Medi-Cal: local educational agency billing option.

Existing law provides for the Medi-Cal program, which is administered by the State Department of Health Care Services and under which qualified low-income persons receive health care benefits. The Medi-Cal program is, in part, governed and funded by federal Medicaid Program provisions. Existing law provides that specified services provided by local educational agencies (LEAs) are covered Medi-Cal benefits, and requires the department to perform various activities with respect to the billing option for services provided by LEAs. Existing law establishes the Local Educational Agency Medi-Cal Recovery Fund, which consists of proportionately reduced federal Medicaid funds allocable to LEAs, to be used, upon appropriation by the Legislature, only to support the department, until January 1, 2013, to meet the requirements relating to the LEA billing option, the annual amount of which may not exceed $1,500,000. Existing law requires, as of January 1, 2013, that all moneys in the fund be returned proportionally to all LEAs whose federal Medicaid funds were used to create the fund. This bill would delete the repeal of the provisions governing the fund and would provide that specified regulations do not apply to medical transportation eligible to be billed under these provisions until January 1, 2018, or until the date the director executes a declaration stating that its regulations have been updated. This bill would require the department to collaborate with the State Department of Education to help ensure LEA compliance with state and federal Medicaid requirements. This bill would require the department, no later than July 1, 2013, and every year thereafter, to make publicly accessible an annual accounting of all funds collected by the department from Medicaid payments allocable to LEAs, as specified.