Tetreau – or your Claims Analyst – Sharon Gravel – for assistance! You can also sign up for one of our webinars covering both the annual RMTS calendar as well as quarterly RMTS participant lists by clicking here.