Health Homes Serving Children (HHSC) Consent Guidance for Children in Foster Care

June 2, 2017

  • Guidance also available in Portable Document Format (PDF)

The Health Home model for children recognizes that children in Foster Care are in the care and custody of the Local Department of Social Services (LDSS) in Rest of State and the Administration for Children Services (ACS – delegated to contracted VFCA) in New York City. The State also recognizes parents/guardians of children in foster care are vital partners in the inter–disciplinary team working to improve and maintain the child's health and wellbeing. In recognition of this role, the Medicaid Analytics Performance Portal (MAPP) Health Home Tracking System (HHTS) was specifically designed to only allow LDSS and ACS VFCAs within NYC to make Health Home referrals, create assignments, and select a Health Home for children in foster care.

Legally Authorized Representative

The Health Home Serving Children program intended that the LDSS and VFCA in NYC could always sign Health Home consent forms as a legally authorized representative. A legally authorized representative, for enrolling and/or information sharing is defined as, "A person or agency authorized by state, tribal, military or other applicable law, court order or consent to act on behalf of a person for the release of medical information".

For children in foster care, the legally authorized representative is the Local Department of Social Services (LDSS) in upstate and the Voluntary Foster Care Agency (VFCA) in NYC, who has placement of the child and is an agency under contract with the Administration for Children´s Services (ACS) to provide foster care in New York City (NYC).

Obtaining Consent for Children in Foster Care to Enroll in Health Home

To ensure that children in Foster Care who are found eligible and would benefit from Health Home services, have access to such service, the following process to obtain consent for children in foster care must be followed:

  • LDSS/ACS VFCA in NYC will determine whether the parent/guardian should provide consent to enroll the foster care child in the Health Home.
  • If the LDSS/ ACS VFCA in NYC determines that the parent/guardian should sign the Health Home consent forms, then the LDSS or ACS VFCA case worker/case planner is responsible for obtaining consent from the parent prior to making a Health Home referral within the MAPP Referral Portal
    • The VFCA Health Home Care Manager is NOT responsible for obtaining consent from the parent/guardian (even if both the VFCA Health Home Care Manager and the VFCA case planner work for the same agency).
    • If the parent/guardian signs consents to enroll the child in the Health Home program, the LDSS/ACS VFCA is not required to, but may also, sign the Health Home enrollment consent form.
  • To foster the multi–disciplinary team approach of Health Home, the VFCA Health Home care manager may accompany the LDSS or NYC VFCA in obtaining Health Home consent from the parent/guardian.
  • If the parent/guardian for the foster care child cannot or will not sign Health Home consents, then the LDSS/ACS VFCA must determine if they will sign the Health Home consent forms as the legally authorized representative.