The CARES > Reports > Initial Visit Report is available any time to monitor the attorney of record's CJD requirement to make an in-placement initial visit within 30 days for each D&N youth. OCR strongly recommends monitoring this report regularly in your D&N cases. Remember, reports only show you a picture of what your office entered in CARES; if you need to update information, do so in CARES itself. OCR will contact you on a quarterly basis if this visit report indicates non-compliance--read on below for tips to avoid follow up and respond to inquiries:
- Flowchart of Next Steps
- How to Enter a Reason for a Late or Missed Visit
- How to Enter a Visit (not missed)
- Frequently-Asked Questions
Flowchart of Next Steps
As noted in the report's legend, blue highlights in the report simply draw your attention to appointments that ended within 30 days with no visit and do not call for data entry. Yellow-highlighted rows (day counts over 30) on the report require attention and indicate that CARES could not identify the initial visit by the appointed attorney for that youth/appointment. Below is a flowchart of the necessary next steps for any flagged late or missed visit, followed by how-tos, then frequently-asked questions.
>> Click here for an enlargement of this visual <<
Or jump to How to Enter a Reason or How to Enter a Visit.
How to Enter a Reason for a Late or Missed Visit
Please do not email your reason(s) to OCR staff without entering them in CARES as follows. Note, if you are logged in to CARES, you can click the case number directly from the report to jump to that appointment in CARES; just remember to close any other browser tabs so you only use CARES in one tab at a time. Remember, you only need to do the following if the column called "Days" shows 31 or more--rows showing 30 or fewer days after the flowchart above do not require a "reason for late or missed visit."
- From your My Appointments screen, navigate to the correct appointment and youth in CARES. If the appointment is closed, click the "Show Inactive Children" checkbox on the appointment's profile to see all children/youth.
- Click the youth's name to open the Child Party screen.
- Find the "Reason for late or missed 30-day in-placement visit" comment box a little bit above where you usually enter a placement (shown below).
- Type a concise reason and save the Child Party screen. (Repeat for additional youth on the same appointment if they are also highlighted on the report.)
Examples of reasons include but are not limited to:
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- Waived: If CJD 04-06 waives the requirement for this child, assert that specific waiver: “CJD waives the D&N visit requirement because placement was over 100 miles from case jurisdiction’s border” or “LAN appointment.”
- Data entry: If the Initial Visit was entered with the wrong date/activity type/youth in attendance, under a previous office/account, on the wrong case number, on a duplicate appointment (i.e. accidentally appointed self twice on the same case), etc., describe the error: “Visit on [date] logged in wrong case number 18JV1234," “Initial visit on [date] was accidentally entered as Change of Placement," or "Visit on [date] logged in previous CARES account."
- Late or missed visit: If CJD 04-06 does not waive the requirement, please explain what happened concisely: “Attempted to visit on [dates] and no one was home.”
Re-run your D&N Initial Visit Report to see all your reasons entered in the yellow-highlighted rows; if any are pending, address all rows indicating a missed or late visit using the flowchart above. After OCR staff reviews those reasons, you will see OCR's decision and any notes as well.
How to Enter a Visit
In the flowchart at the beginning of this article, if you arrived at the bottom "enter the visit in CARES" box, here is how:
- From the appointed attorney's My Appointments screen, navigate to the correct appointment in CARES. (If you are already logged in to CARES, you can click the case number directly from the report to jump to that appointment in CARES; just remember to close any other browser tabs so you only use CARES in one tab at at time.)
- If the appointment is closed: Use the "Reopen Appointment" button in its upper right (do not start a new appointment), and be sure to open whichever youth were present at the initial visit you are going to enter. More help on this
- Create the appointed attorney's "Visit: Initial (Home/Placement)" activity with its accurate date and attendance information. If the invoicing window has passed or this would create duplicate billing, change the activity's "Billable" drop-down from "Yes" to "No" to avoid billing. You will get credit for this visit on the report regardless of whether the activity was billable/paid.
- Save the activity. If the appointment should be closed, restore a Representation End Date to each child party screen to re-close the appointment.
Re-run your D&N Initial Visit Report to see its updates based on your entries; address all rows indicating a missed or late visit using the flowchart at the beginning of this article. If the row you just worked on now shows 30 or fewer days, do not enter a "reason for late or missed visit" as one is not called for.
Frequently-Asked Questions
Q: I emailed an explanation to OCR about this report; is that sufficient?
