October 7, 2022

First, if you have not yet completed the survey we have requested NYS Council members complete PLEASE do so as soon as possible,  We can’t make budget asks without data and the questions on the survey will take you no longer than 5 minutes to answer.  Help us to represent you with concrete information. by filling out this quick survey:   https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/D6578VH

Next, we have received several questions from various members who would like to get some feedback from their NYS Council member colleagues. Kindly please send me responses to any or all of the brief questions (below).  Your fellow NYS Council member agencies will be grateful and I will share the information I receive (in the aggregate) with all:

Healthcare Workforce Bonus Program
1) Agency writes… We submitted using the SFS versus MMIS. We did get our pot of money in our bank account as the FAQs suggested we would, but the portal has not updated for us to show “proof” of which staff should get the bonus and how much. (Based on the amount, we can assume its 100%, but we know we should not assume). 

Question: Have other NYS Council member agencies that submitted in the HCW Bonus Program portal through SFS portal had their portal page updated by the state?  If not, did you get a message from the system re:  when it will be updated?

2)  Question:  Does anyone have clarity regarding whether an agency can seek a bonus for ‘clerical staff’ in behavioral health agencies?  The agency has reached out to the HCW Bonus Program help desk and they declined to respond stating the agency needs to make its’ own decision. 

3) Exclusion Checks: Agency write… We operate several programs which require us to run exclusion checks for our staff. We have been manually doing these checks, and we are not 100% sure if we are doing the right checks for the right staff and vendors. Question:  Do you have names of any “experts” we can speak with so we can learn from them how our peers do the check?   Does anyone have the name of a vendor they recommend to perform the checks for us?

Thanks everyone!