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The case lifecycle: active, inactive & expiring

A referral carries two separate pieces of state, and it helps to keep them straight:

  1. Its status — where the case is in your engagement. You set this.
  2. Its expiration badge — how close it is to its end date. FCR sets this automatically.

They're independent. A case can be active and expiring soon at the same time.

Status (you set this)​

A referral moves through these statuses:

  • Pending intake — created but not yet activated (still in the wizard).
  • Active — live; the case you're working and billing.
  • Inactive — a deliberate marker for a case with no recent billable activity (more below).
  • Discharged — clinically closed (covered in Discharging a case).

Practice managers, supervisors, and admins move a case between active and inactive by hand.

Inactive is a deliberate choice, not an automatic flip

FCR does not silently flip cases to inactive on its own. Marking a case inactive is a decision you make — it gives you a clear, dated, audit-defensible record that a case had no recent billable activity. Because it's deliberate, it won't surprise you by changing a case's state behind your back.

The expiration badge (FCR sets this)​

Separately, FCR looks at each case's service period end date every day and shows a badge:

  • (no badge) — the end date isn't near.
  • Expiring soon — the end date is approaching.
  • Expired — the end date has passed.

Nobody sets this by hand — it's computed from the dates. When a case crosses into expiring soon or expired, FCR notifies the people who need to know: the workers on the case, their supervisors, and the agency's practice managers and admins.

Use the badge as your renewal radar

The expiring/expired badge is your cue to follow up with DCS on a re-authorization before coverage lapses. The Referrals list can be filtered to surface what's expiring.

What FCR tracks — and what it doesn't​

FCR gives you the inactive flag as evidence for audits. It does not count your cases against the DCS 12-case cap — that tracking is the agency's responsibility. FCR's job here is to provide defensible documentation, not to enforce the cap for you.

(The Coming up and scheduling surfaces can flag cases without an upcoming session in a while, which is helpful for pacing — but that's about coverage, not counting toward the cap.)

FAQ​

What's the difference between "inactive" and "expired"? Inactive is a status you set, meaning the case has no recent billable activity. Expired is an automatic badge meaning the case's authorized end date has passed. A case can be one, both, or neither.

A case got an "expiring soon" badge — do I need to do anything in FCR? The badge is a heads-up. The action is usually outside FCR (seeking re-authorization from DCS). You don't change the badge yourself; it updates from the dates.

Will FCR warn me if I'm over the 12-case cap? No — FCR doesn't track total caseload against the cap. Use the inactive flag as supporting evidence, and manage the count through your agency's process.