March Technical Council Activity Summary

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Below are summaries of notable Technical Council and Board activities and decisions for December 8, 2018-April 1, 2019. Visit our calendar for dates of future meetings, and visit our Technical Councils and Board pages for meeting minutes.

Board of Directors - 3/7

The March Board of Directors meeting was a mixture of updates on new and old programs as well as adjustments to Medicaid transformation plans. Building off of policies established last fall, the BHT Board made another round of decisions on 2019 funds flow for Partnering Providers. First, the Board approved that Cohort Partners would receive their yearly contract funding in 3 installments. And for 2019-2020, the final installment will carry an amount of risk, based on achievement of contract milestones and measures.

There were two community presentations. One on Intergovernmental Transfers (IGT) 2.0 and Medicaid Quality Incentive Payment (MQIP) Program from the HCA and our region's MCOs. The other was on the housing situation in Washington. Kay Murano (Spokane Low Income Housing Consortium) and Pam Tietz (Spokane Housing Authority) gave a joint presentation on low income housing to get us thinking about ways we can help tackle the housing crisis in Spokane.

Lastly, the Board approved two new members; Ricki Peone from the Spokane Tribe of Indians and Tracy Kieffer from the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation.

Community Voices Council - 3/25

The CVC finalized our Vision for 2019:

The Community Voices Council believes no one in the BHT region should experience a difference in access to care as a result of their identity, income, or ability.
To support this vision we would like to see:

  • Access to a variety of available options for health care and social service providers when we are seeking care.

  • Clear and transparent information about the choices available to us when seeking care.

  • Easy to access, trusted support available to support us when we need extra help navigating services.

This was the product of two meetings worth of design sessions to ground ourselves in a shared vision for this council. We also are just about to finalize a job description and application for recruiting new members for 2019. Keep an eye out on our website, we expect to have the job announcement and application link live in the next week or so. 

Tribal Partners Leadership Council

This week at the Tribal Partners Leadership Council we further discussed how the Tribes and urban Tribal centers could collaborate around a care coordination project. We are leaning into using Care Coordination Systems Pathways Community HUB Model but will need to explore how we can adapt the program to best meet the needs of our partners. The BHT team will be meeting with the American Indian Community Center over the next month to explore the potential of this vision further. 

HUB Council Update

The group is re-energized and was excited to have Charisse and Hadley there to connect on SDoH work with Care Compacts and transformation. The group was engaged when walking through the network analysis and proposed some great questions.

Waiver Finance Work Group

Alison started with a quick IGT Overview and what it means for BHT. The big takeaway is that the ACHs will no longer be involved with approving the IGT contributions going back to the providers. Charisse shared updates on the Cohort and Collaborative along with some preliminary observations from the Final Transformation Plans we received.

The group re-grounded on funds flow,  approving motions to shift money from 2018 project funds and Regional Infrastructure to meet the 2019 funding needs for the January Cohort Contracts. Charisse gave the group an update on our network analysis. Jeff Thomas, Dan Seigler, and Blake Redding teed up a discussion about how we keep the new model sustainable working with all these new referrals. That led the group into an energetic discussion around figuring out what needs to change and what we can do about it now. Which ultimately led to talking about advocating to change policy. 

Provider Champions Council

Charisse updated the Champs on January Cohort contracts and how Learning Cohorts have been going. We shared our proposed activities for the Learning Cohorts for the rest of 2019 and received some great feedback. We got suggestions of topics and communication with providers, and some volunteer subject-matter experts (SMEs) to talk about subjects including patient safety/culture of safety and oral health. One of the most exciting suggestions was to do an experiential component – a “BHT Amazing Race” where partners walk thru a scenario of what it’s like to navigate the system as a Medicaid patient.