A: No, you must address this issue directly in CARES as described above (OCR will automatically see when you are done; there is no need to email). Typing in reasons as described above consolidates them with the relevant row in your report, and your OCR staff attorney will be looking there for your explanations of each highlight, not at emails and other correspondence. Even if you have an unusual scenario that led to a late or missed visit, the Reason box takes any open-ended text (succinct is appreciated!), and your staff attorney needs to see that Reason when reviewing your report, so please enter it in CARES as described above.
Q: I already entered my reasons; why is OCR contacting me again?
A: Please refer to the dates in the email OCR sent and look for a row missing a reason (sometimes a bit hidden in the middle of two completed reasons, or on the next page). OCR only follows up about entering this information in CARES with attorneys who still have at least one row of a missed/late visit on their report that has no Reason added for the date range. There is one row per D&N youth; the report looks for each youth's attendance at a Visit: Initial Home/Placement activity. Please follow the flowchart above for each. OCR will see right away when all remaining highlighted rows have a Reason, and you won't be asked to do this again until the next quarter's review (if any new rows need a response then).
Q: I can't find this report to identify the case(s) in question.
A: For convenience, these steps are also in the email OCR sent you about this report: Click "Reports" on the left-side menu of CARES itself, then "Go to Reports," then choose the Initial Visit Report. Enter the date range in the email OCR sent and choose the correct appointed attorney, then click "Apply" to see the results. For more help using reports, such as zooming in and turning pages, please see Access Reports.
Q: CARES shows me as the appointed attorney, but I shouldn't be, or won't be soon.
A: Explain this as the Reason in CARES as described above, but please note: The appointed attorney in CARES should always match the appointed attorney in court (per the order of appointment). The accuracy of each child party's dates is also very important; do not use another attorney's start date. All CJD requirements including the initial visit become the responsibility of the new attorney of record, even within the same office. (I.e., the previous attorney's initial visit does not exempt the new/sub attorney from making their own initial visit within 30 days.) More on this
Q: I'm not the attorney of record, or this is not a case type that requires a 30-day visit.
A: The report only reflects what is entered into CARES, so your office entered you as the attorney of record on a qualifying case type. Review the way this case was entered in CARES--if you are litigation support, you should have requested access to the attorney of record's case. If so or if you accidentally entered your own case with the wrong case type, see What if I find a Case Number Error? for help.
Q: My appointment ended before a visit was due; why is it highlighted yellow on the report?
A: CARES does not know your appointment ended within 30 days--perhaps you need to close this appointment in CARES (learn how here) or perhaps the end date you entered has a typo in CARES. Clean up the appointment dates in CARES itself to see the correct information when you re-run this report.
Q: An "OCR Decision" was already entered on a row of my report, but my "Reason for late or missed visit" has since changed or needs clarification that may alter the decision--how do I change my reason?
A: You can revise your "Reason for late or missed visit" in CARES at any time (see How to Enter a Reason above--the Reason text box can be edited at any time), but if OCR has already entered its decision, please contact OCR with a description of the row to let OCR know that you made a change; otherwise OCR will not know to revisit that decision.
Q: I was appointed a long time ago to a youth showing on this report; why are they showing on this report now as a new appointment requiring an initial visit?
A: This youth's start date must have been edited to fall within the report dates. Most often, this data entry error occurs by accident after an Attorney Role change (e.g., from GAL to CFY). Please use this article with a picture showing how to correct the error and preserve the history of your appointment. After correcting the Attorney Role date(s) in CARES, this row may disappear from your report.
Q: I am seeing a "forbidden" or "unauthorized" error message when I try to save.
A: This most often happens if you inadvertently tried to work on CARES in more than one tab or window of the same web browser at the same time and CARES has lost track of which one to save. Close all but one window/tab of CARES, then refresh that window/tab if it will not save, and, if that still doesn't reset it, log out and back in to CARES. To refresh your window, click the circular arrow icon near where you type a web address OR type the Ctrl + F5 keys (Windows) or Cmd + R keys (Mac) at the same time. (Note, it is okay to have the separate report website open in a different tab at the same time, but if you click on its links to appointments, you need to be careful that only one tab of CARES itself stays open at a time.) Click here if you see an "Activity Dates" error.
Efficiency Tip: Many attorneys prefer to run the CARES Initial Visit Report on their own monthly schedule to address these issues proactively, avoid missed visits, and avoid follow up from OCR!