Mental Health Information System (MHIS) Manual

Page Posted: 06/02/14

Page Reviewed: 8/22/2022

Page Updated: 8/12/2019

2. General Reporting Requirements

Reporting Framework

Agencies are required to complete MHIS reporting on clients who receive services paid through MHCP and/or grant funds. Reporting is the responsibility of the agency providing services; this means you will only report on the services that your agency is providing to the client, unless directed otherwise.

MHIS client-level data reporting is completed on a 6-month reporting cycle (July to December and January to June). This means that the agency submits information on all persons who received certain publicly funded mental health services within a 6-month period (reporting period).

Reporting is completed for all publically funded clients in the agency caseload during the specified reporting period: Jan to June or July to Dec for each calendar year.

For every reporting period, the agency caseload is comprised of the following:

· Clients already in the agency caseload at the start of the reporting period; and

· New clients to the agency during the reporting period.

Note: A client who was assigned a “continuing” status during a previous reporting period is expected to be in the agency caseload at the beginning of the succeeding reporting period.

Certain scenarios will require more than one status record to be reported within a single reporting period. Examples include:

· Grant funded services that instruct more frequent reporting

· A client who has a change in funding source: non-grant funding to grant funding

· A client who begins a new service

· A client who discontinues treatment and returns within the same reporting period

Guidelines on collecting status updates

For every reporting period, statuses for each outcome measure are collected:

· For new clients starting during the reporting period, collect and report the status within the first week of the start date;

· For continuing clients (clients already in the agency caseload at the beginning of the reporting period), report the most recent available status at the 6-month anniversary date, and their status either upon discharge or discontinuance (if discharged or discontinued occurred during the reporting period); and

· For clients with a change in funding or program/treatment, collect status at that point in time.

Client Status

MHIS reporting requires each record to designate a client status. Client status options include New Client, Continuing Client, Completed Treatment Client, and Discontinuance Clients

New Client – a new client refers to a person who either has:

· Not previously received a service and now started receiving services from public funding;

· Previously received a service from private payer and now started receiving services from public funding; or

· Resumed receiving services after being previously discharged or after an extended period of inactivity (discontinuance).

Continuing Client – a continuing client refers to a person who continues to receive services at the time of the status update and has not completed treatment.

Client Completed Treatment – client completed treatment refers to a person who received services and completed services during the reporting period.

Discontinuance – a discontinuance client refers to a person who received services and then experienced an extended period (4 weeks) of inactivity during the reporting period. Agencies are encouraged to use 4 weeks of inactivity as a guideline if the agency does not have an MHIS discontinuance policy in place. Deviations from this 4 week policy are expected for certain programs/treatments where periods of inactivity are common and not considered “discharge”.

In order to report meaningful outcome measures, agencies are encouraged to observe best practices in data collection such as:

· Collecting client status at time of completing treatment;

· Judicious and timely implementation of agency discharge policy, including administrative discontinuances; and

· Consistent and frequent update of client status (consider a quarterly update).

Persons who should not be reported: persons who received services reimbursed entirely by private insurance, entirely by Medicare or entirely by self-pay.