Palco Program Spotlight – Colorado
Colorado Consumer-Directed Attendant Support Services program (CDASS)
In 2019, Palco began partnering with the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy & Financing (HCPF) to serve as a Financial Management Services vendor for the Consumer-Directed Attendant Support Services (CDASS) program. The CDASS program helps eligible home and community-based waiver participants hire and manage their own attendants who provide personal care, homemaker, and health maintenance services. This service delivery model affords CDASS members more choice and control over who provides those services and how those services are delivered by providing them with both budget and employer authority. Palco currently serves approximately 800 CDASS members and their 2200+ attendants.
Over the years, Palco has worked hard to provide superior customer service by being responsive to constructive stakeholder feedback through improvements to our systems, training and educational resources, and our overall processes. Some of the improvements we’ve made over the years include:
- Implementing an electronic MMES report, available 24/7 via the Palco Connect portal for CDASS members/employers and via the Palco Case Management Portal for HCPF and Case Management staff.
- Supporting a payroll on-demand process for CDASS attendants with a Money Network Card.
- Implementing an abbreviated CDASS attendant enrollment option for those attendants already actively enrolled and working for another Palco-supported CDASS member/employer.
- Making system-level improvements to the AuthentiCare (EVV) mobile app to align with HCPF policies.
- Developing more robust system user guides for Palco Connect – electronic timesheet portal – and AuthentiCare (EVV) mobile app as well as a training resource page with short video tutorials on how to navigate our systems.
- Streamlining the budget submission process for Case Managers to make it easier and more user-friendly.
- Implementing system changes to accommodate new benefits for CDASS attendants like paid sick leave and FML.
- Supporting changes to background check requirements for CDASS attendants, aligning our enrollment process with changes to HCPF policy.
- Engaged stakeholders through various listening sessions and collaboratives to gather feedback and improve services.
- Implementing a new customer service chat feature via www.palcofirst.com.
These are just a few of the changes visible to CDASS stakeholders, but they highlight our commitment to be forward-thinking and innovative when it comes to making sure CDASS stakeholders have what they need when they need it.
Check out this interview with CO CDASS Participant Ron and his CDASS Attendant Vicky to hear about how the quality services Palco provides has benefited them.
by Victoria Evans
Senior Director of Client Engagement