PATH Funding Supports Enhanced Care Management Workforce Development in Butte County

The following success story describes experiences across multiple Providing Access and Transforming Health (PATH) initiatives.

Butte County Public Health (BCPH), a nationally accredited health department managing more than 50 public programs, serves children and youth enrolled in California Children’s Services (CCS), county residents in the child welfare system, and birth equity populations of focus—meaning groups at risk of poor pregnancy and childbirth outcomes due to disparities in care. 

BCPH is using PATH Capacity and Infrastructure Transition, Expansion, and Development (CITED) Round 2 funding to build its internal capacity and provide the Enhanced Care Management (ECM) benefit to eligible community members.

While preparing to implement its ECM benefit, BCPH used PATH CITED funding to hire and train dedicated staff to create policies and procedures, develop referral and health assessment tools, and design marketing materials. Since launching their ECM benefit in January 2024, PATH funds have helped BCPH support ECM staff as they train and work with Partnership HealthPlan of California, the county’s Medi-Cal managed care plan (MCP), to build a sustainable caseload.

PATH CITED funding allowed BCPH to do the following to invest in its ECM workforce:

• Hire lead care managers, peer support specialists, a program supervisor, and a dedicated biller.
• Equip the program’s public health nursing supervisor to build a health risk assessment tool and train staff on home visiting and trauma-informed care.
• Schedule a training session on complex care management for all ECM lead care managers, administered by the University of California, San Francisco.
• Cover a medical billing course for an administrative assistant, providing a career ladder to a biller position.

Additionally, PATH CITED expanded BCPH’s information technology capacity and allowed the county to purchase cellphones, tablets, and laptops for staff to conduct ECM visits in the field. BCPH was also able to purchase an electronic health record system—eClinicalWorks—for scheduling ECM visits, storing health risk assessments and release of information forms, creating care plans, tracking ECM participants, and providing data for reporting. The system makes conducting health risk assessments in the field confidential, efficient, and paper-free.

Beyond this, BCPH’s ECM staff continue to participate in the PATH Collaborative Planning and Implementation (CPI) Initiative NorCal Collaborative, where they work with their local network of community providers to learn best practices for delivering quality, sustainable ECM and Community Supports.