Children’s Regional Integrated Service System (CRISS)

About us 

Our Children’s Regional Integrated Service System is a collaborative of county public health programs, family support organizations, pediatric providers, and children’s hospitals in 32 California counties that works to promote a more effective, coordinated, and family-centered California Children’s Services (CCS) program. The CCS program serves low-income children with the most complex medical conditions, assuring that they have timely access to appropriate specialty care at pediatric centers of excellence (“right care, right place, right time”).

We are part of Stanford Children’s Government Relations, Community Relations, and Volunteer Services, which empowers us to go beyond our hospital walls to care for our community.

Our strategy

  • CRISS brings together the major groups concerned with CCS:  families, providers, and county programs.
  • CRISS provides a regional multi-disciplinary vehicle for information-sharing and collaborative planning on ways to improve the CCS program.
  • CRISS monitors and assesses policy areas with impact on the CCS program and children’s access to high-quality pediatric specialty care.
  • CRISS participates as an invited member of major state policy groups that address CCS, e.g., Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) CCS Advisory Group.
  • CRISS monitors implementation of the Whole Child Model, a managed care plan-based model for delivery of CCS care, and makes recommendations for improvements.
  • CRISS Medical Eligibility Work Group (MEWG) develops consensus on CCS medical eligibility of pediatric conditions.
  • MEWG promotes implementation of medical eligibility consensus positions by CRISS member counties to ensure consistency of eligibility across the CRISS region.
  • CRISS provider and county members identify claims payment barriers via the CRISS Claims Work Group.
  • Claims Work Group meets with DHCS and Medi-Cal Fiscal Intermediary representatives to resolve individual and systemic claims problems.