|
On December 6th, the Social Service Information System (SSIS) was unavailable to local county and Tribal social services staff, supervisors, and managers throughout the State of MN for approximately 8 hours. The first reports of system issues were received by the SSIS Help Desk at 8:17 am; the system was restored at 4:30 pm. This outage also impacted the Minnesota Adult Abuse Reporting Center (MAARC) and DHS staff.
The specific cause of the outage is continuing to be investigated, including attention to possible Database link issues (X8 Exadata database system). Additional information will be shared when known.
Department and MNIT staff know how challenging the work can be even if the system is up and running perfectly. Local agency and state staff rely on SSIS to do their work and a system outage presents enormous barriers and challenges to completing the work. Extensive feedback was received from users about the negative impacts. We are committed to doing everything we can to minimize outages in the future and providing you with the tools you need.
Thank you for your ongoing commitment and dedication.
Minnesota Department of Human Services staff thank you for continuing to report performance issues with the Social Service Information System (SSIS) and impacts those issues have on the ability to complete agency work.
SSIS Help Desk staff are closely tracking reports from county/Tribal users, and continuing to work closely with MNIT partners on resolving issues resulting in unacceptable slowness. The identified issues, not isolated to one IT function, include databases, infrastructure, and Virtual.
Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) changes. MNIT leadership designated resolution of these issues as a priority for the various MNIT teams working on solutions to improve user experiences. MNIT staff is reviewing reported experiences of users, as well as working to identify and correct components of applications having issues. Again, while some efforts will result in immediate relief for users; others will require more time and effort.
Please continue to report issues you are experiencing with SSIS, and include specific details. We continue to track calls and may ask specific agency mentors/workers to report any incidents of lagging.
Efforts to identify and resolve issues specific to SSIS applications, and MAARC for county and Tribal agencies within the past week:
1. SSIS Help Desk is monitoring reports related to slowness and performance (continued)
2. MNIT Monitoring of the Horizon Servers at various times of the day for issues continues (continued)
3. Memory / CPU usage on the horizon servers (continued)
a. Installed the service application that will monitor the high memory allocation for our application on two of the SSIS QA horizon servers. We are monitoring the applications on these servers for any adverse effects that may happen from this new application. Have seen no adverse effects; the service application is operating as expected
b. It has successfully re-allocated the fast speed memory from the default of 1.3 Megabytes to 200 Megabytes for every SSIS Worker application running on the server.
4. New Horizon environment testing with Scott and Washington counties (continued)
- Testing with the New Horizon Server farm is going well at Scott County and 40 additional users Scott county now have access the new horizon server farm
5. Conducting analysis regarding slowness regarding the RTF editor, including possible removal of the HYDRA component from SSIS. Not a quick fix to this issue; it will take several months and significant work to remove and replace HYDRA. Implementing the change will require a release (continued)
6. Building a Baseline Network timing diagram for MAARC. This allows for comparison with the baseline when reports of latency in MAARC (continued)
7. MICROSOFT review of the system, specifically servers within the system (continued)
The 2022-2023 BRASS Manual, DHS Bulletin 21-32-03, has been published on CountyLink. The changes to the BRASS Manual Include the following:
New BRASS Codes:
419x Court Related Services and Activities
- No associated HCPCS/modifier
480x Children’s Mental Health Residential Service Path
- Associated HCPCS/modifier:
- H0019 Children’s Residential Treatment
-
540x Waiver Employment Services
- Associated HCPCS/modifier:
- T2019 U9 – Employment Exploration
- T2019 U3 – Employment Development
- T2019 U2 – Individual Employment Support
- T2019 HQ – Group Employment
550x Day Support Services
- Associated HCPCS/modifier:
- T2021 UC DT&H pilot, Rate D Structured day program
640x Waiver Employment Services
- Associated HCPCS/modifier:
- T2019 U9 – Employment Exploration
- T2019 U3 – Employment Development
- T2019 U2 – Individual Employment Support
- T2019 HQ – Group Employment
650x Day Support Services
- Associated HCPCS/modifier:
- T2021 UC DT&H pilot, Rate D Structured day program
Changes to current BRASS Service codes
- 305 X Rule 25 Assessment/Rule 24 Financial Eligibility Determination END DATE 06/30/2022
- HCPCS/modifier H0001 - alcohol and/or Drug Assessment also END DATE for 06/30/2022
- 307x Behavioral Health Fund Eligibility Determination REACTIVATED 07/01/2022
- Associate HCPCS/modifier:H0001 - alcohol and/or Drug Assessment also activated 07/01/2022
- 359x Behavioral Health Fund (BHF) (Formerly Consolidated Chemical Dependency Treatment Fund)
- 658x Approved Pilot
- End dating HCPCS/modifier: T2041 – CDCS Mandatory case management effective 12/31/2021
- 691x AC/EW/CAC/CADI/BI Case Management
- Associating HCPCS/modifier: T2041 – CDCS Mandatory case management effective 01/01/2022
BRASS code definition changes
There are some language changes to some BRASS codes related to the Family First Prevention and Services Act of 2018. ** Please see BRASS Manual for complete definition modifications.
