EXHIBIT A MARICOPA COUNTY PROPOSAL TO VITALYST.PDF

Exhibit A

Integrate and Align the Homeless Coordinated Entry System with Medicaid Eligible Services
Maricopa County Proposal to Vitalyst
Statement of Need:
Maricopa County, in collaboration with other public and philanthropic funders, seeks to leverage every opportunity to
connect housing and health care resources to provide services and reduce the unsheltered and homeless population.
Connecting the two primary systems of care for these households will increase the types of services currently
accessible for many of our community’s most vulnerable and high cost residents. The regional Coordinated Entry
System is positioned to identify, assess and refer homeless households to Medicaid eligible health and housing
services.
Opportunities:
The Maricopa County Regional Coordinated Entry System (CES) assesses, prioritizes and rapidly connects people
experiencing homelessness to appropriate housing and support services. The CES is operational at UMOM for
homeless families, and the Welcome Center located at the Human Services Campus for homeless individuals. Our
community has an opportunity to further develop the CES to leverage local housing and support services through the
Regional Behavioral Health Authority (RBHA). Maximizing and prioritizing resources for our chronic and most
vulnerable households experiencing homelessness is a critical first step in ending homelessness.
Coordinating the RBHA and homeless services systems will allow for our service system to quickly identify and connect
to families and individuals with high needs to necessary services. Changes to Medicaid may allow for expanded
services for people with significant health and behavioral health needs. Our most recent point-in-time data indicate
the number of unsheltered individuals has increased as had our population of chronically homeless households.
Housing prioritization for chronically homeless individuals and families in Maricopa County is a priority of the Funder’s
Collaborative (Funders: Maricopa County, Valley of the Sun United Way, City of Phoenix, Arizona Department of
Housing, Arizona Department of Economic Security), the Maricopa County Regional Continuum of Care (CoC) and the
federal strategy outlined by the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH). Resources from the CoC
have been reallocated to support the continued development of the Regional Coordinated Entry System (CES) to assist
our community in rapidly connecting homeless individuals to housing vouchers and rental subsidies based on
assessments. The referrals require collaboration between multiple service providers and a service delivery model that
should result in improved access to services, strong coordination of care, improved heath, and cost reductions. The
prioritization of the chronically homeless and high needs individuals and families will reduce the burden on emergency
services (e.g. hospitals and jails) and should result in cost savings across multiple sectors.
To this end, our community desires to develop the capacity to operationalize and document processes to fully
implement the CES and leverage the RBHA in this collective effort. To integrate and align the CES and RBHA, our first
step is to identify our system barriers. Some of the barriers include:
1. Data sharing to determine eligibility;
2. Analysis of need and recommend process to enroll Medicaid eligible households;
3. Ability to track referrals from homeless services to behavioral health system;
4. Process to connect RBHA managed housing to the CES for referral; and
5. Policy to prioritize housing resources for each of the the CES and RBHA service referral lists.
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May 6, 2016

Integrate and Align the Homeless Coordinated Entry System with Medicaid Eligible Services
Maricopa County Proposal to Vitalyst
Currently, each system has separate wait lists with different priorities and eligibility criteria. The homelessness system
through CES needs to develop a process to identify, confirm eligibility and refer appropriate individuals and families to
the behavioral health system. Maricopa County Human Services Department, in coordination with the other funders,
is requesting technical assistance to assess current system, create a gaps analysis, identify best practices, and
recommend solutions and next steps; for both the homeless service system and the health care system.
Outlined below are strategies to move forward in developing the mechanisms to implement the referral process and
create a more sustainable and effective system for both the CoC/CES and RBHA. These steps would also support
recent system recommendations from the Morrison Institute and strengthen our data quality and data collection
points.
Tasks:
Policy and procedure document for the following:
 Develop a client centered and client informed data sharing policy for CES/CoC and RBHA to ensure
coordination of care
 Create work flow for referring and accepting individuals and families from the CES to the RBHA housing
o Determine eligibility for RBHA housing and services
o Connect eligible participants to available housing and Case Management services
o Develop process to prioritize and unduplicate clients from CES and RBHA wait lists
 Operationalize use of Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) eligible services to support the
CES and connection to housing (e.g. SOAR, Housing Navigation)
 Measure CES system and RBHA housing placements
 Provide a training manual and implementation timeline
Outcomes/Deliverables:
 Connect the RBHA clinics and housing units to the CES
 Develop methodology and define roles for data sharing
 Operating procedures manual
Impact:
Coordination of RBHA and AHCCCS services to create sustainable funding model for core components of the CES and
homeless service system (e.g. Housing Navigation, SOAR)
Ensure all eligible participants are enrolled in AHCCCS and have access to services based on assessment of need
Create model for data sharing and prioritization of housing and services for most vulnerable individuals and families in
Maricopa County
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May 6, 2016

Integrate and Align the Homeless Coordinated Entry System with Medicaid Eligible Services
Maricopa County Proposal to Vitalyst
Create a finance structure that will connect homeless service providers to AHCCCS/Medicaid billing for eligible services
Budget Request:
$60,000 Technical Assistance – 20 hours weekly, starting July 1, 2016 through June 30, 2017. Bi-weekly meetings and
monthly status reports.
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May 6, 2016