Closing/Ending Appointments

OCR's Billing Policies & Procedures direct OCR attorneys to complete the data entry to close each of their appointments in CARES within fourteen days of the appointment ending.  This is vital to ensure OCR relies on accurate data when reporting to the General Assembly and making fiscal predictions.  Please note that closing your appointment does not impact other attorneys of record on the same case.  In CARES, each attorney’s appointment operates independently, so you never need to wait for another attorney to set up or update their CARES appointment before closing yours.  More on this

Efficiency Tips: To audit your caseload, navigate to Reports > Go to Reports > Inactivity Report and click "Apply" to view a list of open appointments with no recent activity.  The Child List with Latest Visit report may also be helpful; it will show your list of open children/youth and latest visits.

Once an appointment is closed, no one—whether a CC, mentor, or litigation support accessing your appointment—can add new activities or submit additional funds requests, so it’s important to confirm all work and entries are complete before closing.  However, closing an appointment does not prevent your office from being paid for work already done: invoices will still capture any un-invoiced activities from closed appointments as long as there is sufficient funding.
 

To close an appointment:

The appointed office needs to take these actions to close an appointment:  Not the appointed office?

1. Enter any remaining activities or additional funding requests before any next steps.  (No one, including CCs, mentors, or litigation support accessing your appointment, may enter new activities or requests after you end an appointment unless you undo closure.)  More on this
   
   If you have any pending request in the Requests for Access tab of this appointment, "Deny" it now to stop receiving emails about the pending request.  More on this
   
    
2. Click on the name of a child party on your appointment.  On the pop-up screen about the child, enter the official Representation End Date and reason under "Private Info," then "Save Changes." 
   • If you are unable to save changes to the child party, look for missing required fields and question mark icons to explain them.  For any trouble with dates, see Date Restrictions and Edits.
      
   • During appointment creation, this step will not work (you can only end an existing appointment). 
     
      
3. Repeat for each child party.
    
4. After ending the last child party on the appointment, CARES will notify you that your appointment is closed.  Click "Continue" to confirm.
    
5. Repeat these steps for any other appointments you need to close.  If the same youth had multiple delinquency cases, for example, you may need to close each of those now.

Please note, anyone with access to your appointment will continue to have it unless you revoke their access by navigating to the Requests for Access tab, clicking on the name of the requester, and clicking the blue "Revoke" button.  Revoking access is not required and is usually not recommended upon appointment closure: with continuing access, the appointment behaves the same way for the requester as for the appointed office--it remains available if they were to search their closed My Appointments list, which may be helpful for them when reconciling billing or activities.

If your OCR contract is ending, submit your last invoice right away (if you are no longer taking new cases and all your cases are now closed):

• Unless other contractors remain in your office, be sure to submit your invoice as soon as you close your last appointment in CARES because OCR must end your CARES access shortly after all your appointments close.  Print a copy for your records because CARES access will end.  As long as your invoice is submitted before your account is deactivated, it will be reviewed for payment as usual.  There is no need to wait for your normal invoicing date with your office's last invoice.
• Invoices include your closed appointments' unbilled activities.
• If you have not done so, notify OCR formally that you are coming off lists using the OCR Change Form: Option B. Otherwise OCR does not know of your status and will still consider you active.
• Please email OCR when finished closing all cases in CARES so OCR stops asking you to take actions like respond to reports, turn in annual verifications, or satisfy other active contractor requirements.