The Coordinated Care Initiative (CCI) is the State of California and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) joint effort to streamline the delivery of acute care and long-term care services and supports (LTSS) to persons eligible for both Medicare and Medi-Cal services, the so-called “dual eligibles.” When the Governor first proposed the CCI in his January 2012 budget, it linked together three key provisions: (1) mandatory enrollment of all duals into Medi-Cal managed care, (2) the integration of long-term care services and supports into managed care, and (3) the start of the IHSS Statewide Public Authority. If one of these linked components “fail” then all the linked components fail too. De-linking Cal MediConnect (the 8 county demonstration) from mandatory enrollment of all duals into Medi-Cal managed care and the integration of Medi-Cal LTSS into Medi-Cal managed care ensures that the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) has the authority to proceed with each component of CCI that is not interdependent on another component. This allows DHCS the flexibility to stratify implementation and strengthen policy decisions of each CCI component separately. The Director of the California Department of Finance has the authority to determine if the implementation of CCI results in savings to the General Fund and if, it does not, has the authority to declare the CCI inoperative. For more information, read SB 94 or visit the CalDuals website.
