Outcomes & Screeners

The Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist (ATEC) was developed to evaluate the effectiveness of various treatments for children with autism and to help parents determine if their children benefit from a specific treatment. The brief tool covers the four domains where children with autism typically have the most challenge: speech, sociability, sensory/cognitive awareness, and health/physical behavior. The ATEC can be used for a total score or sub-scores in each domain to correspond with clinical diagnoses of severe, moderate, and mild autism. Individual items can be tracked for treatment goal progress. By signing into the Magellan Provider Website with your secure username and password, you can access member eligibility and submit an ATEC and treatment plans.

The Blended Case Management (BCM) outcomes tool is a brief survey intended to be completed with members when beginning BCM services, at 3 months, 6 months, every 6 months thereafter, and at discharge (if possible). The survey gathers information about what help members are looking for from case management, what help members have received from case management, and a number of questions related to the outcomes of case management services. The information gathered from these surveys is used to create a dashboard that is shared with providers quarterly and used in group discussions during quarterly meetings.

Here is the link to the BCM Outcomes Tool.  Providers must have access codes in order to use to the tool.

The CAGE Alcohol Abuse Screening Tool and the CAGE Substance Abuse Screening Tool are four-question tools used to screen for drug and alcohol use. The CAGE is a quick questionnaire to help determine if an alcohol and/or drug assessment is needed. If a person answers yes to one or more questions, a complete substance use assessment is advised.

The tool assesses functioning, strengths and opportunities across multiple domains of a youth’s life. With approved training, it has been recommended that anyone with a Bachelor’s degree can complete the CANS assessment reliably. Use of the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) tool requires CANS-Training and Certification to ensure consistency of ratings across users. Therefore, you must successfully complete training and certification prior to using the tool in your work. Typically, consistent evaluation of vignettes at a reliability level of 0.70% agreement is considered sufficient.

John S. Lyons, Ph.D., of the University of Ottawa Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, created the CANS tool in collaboration with others. The copyright is held by the Praed Foundation.

For the CANS: Sign into the Magellan provider website. Click Manage Outcomes on your My Practice page.

CANS Resources:

CANS Training and Certification

The Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS), can be administered to individuals ages six years and up, comprises of 2-6 questions to assess risk for suicide, determine the severity of risk, and identify appropriate interventions based on the level of severity. The tool was initially developed in 2007 by Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania and University of Pittsburgh to assess suicide risk in teenage youth as part of a National Institute of Health Study.

The GAIN-SS is a brief screening tool that is utilized to identify individuals with one or more behavioral health disorders including mental health concerns, substance use recovery disorder, and crime and violence challenges. The primary purpose of the screening tool is to assist with referrals to other components of the behavioral health system. Responses are given in terms of recency of problems and help to identify current and past behavioral health challenges. Interventions can then be administered to address most recent challenges. The GAIN-SS can also be administered repeatedly to identify changes over time in behavioral health needs. It is a tool which can be quickly administered with minimal training and can be staff or self-administered. The tool is also available in several languages.

The MFAF is derived from the Family Assessment Form (FAF), which was initially developed by Children’s Bureau of Southern California between 1985 and 1987 as a practice-based instrument to help child welfare practitioners standardize the assessment of family functioning and service planning for families receiving home-based services. Providers that offer family-based services within Magellan’s value-based purchasing model complete this assessment within 30 days of treatment and within two weeks of discharge from services.

The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) is a common screening tool to identify depression. It is available in multiple languages. The PHQ-9 tool is a depression scale component of the patient health questionnaire, with items based on DSM-Diagnostic Criteria for Major Depressive Disorder. The tool can function to screen depression symptoms and assess severity of depression symptoms over time.

The SmartScreener was developed by Magellan using validated, reliable, and well-researched brief screens identified by SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration). The screens were chosen to maximize identification of behavioral health and co-morbid substance use, with screened conditions making up more than 90% of behavioral health complaints. Each tool is available in English and Spanish. The SmartScreener includes screening for insomnia (ISI-3), depression (PHQ-2), anxiety (GAD-2), alcohol (AUDIT-1), drugs (DAST-1), and pain (PEG- 3). The SmartScreeners are “smart” because each tool expands to the longer versions of the tool when the minimum threshold for each one to three item brief screen is met.

Providers should go to https://pahc.ontobetterhealth.com to use SmartScreener Screen and Engage.