Getting Started with Preschool

This is a guide on which articles to visit in what order, depending on your responsibility within the Preschool system.

(Please skip this section if your county uses eSTACs. eSTACs counties' children and STACs are entered by districts and brought into Preschool from the Portal. Please do not enter anything in Preschool if you use eSTACs.)

1. Entering children: Adding New Children.

2. Entering evals: Entering EVALs in Preschool.

3. Entering SEIT/RS STAC-1s and enrollments: Entering STACs- SEIT & Related Services.

4. Entering CB STAC-1s and enrollments: Entering STACs- Center-based & Transportation.

1. Getting new children and services from the districts - Do this once a day: Synchronize Children and Services.

2. Getting new evaluations from the districts - Do this once a day: Synchronize Evaluations.

Much of the data that Preschool relies on for operations needs to be imported manually. Please see below for the routine maintenance actions and their recommended frequency.

1. SED Summary Files (STAC Approval Information) - Do this once a week: Download SED Summary File- STAC & Eval 

2. SED Program Listing (Rate changes/new CB/SEIT Programs) - Do this once a week or whenever you need it: Update SED Program Listing- includes rate changes.

3. Related - Adding temporary rates for SED programs: Entering Interim Rates for SED Programs.

After data is generated in Preschool, you would also need to manually upload it to where it needs to be.

1. Uploading enrollments to the Portal - Do this at the end of the day if you made new enrollments during that day: Sending Services to Portal from Preschool 

2. Sending up electronic STAC-1s - You can do this at most once a day per school year: Submitting STACs to NYSED.

3. Sending up electronic STAC-5s - You can do this at most once a day per school year: Submitting STAC-5s to NYSED.

4. Retrieving STAC response from SED - Do this the next morning if you sent STAC files the day before: Retrieving and Processing STAC Return Files.

5. Requesting STAC IDs from SED - Do this whenever you have new children who need new STAC IDs: STAC ID Process.

Before we go into paying providers, payment requirement is an additional tool that you may find helpful to make sure that providers satisfy any custom requirements before payments are allowed to be made. 

This is optional: Setting up and using Payment Requirements in Preschool.

If your county uses the CPSE Portal for providers to enter attendance and send you electronic vouchers, you would receive their bills in the form of vouchers from the Portal: Downloading and Processing Vouchers from the Portal.

For evaluations and transportations that don't come in as vouchers, you would need to manually create and process payment batches for them: Processing Billing NOT Submitted through the CPSE Portal.

Service payments not submitted through the Portal are also paid by using the above process.

There are two methods to adjust processed payments/payments that have already been issued.

The automatic process is used for rate changes, rate adjustments, and date adjustments. Essentially, if the enrollment total changes, the difference in payments is generated through this process: Automatic Payment Adjustments in Preschool.

The manual process is rarely used because it's only suitable for adjusting custom amounts of payments or to take back all payments entirely. We do not have an article because we advise against using it outside of a support meeting. If your adjustment needs cannot be done through the automatic process, please contact your support CRM for assistance.

Before AVLs are posted, it is recommended to proactively research and resolve problems beforehand:

1. See all unclaimed payments: Unclaimed Payment Research.

2. Annotating problems in the Unclaimed Payment Research window: How to add Claiming Notes Reasons.

When you're ready to run the AVLs:

1. Service AVL process: AVL - Service.

2. Eval AVL process: AVL - Eval.

If you will be starting to use FSM soon, you are still responsible for claiming sessions before the effective start date of your FSM service.

We also have short guides for specific Medicaid operations below:

1. (If you don't use the CPSE Portal) Entering Medicaid attendance: Entering Medicaid Attendance in Preschool.

2. If you don't see an ordering provider in your dropdown when you are entering prescription details: Adding a new Ordering Provider in Preschool.

3. Getting CINs for your children: Uploading Children for CIN Lookup & Retrieving Results.

4. Understanding Medicaid Cycles: Medicaid Cycle Calendar Explained.

5. Looking into a child's claiming history: How to see a child's Medicaid claiming history.

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We have many other Knowledge Base articles for Preschool for auxiliary functions that aren't as essential as the ones listed here. Feel free to review our full library of Preschool articles: Preschool.

And of course, if you have any questions, please reach out to your designated Preschool support representative.