Those modifications include changes to service definitions for:
- BRASS 107 - Child Welfare Assessment
- BRASS 180 - Treatment Foster Care
- BRASS 181 - Child Foster Care
- 183 - Children’s Group Residential Care
- 185 - Correctional Facilities
- 186 - Detention
- 188 - Supervised Independent Living (18 up to 21)
- 483 - Children’s Residential Treatment
- 574 - Community Residential Facilities and Services.
County and tribal nation staff should not add or make changes to the Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS) service agreements (except for home care, and alcohol/drug abuse) from Dec. 16-21, 2021, or until the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) sends an “all clear” message. During this time, DHS will enter rates in MMIS and the cost-of-living (COLA) rate increase process will run.
To learn more, see the full announcement here: Refrain from adding or making changes to MMIS service agreements.
The "QRTP Family and Permanency Team Meeting" activity is available for the following as a Claimable Activity for Child Welfare Targeted Case Management:
- T2023 HA HE (MH-TCM, child, face-to-face) for Services "490 - Child Rule 79 Case Management" and "491 - Adult Rule 79 Targeted Case Management"
- T2023 U3 (CW-TCM, face-to-face) for Services "104 - Child Protection Investigation", "107 - Child Welfare Assessment", "108 - Family Assessment Response", "109 - Concurrent Planning Assessment", "192 - Family Assessment Case Management", "193 - General Case Management", "492 - Child General Case Management", and "592 - Child (<21) DD Non-Waiver Case Management"
- T2023 HE (MH-TCM, adult, face-to-face) for Services "490 - Child Rule 79 Case Management", and "491 - Adult Rule 79 Targeted Case Management" New BRASS Service codes
Up-to-date SSIS mentor and coordinator contact information assists SSIS staff in communicating SSIS news and events accurately, effectively and efficiently. Agency mentors and coordinators are asked to review agency SSIS contact lists regularly to ensure timely delivery of SSIS communication. Contact lists are located on the SSIS Resources page. Change requests should be submitted to the SSIS Help Desk and include the worker’s name, phone number, email address, and role.
As year-end approaches it is important that host agencies of Certified Residential Facilities (CRF) submit the following documents to the DHS Financial Operations Division (FOD):
These forms alert FOD of renewed contracts and rate changes.
Completed forms should be submitted via email to FOD.Facility.Financial.Forms.dhs@state.mn.us.
The 2021-2022 ICD-10 billable mental health diagnosis code lists are now available on the SSIS website. The list is located in Chapter 2: Claiming in the Fiscal Mentor Manual.
Clean up old Service Arrangements in SSIS by inactivating them. To inactivate multiple service arrangements:
- In the Service Arrangements Search grid, multi-select the Service Arrangements to be inactivated.
- Select Inactivate Service Arrangement in the Action menu.
- A pop-up window will appear with the message Inactivate Service Arrangement? This action sets the “Status to “Inactive/Payments” and no additional payments can be made. Do you wish to continue? Select “Yes to All”.
Service Arrangements can be reactivated by selecting Activate Service Arrangement in the Action menu.
If too many Service Arrangements have been selected in error, multi-select in the grid and use the Activate Service Arrangement menu option. Select “Yes to All” when prompted.
Contact the SSIS Help Desk if assistance is needed when inactivating Service Arrangements.
Admin users may notice new Active Directory groups available when in a user’s Credentials screen
- For Worker, select: H55_APP_Horizon_SSIS_Workers_PROD
- For Admin, select: H55_APP_Horizon_SSIS_Workers_ADMIN
Groups starting with G46 are for the new Horizon environment and should not be used unless specifically directed by SSIS.
Do not use:
- G46_APP_Horizon_SSIS_Workers_PROD
- G46_APP_Horizon_SSIS_Workers_ADMIN
SSIS Release 21.4 training materials and related items can be found here.
New to Child Protection and want the basics? Or maybe a refresher? Look here for course descriptions, schedules and registration information for SSIS CP Basics courses.
New to Adult Protection and want the basics? Or maybe a refresher? Look here for course descriptions, schedules and registration information.
Fiscal New Worker eLearnings, as well as a Fiscal New Worker virtual training schedule, will be posted in 2022. More information will be announced in SSIS Updates coming soon.
The Relative Search and SSIS webinar recording has been posted to the Family First Prevention Services page on the Minnesota Child Welfare Training Academy’s website. Look here to find this and other webinar recordings and related materials for FFPSA.
The FFPSA Webinar Completion Form has been updated to include the Relative Search webinar. Use this form to show proof that you attended the live or recorded webinars. The Minnesota Child Welfare Training Academy does not track attendance. It is up to the user to track and save the return receipt to their designated personal file.
Subscribe to the SSIS Update
|
