What are Inactive Case Reviews?
Inactive Case Reviews (ICR) are generated by the Client and Cost Management System (CCMS) where there has been no action on a certificate for 365 days.
These help to manage cases and ensure matters are ongoing under certificates where there has been no action over the last year.
CCMS will monitor ‘Activity’ on a case. The ICR rules in CCMS have been updated, expanding the definition of activity, so it now includes the submission of any of the following requests:
- an Application
- an Amendment
- A Case Outcome
- A Bill (including a bill from counsel)
- A request for Prior Authority
- Allocating funds to counsel
- A completed transfer of provider
- A Case Plan on a high cost case; or
- A response to an Inactive Case Review task confirming the case is ongoing
Where none of the above actions are undertaken within 365 days, CCMS will generate a prompt asking if the case remains ongoing or if you are ready to bill the case out.
This guide shows how to respond to an inactive case notification.
Accessing an Inactive Case Notification
Where an ICR is generated CCMS will send out an inactive case notification to the provider.
From the home page click Actions and Notifications or select Outstanding Actions or View Notifications to access the inactive case notification.
You can reorder the table by column heading by clicking on the blue headers for each column, e.g. clicking on the Date Assigned column heading will reorder the table by date.
Inactive Case Notification
Responding to the Notification
To reply to the notification, you must select one of the options from the dropdown list.
- Case Ongoing – CCMS will automatically close the inactive case for another 365 days. The certificate will not be closed.
- Case Complete to be Billed / Case Complete Costs Negotiated / Case Complete Court Assessment – LAA will review the response and case specific details before deciding whether case should be closed or remain open.
- Case Complete No Bill Due – the certificate will be closed and POA recouped.
The free text box can be used to provide further details. Please use this box to explain why a case should remain open or be closed. If open, please confirm why and when a bill will be ready. This is particularly useful when selecting Case Complete to be Billed, Case Complete Costs Negotiated or Case Complete Court Assessment. LAA will need to make a decision on the appropriate action with these options.
Once you have completed the response, please click Submit.
Providers should reply to the notification within 14 days. If not, the task will return to LAA’s work queue for a caseworker to consider and close the case if required.
The January Exercise
In January 2024, LAA reached out to over 800 providers for an update on the status of 17,000 cases.
One of the goals of the exercise was to reduce the number of impacted cases ahead of any change to how Inactive Case Reviews would work in CCMS. The 17,000 cases were therefore selected using the same criteria of ‘activity’ as an Inactive Case Review.
We received responses on nearly all the cases enquired about. However, we are not able to prevent CCMS from sending out notifications where an individual certificate was both considered in the January exercise and still meets the criteria in CCMS to generate the new notification.
However, you do not need to respond on these cases as the LAA already knows the status of the case. We will cross-reference all cases in the January exercise with CCMS and action any case on your behalf, so you can focus on replying on cases that were not in the January exercise.
It is likely that the LAA will do a targeted follow up for all cases in the January exercise that were reported as ‘case completed to be billed’ but remain unbilled within the financial year.
Q&A
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Why are the LAA changing how inactive cases work in CCMS? | The old system was not targeted enough and was administratively burdensome for both providers and the LAA. The new system is smarter and allows for the LAA to get the information it needs through a ‘light touch’ approach for providers. |
| Why do the LAA need to monitor if my case is active? | Understanding the activity on the case helps us to make sure that cases are being closed and billed in a timely manner. This benefits providers by ensuring that they can quickly access funds upon the completion of each case. |
| I have an outstanding Inactive Case notification in CCMS from before 25 July, what should I do with it? | Where you have outstanding notifications that pre-date the new rules, they will be updated overnight on 25 July in CCMS. When you do reply, you will be able to select the relevant status from the drop-down list in CCMS and they will be considered under the new rules. |
| I have received notifications in CCMS on cases you asked me about in January, is this deliberate? | These notifications can be ignored. We are unfortunately unable to prevent CCMS from sending the notification where the criteria to generate it are met; but we will cross-reference with the results from the January exercise and close the notification based on your response. You therefore do not need to action these. If you have any concerns on individual cases, please do raise these with LAA. |
| What happens if I don’t reply? | You will be given a total of 21 days to reply. After 14 days, the notification will become ‘overdue’, at that point you will have a further 7 days to respond (21 total). If you do respond, the notification will return to LAA with no response. Where the certificate was not included in the January exercise, we will send you the notification again. Ultimately repeated non-responses may lead to intervention from your Contract Manager or the individual case being closed and any outstanding POA recouped. |
| Does this replace any routine UPOA activity? | No, activity undertaken by the Unrecouped Payments on Account (UPOA) team and/or your Contract Manager will continue as normal. |