October 23, 2025
Following are this week’s updates. If you have questions, please contact [email protected].
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Intake Flow Sheet Clarification, Reminder to Use Screening Tool
As the intake process has been simplified, it appears the Intake Flow Sheet may be creating some confusion and some requests for mental health services may be skipping the screening tool. While this is acceptable under certain circumstances, such as a referral from Social Services for a foster youth, most services require the screening. The “Walk-In” box was meant to portray a walk-in assessment clinic for clients who may skip the screening, such as in the case of foster youth. CalMHSA is working to clarify this document; we appreciate counties’ patience and will notify all users when it is complete.
New Flow Sheet, Protocol for Physical Checks for Withdrawal Management (BHIN 25-003)
CalMHSA has been working on a method of addressing the physical checks requirement described in Behavioral Health Information Notice 25-003. DHCS has confirmed that using the Flow Sheet for this requirement is acceptable.
CalMHSA’s efforts will include creating a new Flow Sheet called “Detox Observation – Physical Check,” based on DHCS form 6045. Creation of a Flow Sheet is a manual process; once in CalMHSA’s production system on Nov. 7, it will then sync to all county affiliate production systems. This delay should give counties time to prepare their staff for the rollout.
A new protocol, Vitals Checks in Withdrawal Management (BHIN 25-003) – 2023 CalMHSA, details this requirement and how to address it. Additional Knowledge Base articles are being created for end users and will be linked in the protocol once completed.
BHQIP Report Renamed to Medi-Cal Screening Tool Report
In response to BHIN 25-020, CalMHSA is working to update the report that provides information about the DHCS Medi-Cal Mental Health Screening Tools. Previously named “CalMHSA BHQIP Report,” we have renamed it “CalMHSA 507 – Mental Health Medi-Cal Screening Tool Report” to be more descriptive and to meet the report naming convention.
This report will now include information about any overrides. Other changes include replacing the score number with a description if the score was not taken into account. For example, if a person reports to be in crisis, the screening tool is stopped. The report now shows “Crisis” rather than a score of “0” to clarify this result. We’ve also addressed the merged-cell issue upon export to Excel and other minor errors.
The report is in QA for testing and is set to be deployed to production environments soon, possibly the weekend of Oct. 25-26.
Spanish Consent Forms Updated to Match English Versions
CalMHSA has updated the downtime versions of the Spanish Consent to Treat and Coordinated Care Consent to match the updated English versions. The updated documents can be found on the downtime form page on the Knowledge Base.
The original changes to these documents were made in response to the November 2024 meeting about ePrescribing and 42 CFR privacy rules. Information from that meeting is included in the following protocol: ePrescribing under 42 CFR Part 2 – 2023 CalMHSA.
Upcoming Initiatives
See the EHR Product Team’s upcoming initiatives in this list, updated as products and priorities evolve.