Year-End Compliance Essentials: MetroPlusHealth Training Requirements
As 2025 draws to a close, MetroPlusHealth providers face two critical compliance deadlines that require immediate attention. Both the Annual Model of Care Training and the Annual Cultural Competency Training must be completed by Wednesday, December 31, 2025. Understanding these requirements and completing them on time is essential not only for regulatory compliance but also for delivering the highest quality care to plan members.
Model of Care Training: A CMS Mandate
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) requires all MetroPlusHealth providers to complete the Annual Model of Care Training. This isn't merely a bureaucratic checkbox—it's a foundational component of how Medicare Advantage and other managed care plans ensure coordinated, comprehensive care for their members.
Model of Care training educates providers about the plan's systematic approach to delivering healthcare services. It covers how the plan identifies member needs, coordinates services across different providers and settings, ensures continuity of care, and measures outcomes. For providers, understanding the model of care means understanding how your practice fits into the broader ecosystem of patient care within the MetroPlusHealth network.
The training helps providers recognize their role in care coordination, understand documentation requirements that support quality measures, identify resources available to help members with complex needs, and communicate effectively with case management and other plan support services. When providers understand and implement the model of care effectively, members receive more coordinated care, fewer services fall through the cracks, transitions between care settings become smoother, and quality metrics improve across the board.
MetroPlusHealth has made compliance straightforward by offering free online training. Providers can access it directly through the MetroPlusHealth website at their convenience. The training concludes with an attestation link that must be completed to document your training as finished. This attestation serves as official proof of compliance with CMS requirements.
Given the December 31 deadline, providers should prioritize completing this training soon. Year-end typically brings increased administrative demands, holiday schedules, and competing priorities. Waiting until the final days of December risks missing the deadline due to unforeseen circumstances or technical issues.
Cultural Competency Training: Meeting Diverse Patient Needs
The second mandatory requirement is Annual Cultural Competency Training, a mandate from the New York State Department of Health. In a city as diverse as New York, cultural competency isn't optional—it's essential to providing equitable, effective care.
Cultural competency goes beyond translation services or awareness of different holidays. It encompasses understanding how cultural backgrounds influence health beliefs and behaviors, recognizing how your own cultural perspective shapes clinical interactions, communicating effectively across language and cultural barriers, identifying and addressing health disparities, and creating an environment where all patients feel respected and understood.
Research consistently demonstrates that culturally competent care improves patient satisfaction, increases treatment adherence, reduces health disparities, enhances diagnostic accuracy, and strengthens the patient-provider relationship. When patients feel understood and respected, they're more likely to share important health information, follow treatment recommendations, and maintain ongoing relationships with their healthcare providers.
MetroPlusHealth has partnered with Think Cultural Health, an education program from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health, to deliver this training. The program is approved by the New York State Department of Health and offers several provider-specific modules tailored to different practice settings and specialties.
Like the Model of Care training, the cultural competency program is offered online at no cost to providers. After completing the training, providers must fill out and submit a virtual attestation form as proof of completion. This documentation ensures compliance with both state requirements and MetroPlusHealth network standards.
The training modules are designed to be practical and applicable to daily practice. They don't just present abstract concepts but offer concrete strategies for improving cross-cultural communication and care delivery. Many providers find that the training provides valuable insights that immediately enhance their clinical interactions.
Planning for Compliance
With just weeks remaining before the December 31 deadline, practices should develop a systematic approach to ensuring all relevant providers complete both trainings. This might include designating a staff member to track completion status, scheduling protected time for providers to complete the online modules, sending reminder communications to providers who haven't yet completed the requirements, and maintaining documentation of completion for internal records.
Some practices find it helpful to complete these trainings during less busy periods or to integrate them into regular staff meeting times. Others prefer that individual providers complete them independently during administrative time. Whatever approach works for your practice, the key is ensuring completion before the deadline.
It's worth noting that these aren't one-time requirements. Annual training means providers will need to complete updated versions each year. Establishing a routine—perhaps completing these trainings at the same time each year—can make ongoing compliance easier to manage.
The Bigger Picture
While compliance deadlines can feel like administrative burdens, these training requirements serve important purposes. The Model of Care training ensures that all providers within the network understand how to work effectively within a coordinated care system. The Cultural Competency training helps ensure that diverse patient populations receive equitable, respectful, high-quality care.
Both trainings ultimately support the same goal: better outcomes for patients. When providers understand care coordination mechanisms and can communicate effectively across cultural differences, patients benefit through more comprehensive, appropriate, and effective care.
MetroPlusHealth Provider Relations has made resources readily available, with straightforward online access to both training programs and simple attestation processes. The infrastructure is in place to make compliance as seamless as possible.
As the year ends and a new one begins, taking time to complete these trainings represents an investment not just in regulatory compliance but in professional development and patient care quality. The December 31 deadline is approaching quickly—but the resources are available, the process is straightforward, and the benefits extend well beyond checking a compliance box.
For questions about either training requirement or technical assistance with accessing the online modules, providers should contact MetroPlusHealth Provider Relations. Don't let the year end without completing these essential requirements. Your patients—and your practice—will benefit from the knowledge gained.
