Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Executive Office of Health and Human Services
Office of Medicaid
www.mass.gov/masshealth

MassHealth
School-Based Medicaid Provider  
Bulletin 25

August 2013



TO:	School-Based Medicaid Providers Participating in MassHealth
FROM:	Kristin L. Thorn, Acting Medicaid Director   
RE:	Parental Authorization to Share Information with MassHealth  


Background

This bulletin is to notify you of the new Individuals with Disabilities 
Education Act (IDEA) regulations about parental consent. These 
regulations took effect on March 18, 2013. The IDEA requires local 
education authorities (LEAs) to ensure that parents are fully informed of 
their rights and provide consent before the LEA submits a claim to an 
insurer or public benefit agency. 
											

What the New Regulations Mean	

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) is the 
state agency responsible for overseeing the IDEA in Massachusetts.  
DESE has provided additional information about these new regulations 
and the new required parental consent form in Administrative Advisory 
SPED 2013-1 Parental Consent to Access MassHealth (Medicaid) which 
can be found at http://www.doe.mass.edu/sped/advisories/13_1.html.  

For more detailed information about the regulation at 34 CFR 300.154(d), 
go to http: //www2.ed.gov/policy/speced/reg/idea/part-b/part-b-parental-
consent.html.

It’s important that all LEAs ensure that parents understand that 
providing their consent to allow a school to submit claims to MassHealth 
does not alter or reduce the benefits that children are entitled to 
receive from MassHealth. 

DESE has informed us that the IDEA requires LEAs to obtain such
parental consent before 	
submitting claims to MassHealth; 
including children in the Medicaid eligibility statistics; or 
calculating the annual cost report. 
											
							(continued on next page)
	





											
MassHealth
School-Based Medicaid
Provider Bulletin 25
August 2013
Page 2

	
What the New Regulations Mean (cont.)

DESE has advised us that once a consent form compliant with the new
regulation is obtained, LEAs are not required to obtain consent again in 
order to submit a claim to MassHealth, even if there is a change in the 
type or amount of services to be provided to the student or a change in 
the cost of the services to be charged to MassHealth. 
	

Questions	

If you have any questions about the information in this bulletin, please 
contact the UMass Medical School (UMMS) at 1-508-856-7640, or e-mail 
your inquiry to schoolbasedclaiming@umassmed.edu.