October 30, 2025
Following are this week’s updates. If you have questions, please contact [email protected].
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Welcome, Napa and Sierra Counties
CalMHSA welcomes two new counties into the SmartCare EHR. Both Napa and Sierra counties completed their go-live with the system earlier this month, with no major incidents.
“From planning and technical assistance to all the coordination and follow-up that happens outside of scheduled calls, we see how much time and effort you’ve put in — and it’s deeply appreciated,” said Mario Simmons, MPH, Assistant Deputy Director of Health and Human Services – Behavioral Health for Napa County. “There’s still a lot of work ahead as we move through implementation, and we’re so glad to have such thoughtful and responsive partners by our side.”
With the addition of Napa and Sierra, SmartCare is now being used by 27 counties across California — a true collective of behavioral health professionals working to ensure better care for the people and communities they serve.
Medi-Cal Screening Tool: Temporary Error With One BHQIP Report
CalMHSA has been working to update the DHCS Screening Tools to include the override function. Unfortunately, an issue with the Youth Screening Tool not being deployed as designed led to the BHQIP report, now renamed “CalMHSA 507 – Mental Health Medi-Cal Screening Tool Report,” being pushed to production systems prior to the document updates themselves.
As a result, this report currently issues an error because it is searching for fields that don’t exist. As soon as the documents are deployed to production — which should be this week or next week — the report should be functional again. We apologize for any inconvenience.
SmartCare Enhancement: Improved Charge Regeneration Functionality
Streamline released an update to Charge Regeneration as part of this week’s deployment. With this update, regenerated charges will now retain their original charge ID and creation date, rather than generating a new ID.
This enhancement is designed to improve the accuracy and consistency of payment and denial postings, supporting more streamlined financial workflows. Charge IDs will continue to be payer-specific, so clients with coverage from multiple payers may still see multiple charge IDs on their ledger. To learn more about how this enhancement works, see Key Points Regarding Charge Regeneration – 2023 CalMHSA.
Upcoming Changes to NOABDs Will Reflect State Language
CalMHSA has reviewed Behavioral Health Information Notices (BHIN) 25-014 and 25-015 and found that there are small differences between those and NOABDs. For example:
BHP (SMHS & DMC-ODS):
If the Plan does not help you to your satisfaction and/or you need additional help, the State Medi-Cal Managed Care Ombudsman Office can help you with any questions. You may call them Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. PST, excluding holidays, at 888-452-8609.
DMC-State Plan:
If the county does not help you to your satisfaction and/or you need additional help, the State Medi-Cal Managed Care Ombudsman Office can help you with any questions. You may call them Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. PST, excluding holidays, at 888-452-8609.
To accommodate both options, CalMHSA will be making minor changes, as follows, and we ask for county quality assurance staff to provide feedback on this plan. To provide feedback, please reply to this email by Nov. 14. If CalMHSA does not receive any feedback by Nov. 14, we will move forward with planned changes on Nov. 17.
The language of this section will be slightly altered to:
If {{CountyBHDeptName}} does not help you to your satisfaction and/or you need additional help, the State Medi-Cal Managed Care Ombudsman Office can help you with any questions. You may call them Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. PST, excluding holidays, at 888-452-8609.
This will bring in the county’s legal name, as in other sections of the NOABD. When a user sees the template, it will read something like this:
If {Sacramento County Behavioral Health} does not help you to your satisfaction and/or you need additional help, the State Medi-Cal Managed Care Ombudsman Office can help you with any questions. You may call them Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. PST, excluding holidays, at 888-452-8609.
While this does change the exact wording of the NOABDs that DHCS provides, we are confident that the change is sufficiently minor to not be considered a change. If anything, we hope it clarifies to the client receiving the NOABD who “the county” or “the plan” actually is.
There is one other slight difference that only resides in the Delivery System Notice. Please note the differences in bold. The italics indicate that this is something that the user must complete.
BHP (SMHS & DMC-ODS):
This notice lets you know that [Plan] has determined that your mental health condition or substance use disorder does not meet the medical necessity criteria to be eligible for specialty mental health services or substance use disorder services. [Using plain language, insert for the following two requirements:
1. A description of the criteria or guidelines used, including a citation to the specific regulations and county authorization procedures that support the action
2. The clinical reasons for the decision regarding medical necessity].
DMC-State Plan:
This notice lets you know that [County] has determined that your substance use disorder (SUD) condition does not meet the medical necessity criteria to be eligible for SUD services. [Using plain language, insert: 1. A description of the criteria or guidelines used, including a citation to the specific regulations and plan authorization procedures that support the action; and 2. The clinical reasons for the decision regarding medical necessity].
To accommodate both options, CalMHSA plans to slightly alter the language of this section to:
This notice lets you know that {{CountyBHDeptName}} has determined that your [mental health condition or substance use disorder] does not meet the medical necessity criteria to be eligible for [specialty mental health services or substance use disorder] services. [Using plain language, insert for the following two requirements:
1. A description of the criteria or guidelines used, including a citation to the specific regulations and county authorization procedures that support the action
2. The clinical reasons for the decision regarding medical necessity]
Accordingly, CalMHSA will change the NOABD language to be more of a prompt than simply static language. We believe this will clarify for clients which service they do not qualify for and are confident it is sufficiently minor to not be considered a change at all.
Upcoming Initiatives
See the EHR Product Team’s upcoming initiatives in this list, updated as products and priorities evolve.