43-2511. Statewide billing system; establishment; participation required; implementation and administrative costs; how treated.

There is hereby established a statewide billing system for accessing federal medicaid funds for special education and related services provided by school districts. The system shall apply to all students verified with disabilities from date of diagnosis to twenty-one years of age as allowed under the federal Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988. The system shall be developed, implemented, and administered jointly by the Department of Health and Human Services and the State Department of Education. On or before October 1, 2015, the Department of Health and Human Services and the State Department of Education shall jointly revise the statewide billing system to streamline and simplify the claims process, to update reimbursement rates, and to incorporate services included in the state plan amendment submitted pursuant to subsection (4) of section 68-911. After the reimbursement rates have been updated pursuant to this section, such rates shall be reviewed at least once every five years. School districts, educational service units, or approved cooperatives providing special education and related services shall be required to participate in the statewide billing system. Eleven and fifty-four hundredths percent of federal medicaid funds received by school districts pursuant to such billing system shall be considered reimbursement for the costs to school districts associated with the implementation and administration of such a system, and such costs shall be included in the medicaid reimbursement rates to be established for each service. From the amount provided pursuant to section 43-2515 to aid in carrying out the Early Intervention Act, the Department of Health and Human Services shall retain, for the purposes of implementing and administering the statewide billing system and early intervention services coordination services, an amount equal to the lesser of the actual cost of implementing and administering the statewide billing system and early intervention services coordination services or (1) for fiscal year 2014-15, two hundred forty-two thousand dollars, (2) for fiscal year 2015-16, three hundred thousand dollars, or (3) for fiscal year 2016-17 and each fiscal year thereafter, the amount retained for such purposes for the prior year increased by five percent.

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