In the late 90’s, management at Contra Costa County was faced with the challenge of looking for additional revenue sources or cutting program resources.
When Sue Guest was brought in as Public Health, Nurse Program Manager, she was asked to grow the Medi-Cal Administrative Activities (MAA) for the county. At that time, Contra Costa — with a population of approximately 1 million, 24% of whom were Medi-Cal eligible — was hardly claiming MAA and their budget was suffering.
Contra Costa has its own county hospital, clinic system and managed care plan that served a large percentage of the Medi-Cal population but no one championed their MAA program.
Sue quickly realized the value of utilizing MAA and within the first year of submitting for reimbursement, Contra Costa County doubled its MAA revenue. In two years, MAA revenue tripled. As time went on, the county’s Public Health programs began to rely heavily on their MAA revenue.
Contra Costa personnel soon determined the need of standardizing their Time Study reimbursement to ensure the continued growth and sustainability of their MAA reimbursements.
To do so, the county started using Persimmony Time Study to meet the newly implemented federal mandate. In the first year of using Persimmony Time Study, Contra Costa doubled their prior MAA revenue.
Due to this success, Contra Costa brought on additional claiming units with the expansion of Medi-Cal. They added new programs that would be a good fit for MAA — significantly, the Alcohol and Other Drug Services program.
Contra Costa was getting reimbursed for work being already being done daily. Not only did this work generate MAA revenue but it assured those who qualified for Medi-Cal received Medi-Cal. It expanded the reimbursement cycle, bringing even more revenue into the county’s health system.
Since fiscal year 2018/19, Contra Costa has claimed over $6 million per year in MAA, with little stress on their staff.
Persimmony’s Time Study has made Contra Costa County’s documentation and oversight transparent and efficient, and has helped in accessing a reliable revenue stream — one that generally correlates to $6 per person in Contra Costa County’s population.
