Update: September 12,

 Regulation and law require patient specific consent for sharing of information.  The main goal of Health Homes is the coordination of care and services across multiple different types of entities for a Medicaid member with complex health issues.  The NYS DOH goal – Single consent form could act as a consent for Health Home services and Health Information Exchanges (HIE) including RHIOs. 2

The NYS DOH Health Home consent form was difficult for some RHIOs and Health Homes to operationalize:  If the member withdrew consent from the Health Home, he/she would also withdraw consent for each of those entities to access the RHIO’s HIE.  RHIOs use different platforms/consent management for their HIE. Some can manage multi-entity consents; some cannot. 3

The Unreachable Goal? A single consent that allowed Health Home access to the member’s PHI and allowed sharing through the HIE. 4

Consent Form 5055 – revised to allow:  Lead Health Home to access the RHIO’s HIE for information on the member  Lead Health Home share that information with other Health Home partners. Form 5058 (withdrawal of consent) now only affects the RHIO’s relationship with the lead Health Home. Consent continues to allow Health Home partners to share PHI of the member. OHIP has worked with OHITT, DOH attorneys, and the attorneys from OMH and OASAS on this revision and obtained their signoff. 5

 Outreach and engagement activities are supported by the limited information the NYS DOH can provide to the Health Home without a patient consent.  When the Care Manager determines that the member is in active case management (actively engaged with the member beyond outreach and engagement activities) is the beginning of “active care management”.  The member does not need to sign a Health Home consent to be in active care management. 6

 Because many of the HH eligible members may be disenfranchised from the health care system, they may not immediately be comfortable signing a consent.  Without the consent, the HH care manager cannot share PHI. This does not mean the HH care manager cannot work with the member in care management activities.  The goal is to have the member sign the consent so all providers involved in the member’s care has access to the same information to better serve the member. 7

The consent does not have to signed for care management activities to begin in the Health Home. We do not link these two together. 8

1. Modifications 2. Functional schematic 3. FAQs 9

 New format allows better personalization for listing member’s particular providers- ◦ No need to list all HH partners ◦ No need to define a ‘core’ list of HH partners ◦ List the providers that are needed for each member  Specifies that the members of the Health Home listed at the end of the consent are allowed to share information regarding the member.  Specifies that the lead Health Home can access the RHIO’s health information exchange and share information from there with the designated Health Home providers. 10

 Improves/clarifies language in other parts.  Continues to allow sharing of all PHI as listed on the document. 11

2. Functional Schematic 12

Lead Health Home HH Partner HIE Care Management Record Health Home Care Management Network RHIO Data Contributors and Viewers HH consent (5055) RHIO consent HH Partner RHIO consent Agency outside HH 13

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The members served by health homes are chronically ill, often disenfranchised from even the fragmented system of health care they access and often have hierarchical concerns for food and shelter. They often have low trust of the system and low health literacy, both adding to their concerns of interacting with the health care system.  The goal of the NYS DOH was to have one consent that could be signed to open the Health Home gateway of care to quickly meet critical care needs, build trust in accessing the system of care, and build self- reliance skills in managing health care conditions.  The goal of the Health Home consent form is to allow the Health Home member’s PHI to be shared with the member’s Health Home team.  A Member’s Health Home team is comprised of all providers (physical, behavioral, social services) involved in member’s care. 15

 The original consent form was operationally difficult for Health Homes and RHIOs to implement and linked to the RHIO consent so that if a member withdrew his/her Health Home consent, it impacted the RHIO consent process.  We modified the consent to address the implementation issues by separating the Health Home consent from the RHIO consent process except for the lead Health Home which still has its RHIO consent tied to Form  Health Home partners must now obtain a separate signed RHIO consent form to allow those partners direct access to the RHIO.  The original consent form was approved by all the appropriate state agencies. Likewise, this consent has been reviewed and approved by OMH, OASAS and DOH. It includes the necessary language from the NYeC consent. 16

The signing of the Health Home consent form will serve two distinct functions. It will allow the Health Home care providers to share patient information, and it will allow the lead Health Home to access patient information directly from the local RHIO. 17

A signed RHIO consent form will only allow access to the RHIO if the organization is a member of or has a data sharing relationship with that local RHIO. 18

Each individual entity or organization that seeks membership in a RHIO is responsible to pay for their membership in that RHIO. 19

 The Health Home consent form is only a proxy for the RHIO consent form for the lead Health Home. It is not the RHIO consent for all other Health Home partners. They will need to follow the consenting process in place for their local RHIO. The Health Home consent form is for data sharing among the relevant members of the Health Home and allows the lead Health Home only to data share with the RHIO. 20

A multi-entity RHIO consent form is permitted but is not required. 21

The RHIO can use the Health Home consent form as their multi-entity consent form but if the member withdraws consent (form 5058) from the Health Home, the RHIO consent would be lost as well. If a form 5058 is signed to withdraw from the Health Home (where a single-entity RHIO consent was used), only the lead Health Home’s access to the RHIO for that member is ended. 22

No, a Health Home member is considered enrolled in a Health Home once the member is assigned to a Health Home. 23

No, a member can be considered in active care management without having signed a Health Home consent form. 24

 No, a member can remain in a Health Home and in active care management as long as the care manager can demonstrate s/he can advance the member’s care plan and improve the member’s health status without signed consent  Care Managers need to work with members so they understand the importance of signing a consent.  Care Managers should assure that only the providers involved with that member’s care and needed to get PHI are listed on the consent.  Without a consent, there is a limited ability to share member health information; defeating the purpose of the Health Home. 25

A signed Health Home consent form can allow a lead Health Home access to more than one RHIO if each of the RHIOs that will be directly accessed is named on the consent form. In other words, the member must give permission for each of the RHIOs the Health Home is directly accessing for his/her health information. 26

The lead entity Health Home must be able to transmit and receive data electronically with its associated organizations and providers. Health information exchange through a RHIO would be the preferred way to do this. However access for data sharing is managed in a RHIO would be the appropriate mechanism. RHIOs may require an entity to become a member of the RHIO and sign a participation agreement. Some may have a service charge for data transmission or membership fees. The RHIO manages this as it would for any other data sharing entity. 27

If the Health Home and RHIO can operationalize the original version of Form 5055, the member will not be required to sign the updated version. If the RHIO cannot operationalize the original consent form, the newer version will need to be signed again. 28

If a Health Home withdrawal (Form 5058) is signed, permission to share new data among Health Home partners is negated and the lead Health Home loses RHIO access for that patient. It is important to remember that any patient data that has already been shared prior to the signing of the 5058 does not have to be removed from the Health Home lead or partners EHR or Care Management Plan. 29

It is likely that many of the data exchanges in a Health Home would fall under 1:1 exchanges both within and outside the network. The Health Home member consent should cover such an exchange. However, without a RHIO consent in place, the Health Home cannot pull data from the HIE. Given the fragmented health care and lack of provider loyalty that many of these members have had, it will be crucial at least in the beginning to be able to pull data and not just push data or be the recipient of a 1:1 push of data. 30

Any questions?