APPEALS and STATE HEARINGS

ASH 009 - Appeals Case Management System (ACMS) Guidelines

Purpose

(X) To release a new policy

(  ) To release a new form

(  ) To convert existing policy to new writing style only – No concept changes

(  ) Revision of existing policy and/or form(s).

The purpose of this release is to provide instructions to Appeals and State Hearings (ASH) staff on how to navigate and use the new Appeals Case Management System (ACMS).

Policy

The California State Department of Social Services (CDSS) State Hearings Division (SHD) schedules all hearings and is responsible for conducting each State hearing and rendering a fair, impartial and independent State hearing decision.  A State hearing decision must be adopted and acted upon within 90 calendar days from the filing date.  Once the County receives a decision that favors the claimant, the County has 30 calendar days to comply with the decision.

Background

On September 17, 2018, ACMS replaced the Health and Welfare Data Center (HWDC) which previously stored all State hearings for CDSS.  ACMS is a standalone application that is not integrated with other systems.  ACMS combines State hearing intake, scheduling and reporting functions into a single workflow.  The system streamlines the current manual processes and reduces errors caused by data entry.

ACMS has a public portal for a claimant or Authorized Representative (AR) to request a new hearing or check the status of an existing appeal.  The ACMS portal can be accessed at acms.dss.ca.gov.  Counties can upload Statements of Position (SOP), making them available to SHD, the claimant and other involved agencies.

Definitions

N/A

Requirements

The procedures outlined below are subject to modification by ASH Administration based on operational needs.

The Department’s policy on confidentiality must always be followed and taken into account.

Reference:  ACMS Privacy & Security, Clean Desk Policy, HRM 09-64, HRM 13-91, Countywide Discipline Guidelines.

Verification Documents

N/A