County Shared Decision-Making Meeting: Inpatient/Residential Daily Documentation

We have received a number of questions about ISL tracking for clients during their inpatient or residential stays. We have discussed this internally and have decided to bring forward our recommendations to the counties for review and feedback. As such, we have scheduled this County Shared Decision-Making meeting for Tuesday, September 29, 2026, at 10:00. In it we will discuss recommended methods of documenting and tracking the daily activities and services, including ISL encounters, provided to clients who are receiving inpatient or residential treatment. We are hoping to collectively create clear guidance to ensure all counties are documenting consistently across SmartCare instances. In the same way that ISL reporting helps document non-claimable services and expenses, there may also be services counties are providing that go above and beyond what the bundled inpatient or residential rates include; and per DHCS BHIN 23-068, those additional unbundled services must be documented. Ultimately, this guidance aims to help counties ensure they are appropriately documenting and being paid for the services provided. Please have your inpatient & residential clinical supervisors, inpatient & residential billing managers, County SysAdmins, County ISL leads register.