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Dear Community Partners,
Tomorrow is the VRS Community Partner + VRS Staff Forum! To join the Forum, you’ll need to register in advance for the Zoom meeting by clicking on this link. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the forum.
- May 6, 2021
- 9:00am – 11:00am
- Register to Receive Zoom link at this link.
- The PowerPoint presentation will be sent Thursday morning.
Agenda
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Welcome
- Kim Babine, Director of Community Partnerships
- Chris McVey, Director of Strategic Initiatives
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E1MN Updates
- E1MN Updates: Amanda Jensen-Stahl, Manager of Interagency Partnerships and Business Engagement
- E1PBA Overview: Evie Wold, VRS Placement Specialist | Sara Sundeen, VRS Community Partnerships Specialist
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Pre-ETS Updates
- Alyssa Klein, VRS Pre-ETS and Transition Specialist
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Contracted Services Updates
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Q&A
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Wrap up
ASL interpreters and closed captioning will be available. For assistance with other accommodation needs, questions, or technical issues, please contact Sara.Sundeen@state.mn.us and/or Anne.Paulson@state.mn.us.
We’ve heard from a number of DEED-VRS staff and Community Partners who have expressed concerns about the recent changes to DEED-VRS Pre-ETS authorization and billing requirements. DEED-VRS Leadership including Dee Torgerson have considered opportunities to reduce Pre-ETS reporting burdens and still meet VRS’s federal reporting requirements to the VRS federal funder: the Rehabilitation Services Administration. Consequently, DEED-VRS is making the following changes to Pre-ETS authorizing, invoicing, and reporting requirements. Please be aware that in the future, VRS may need to increase reporting requirements based on RSA guidance.
Communication between DEED-VRS & Community Partner
Prior to any Pre-ETS authorization, communication must occur between the DEED-VRS Counselor/Pre-ETS Representative and the Community Partner providing the Pre-ETS service. As part of the coordination of services, DEED-VRS staff and Community Partner staff must discuss what Pre-ETS services are needed and whether/how much service time, travel time and prep time are required.
Casenotes
DEED-VRS Pre-ETS Reps and Counselors must case note the following:
- That DEED-VRS staff and Community Partner staff discussed what Pre-ETS services are needed and whether/how much service time, travel time and prep time are required.
- The agreed upon required Pre-ETS service,
- Any agreed upon travel and prep time that is included on the authorization.
This does not need to be a lengthy case note, but it’s important that VRS have record of what services were agreed to by DEED-VRS.
Authorizations
Authorization detail can revert back to previous requirements. This means that travel and prep time for Pre-ETS no longer need to be indicated on the authorization. In other words, the total hours authorized for each Pre-ETS service type and title will be all that is needed without calling out how much is to be allocated to service, travel and prep time.
Invoices
Information included in the Community Partner invoice only needs to include the total number of hours billed for each Pre-ETS service type and title. There is no need to indicate how much of that time was spent on service, travel, and prep time on the invoice.
Pre-ETS Report
As always, a Pre-ETS report must accompany an invoice for payment. The report must include clear detail on the amount of time spent delivering services (including detail on what occurred during that time), the amount of travel time (including the address of the start and destination points) and/or the amount of prep time (including detail on what occurred during that time) for each date of service.
Please Join Us
We plan to review the revised Pre-ETS authorizing, invoicing, and reporting requirements, including sample documents, at the upcoming DEED-VRS Community Partner Forum on May 6th from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. For those unable to attend this meeting, it will be recorded and posted on the “Forums” tab of this website. This will be an opportunity for DEED-VRS and Community Partner staff to learn together and understand the expectations for VRS & Community Partners.
In July 2020, VRS rolled out a new service on P/T contracts–Transportation Reimbursement. With any new or changed service, we knew we would observe how the service was working and make changes accordingly. Since the service was introduced, VRS learned “Transportation Reimbursement” was in essence two distinct services. To clarify and make the services easier to use for both VRS staff and Community Partner staff, VRS is separating “Transportation Reimbursement” into two distinct services and making the following updates.
Community Partners with “Transportation Reimbursement” on their contracts will need to amend their contracts to use the new services. VRS Community Partnerships staff will work with you to amend your P/T contracts.
Transportation Reimbursement
When transporting an individual VRS staff have to consider an individual’s Consumer Financial Participation (CFP) as a factor. There are services that VRS may ask individuals to pay for based on income and transportation is one of the services. Not all the individuals will have a CFP, but it is possible.
Community Partners staff took time to discuss this information with a number of staff and learned this policy has to be enforced equally to any vendor that provides transportation – meaning that Consumer Financial Participation (CFP) will apply to this service. Therefore, this service also has to be on an employment plan.
When traveling to and from where the individual is served and reimbursing the partner time to get to and from the individual, the services does not have to be on an Employment Plan. CFP does not apply.
For all P/T contracts there will the option of providing one or both of the services on contracts and we will be replacing the current “Transportation Reimbursement” service with the following services:
- Transportation to Vendor (participant is in vehicle) $28/Hour
- Travel Expense to Provider (to/from participant) $28/Hour
We believe this change will help our staff and partners clearly define when to use transportation and when to use travel services. There will most likely still be questions and individual cases that need attention or technical support and we want you to feel free to contact community partner staff. We know that you have a great working relationship with our field staff, and we would like to suggest that you feel free to contact us as well.
There has been a lot of thoughtful discussion about Driver’s Permit Training and what the intent of the service is for the individuals served. With input and guidance from VRS policy staff we are changing Driver’s Permit Training on all P/T contracts. This change will make it clear that the service is an accommodation and CFP does not apply. We are changing the service to:
Driver’s Permit/License Preparation and Training as an Accommodation.
In order to help partners and field staff, Sara Sundeen and Anne Paulson will be making the following changes to all P/T contracts. They will be reaching out to our partners and please feel free to reach out to them at as well.
Thank you for everything and all your patience while working with us on defining and refining this new service!
Kim Babine
Director of Community Partnerships
Direct: 651-259-7349
Kim.Babine@state.mn.us
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