November 20, 2025

Following are this week’s updates. If you have questions, please contact [email protected]. 

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Thanksgiving Holiday Closure

CalMHSA and the Help Desk will be closed Nov. 27-28 for the Thanksgiving holiday, and the Bulletin will next be published on Dec. 4.

Intake Flow Sheet Changes Now Available

The Oct. 23 Bulletin included details about updates to the intake flow sheet on the Clinical page to clarify some language. These updates are now live. The new document, which is meant as a quick-guide to show how a Medi-Cal beneficiary becomes a client in SmartCare.

Duplicate Gender Identity Options

The gender identity question in the Client Information screen has been found to have duplicate options, which have now been deactivated. CalMHSA is working on a script to move any clients that have used the duplicate versions to the still-active versions. This has been tested in QA systems; the script will be running in production systems beginning Nov. 21.

Updates to AIMS Assessment

The AIMS Assessment’s previous scores have now been adjusted so that the draft display does not include Global Judgement and Dental section scores as part of the total score. This will ensure users have an accurate comparison between current and previous scores. Please note that any previously signed PDFs may contain scores that include any > 0 value for those sections. How to Complete the AIMS Assessment 

Changes Upcoming for Mobile Crisis Reporting Documents

CalMHSA has completed the initial review and analysis of the data dictionary provided by DHCS for mobile crisis reporting. Changes will need to be made to some documents, including the Mobile Crisis Dispatch Screening and the Mobile Crisis Progress Note. We are currently working on creating the full list of changes for our internal development team (likely in the first week of December) and will update counties on when those changes are expected to be completed.

STRTP QI Assessment

CalMHSA has reviewed the SmartCare STRTP QI Assessment document in light of DHCS updates to the document. While the forms look very similar, the changes required in SmartCare are significant, as almost every label and field would need to be updated. Based on the following analysis, we have concluded that our resources are currently best allocated on other projects, although this will remain a lower-priority item that may be updated in the future. 

CalMHSA recommends that counties use the DHCS fillable PDF version, form #8757, on the DHCS website, and upload this document into SmartCare.

Analysis
CalMHSA reviewed the usefulness of the document from the perspective of what type of data it brings to the system and what system data might be leveraged to complete the document more quickly and easily for clinicians. While it needs to be in a client’s chart for clinical and compliance purposes, review of these types would be of the signed SmartCare document, which can be done just as easily from a scanned or uploaded document.

The Qualified Individual Assessment document brings minimal information from the EHR into the form, limited to only the youth’s name and date of birth, with updates to include preferred name and pronouns. The rest of the fields must be manually entered by the user, as the information does not exist elsewhere in SmartCare. The document consists primarily of narrative text fields and recommendations, most of which would not provide any useful discrete data for counties to report on.