What is the SMAA Program?

School-Based Medi-Cal Administrative Activities (SMAA) is a federal program that reimburses school districts for time spent on  Medi-Cal Outreach to students and their families.

This includes time spent referring families to Medi-Cal health insurance, provider or facility, and coordinating Medi-Cal covered services. The SMAA Program helps to ensure the proper and efficient administration of the Medi-Cal program. 


Who is eligible?

DHCS has created a list of approved job titles for eligible staff.  These are staff who are in a position to provide Medi-Cal outreach to students and their families.

How to get

started:

LEA’s must contract with their LEC (Local Educational Consortia).

Next, districts determine who should participate in SMAA and create a TSP (Time Survey Participant) list.  This list is submitted, along with school calendars and work schedules, to the LEC six weeks prior to the start of each quarter.

Finally, the district must verify that TSP participants are not 100% federally funded and certify staff who participate in TCM (Targeted Case Management).

TSP’s will then participate in a RMTS (Random Moment Time Survey).

A Random Moment Time Survey (RMTS) is the approved methodology for determining the percentage of staff time that is considered reimbursable through the SMAA Program.

RMTS: What is it?

How does RMTS work?

  • PCG (Public Consulting Group) manages the RMTS process in the State of California through a web-based system.

  • This system randomly selects a TSP from a predetermined list and matches it to a randomly selected “moment” in time (1 minute).

  • An email notification is sent to the TSP 24 hours prior to the selected moment.

  • TSP’s are asked 5 questions to capture what they are doing at a specific minute in time:

  1. Were you working at the time of your moment?

  2. Was this activity being performed pursuant to, or related to, a service listed on a student’s IEP, IFSP or Care Plan?

  3. Who were you with?

  4. What were you doing?

  5. Why were you performing this activity?

  • TSP’s are required to respond to moments within 4 student attendance days. Moments not answered within the timeframe expire and cannot be answered.

  • The RMTS is administered quarterly 3 times a year (Oct –June) and a fourth quarter is averaged.

The time survey results will then be used to identify, measure, and allocate the staff time that is devoted to Medi-Cal reimbursable activities.

SBR Makes it Easy

With over 40 years combined experience with the SMAA Program, SBR has seen its evolution from monthly bubble forms, to weekly time surveys, to RMTS. Our expertise can help your district navigate the SMAA program.

Check out what

we can do

for you:

  • Identify potential TSPs and correlate with your LEA-BOP practitioners.

  • Provide MAA TSP Trainings.

  • Analyze your RMTS coding results.

  • Create your MAA Operational plan.

  • Perform an Audit Review.

  • Prepare your Quarterly MAA RMTS Invoice.