March 13, 2025
Following are this week’s updates. If you have questions, please contact ehr@calmhsa.org.
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New Permission Item for Patient Portal ID Create Button
Based on feedback from multiple counties, CalMHSA will create a permission item for the Patient Portal ID Create button on the Client Information screen, to take effect March 21.
The Create button allows users to create Patient Portal account for the clients. With this change, counties will be able to determine which user roles have access to the button.
The new permission item will be granted only to the County Affiliate SysAdmin and Patient Portal User Administration Add-On user roles and will reside in the Screen (Update Mode) permission type. Its parent will be Client Information, and it will be named “ButtonCreateNonStaffUser.”
Changing Guardian to Caregiver: Effective March 21
In the Feb. 13 Bulletin, CalMHSA requested feedback from counties about a new Legal Guardian concept. While only two counties responded, both agreed with the idea of separating the Guardian from the Legal Guardian. One county agreed with the CalMHSA suggestion to rename “Guardian” to “Caregiver” to help make the distinction clearer; the other county did not express an opinion. Based on this feedback, CalMHSA will move forward with changing “Guardian” to “Caregiver,” and the change will be available in county production systems next Friday, March 21.
One county expressed some concern with having the Legal Guardian automatically added as a co-signer to all documents that the Guardian is currently automatically added to as a co-signer. Their concern was that each county is different for foster youth — some may have the Legal Guardian requirement, and others may have the Caregiver (Guardian) requirement. However, because this configuration is made at the CalMHSA level, counties do not have the ability to customize automatic co-signers.
While some counties’ foster care systems may have different requirements, CalMHSA will move forward with automatically adding the Legal Guardian as a co-signer to these documents because we believe it is preferable for both the Legal Guardian and the Caregiver to automatically be added. As long as the client, the legal guardian, or the caregiver sign, the document will be considered complete, eliminating the need for staff to add the legal guardian manually. By having all options available, staff will more easily be able to acquire at least one required signature. Staff can remove extra co-signers as necessary if having non-required co-signers is cumbersome.
Update: No Changes to Export Function
In the Feb. 27 Bulletin, CalMSHA reported that a county had requested the “Export” button on the “Services (My Office)” list page be re-granted to the user role “Services (My Office) Add-On”. We indicated that if no negative feedback was received, that change would be made on March 14. In response, we received some negative feedback and, therefore, will not be making this change tomorrow. We will continue to discuss and provide additional information in a future edition of the Bulletin.
In Patient (IP) Module Office Hours Every Third Wednesday
CalMHSA will host office hours every third Wednesday from 11 a.m. to noon. Except for events that call out Sys Admins, these trainings will be catered to all end users. It will be up to the admins to ask their end users to sign up for these trainings. Please note: Those who work in bedboard, should attend bedboard and not residential board
Counties will need to subscribe to each individual event in order to participate. For more updates visit the CalMHSA Events page on 2023.calmhsa.org. See a schedule of topics and dates below:
- March 19: Intro + Bedboard: For this first initial office hours, we will be doing a walkthrough of bedboard and having an open QA. Attendees will not need to submit questions for this first initial office hour; registered users will receive slide deck on March 18.
- April 16: Residential (My Office)
- May 21: All Beds – Setup / Configuration Keys / Error Correction (Sys Admin Specific)
- June 18: Whiteboard + Final Bed Related Questions
- July 16: Smartview / Flags (Optimizing the system for IP)
- August 20: Client Orders / Client MAR – (Sys Admin Setup)
- Sept. 17: Client Orders / Client MAR – Clinician POV
- Oct. 15: MAR Configurations
- Nov. 19: Client MAR – Final Review
- Dec. 17: IP / Super PHF Documentation
- Jan. 21, 2026: MH Residential Documentation
- Feb. 18, 2026: SUD Res Documentation
- March 18, 2026: CSU / PECC Documentation
Counties will need to subscribe to each individual office hour to participate. For more updates visit the CalMHSA Events page on 2023.calmhsa.org.
Office hours held after March 19, 2025, are meant to be utilized as Q&A and open discussions. CalMHSA will send out material to the related topic the Thursday before Office Hours. Please review this material beforehand and submit your questions by the Monday prior to the meeting via that week’s survey link provided alongside the meeting’s registration link. We will review the submitted questions during these office hours. Please submit a ticket if you have county-specific issues, as we will not be reviewing these during this meeting time.
Update on Potential New User Role With All Delete Permissions
Two counties responded to CalMHSA’s request (Feb. 27 Bulletin) for feedback on a potential new user role that would be granted all delete permissions. The original request for this came from a specific county. Of the two counties that responded with feedback, one was indifferent to the idea of a new user role, and one was opposed. With no other positive feedback at this time, CalMHSA will not be creating this user role.