Beginning with the 2015-16 school year, the Ohio Medicaid School Program will begin to reimburse school districts for “Specialized Transportation” for students on an IEP. Below are the conditions that must be met in order to receive Medicaid reimbursement for this new service.
- Specialized Transportation must be listed on the student’s IEP, and should state the medical reason why the student cannot ride on the standard bus route. Examples:
- Student requires a wheel chair lift that is not on the standard route bus.
- Student requires a seat belt or harness that is not on the standard route bus.
- Student cannot step up onto a standard route bus.
- Student requires air conditioning which is not on the standard route bus.
- Student has behavioral issues and cannot ride on a standard route bus.
- Having a bus aide or nurse on the bus does not in itself make the transportation considered “Specialized” for MSP purposes. If a bus aide rides on the regular route, it is not considered MSP Specialized Transportation.
- “MSP Specialized Transportation” means that you have to make a special trip to and from the student’s home to pick them up because there is a medical reason why they cannot ride the regular bus that they would otherwise ride had they not had their medical condition.
- MSP Specialized Transportation can be provided on a School Owned Vehicle or can be provided by a Contracted Transportation Company. Paying the parent to transport the student is not reimbursable under the Ohio Medicaid School Program.
- Each Specialized Transportation trip that the district is seeking reimbursement for must be documented and include:
- Student Name
- Dates Transported
- Signature of Individual Attesting to the Transportation
Documentation can be in the form of a log (attached sample) or invoices from the contracted transportation vendor.
- Send Specialized Transportation documentation to HBS on a monthly basis so that we can process accordingly.
- Transportation can only be billed on days that the student received another billable MSP service such as OT, PT, Speech, Psychology, Nursing, etc.
We are still working with ODE/ODM on the rate methodology, and it appears that we will be using cost data from the ODE T-I/T-II annual reporting to compute a “Rate per Trip” or “Rate per Student” for Cost Reporting purposes.
Please contact our office with any further questions regarding “MSP Specialized Transportation”.