Lessons From the Pandemic: Transforming State and Local Eligibility Programs MARKET TRENDS REPORT
Executive Summary Inefficiency has long dogged state and local government agencies charged with delivering economic assistance to people in need. Often, the chief culprits are inflexible legacy IT systems that don’t support caseworkers or beneficiaries who must apply for benefits in person. For the most part, clients, caseworkers and agency leaders made the best of existing systems, juggling caseloads and managing critical assistance programs. The pandemic changed that. It disrupted workplace routines and highlighted inefficiencies, disconnected systems, and manual processes, and extended wait times that frustrated assistance agencies. Amid office closures and the transition of workers to remote worksites, government agencies could not maintain traditional workflows based on paper trails and in-person meetings. At the same time, legacy systems and processes couldn’t easily support remote work during the pandemic or hybrid work when offices reopened. Providing virtual private network (VPN) access that enabled remote workers to access case management systems was possible. The bigger challenge was transitioning systems built on paper processes to fully digital processes. Cloud-based document management that works with and enhances eligibility systems can improve the way agencies validate documents, determine eligibility and facilitate delivery of benefits from assistance programs, such as Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. To learn how agencies can improve delivery of economic assistance programs, GovLoop teamed with Amazon Web Services (AWS), a cloud service provider, and Northwoods, an IT company that supports end-to-end digital processes to deliver assistance more efficiently and accurately. This report will discuss the challenges of delivering assistance and the IT tools government agencies can use to better serve clients.
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By The Numbers
44 million people receive SNAP benefits, a 20% increase compared to 2019.
8.4%
is the projected growth of total Medicaid spending in fiscal year 2021, compared to 6.3% growth in fiscal year 2020.
47%
is how much child care providers’ operating costs increased during the pandemic.
“We’re having a national teaching moment on how outdated and full of holes our basic economic security net is.” – Gene Sperling, former Director of the Economic Council
67%
of states and counties say they would have focused on systems and IT infrastructure if they had known about COVID-19 in January 2019.
41%
of states have a cloud first strategy for all new applications deployed to the cloud.
“Our customers and employees had to embrace a new way of doing business literally overnight. The pandemic accelerated every timeline we had in every program.” – Commissioner, Tennessee Department of Human Services
LESSONS FROM THE PANDEMIC: TRANSFORMING ADD TITLE HERE STATE AND LOCAL ELIGIBILITY PROGRAMS
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Human Services Agencies Explore New Possibilities The Challenge: Legacy Systems Hinder Service Delivery
The Solution: Cloud-Based Mission Support
Manual processes have long been a feature of human services agencies, and for generations, pools of caseworkers have compensated for clunky systems. The pandemic made a bad situation worse. Ad hoc solutions kept agencies operating during the pandemic, but the workarounds were often half-measures that lacked robust functionality, including adequate security controls. In time, these halfmeasures opened the door to fraud.
In a post-pandemic world, agencies will need an end-to-end, cloud-based digital system that supports remote work in the near term while modernizing critical IT systems for the long haul.
“We finally got to a point where people couldn’t solve this challenge by working harder,” said Don Abney, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Northwoods. Poor-performing legacy systems affect all stakeholders in social services: Clients: Legacy systems often hurt the most vulnerable applicants: people working multiple jobs, parents without access to child care and people without reliable transportation. For some, the stigma of receiving government assistance is a deterrent to seeking help if applying requires an in-person appearance. “Many clients don’t have access to a car. They can’t take time off of work. Some programs require you stay on the phone for hours at a time,” said Mary-Sara Jones, Principal Business Development Executive for Health and Human Services at AWS. Caseworkers: Legacy systems have the unfortunate effect of turning compassionate caseworkers into paperpushing bureaucrats, often leading to high turnover rates. “Caseworkers want to help,” Jones said. “They don’t want to stare at papers. They want to work with their customers.” Agency leaders: Modern IT tools facilitate the oversight of programs and stewardship of public funds. “The need is urgent,” Jones said. “Agencies have realized that they’re providing services on a burning platform.” IT: For the IT department, managing a patchwork of legacy systems is a complex and thankless task. The systems drain resources, requiring an increasing amount of time and energy to maintain, yet providing little return on that investment.
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Seamless document management solutions support agencies’ remote workers, enable self-service options for validating applicant eligibility and provide the operational visibility they need to manage remote workers. Nextgeneration systems also: ɥ Support work from anywhere, while fostering collaboration and enhancing security ɥ Empower clients by allowing them to submit documents and communicate with caseworkers on their own time ɥ Reduce administrative burdens and enable supervisors to manage remote workers ɥ Save IT resources when managing uptime, security and disaster recovery ɥ Promote transparency, system reliability and real-time reporting Clients: Private-sector companies have used web applications to improve interactions with customers, and now the public has come to “expect government solutions are just like the best retail experience online,” Jones said. Cloud-based systems can help agencies close the customer experience gap, enabling clients to apply for services and submit documents at their convenience, on any device they choose. Clients can track applications and repurpose submitted documents to apply for multiple programs. “It is no longer ‘take a number and hope you get a person who understands what you’re going through,’” Abney said. Caseworkers: A robust solution developed for health and human services agencies enables caseworkers to process applications faster “because they don’t have to enter manual forms into the data system,” Jones said. “A seamless digital solution automates eligibility verification processes and allows caseworkers to focus on high-value tasks.” Leadership: Advanced reporting makes it easier to manage programs, comply with mandates and be good stewards of public funds. Better operational data supports better decision-making.
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Best Practices 1. Meet users where they are. Ideally, clients should be able to submit documents in ways that work for them, whether by email, by phone or in person. Restricting options for submitting documents creates barriers to service delivery. Because many clients do not have access to a car or can’t take time off work, restrictions can become barriers that prevent eligible candidates from applying.
3. Provide applicants with timely status updates. The ability to engage customers is important. Keeping applicants in the loop empowers them to more actively participate in the process of accessing benefits. Together with transparency of information, this can foster self-sufficiency. Clients can’t help themselves if they’re in the dark, don’t understand the process and don’t know their applications’ status.
5. Reduce duplication in applications. Too often, applicants must provide the same set of documentation for every program to which they apply. That can be burdensome, particularly for a person experiencing homelessness who may not have key documents, such as a birth certificate. The inability to safely store previously submitted documents exacerbates the burden. Storing and reusing critical documents reduces the challenge for customers.
2. Improve document management and business processes. Use technology to pull data from individual documents to create a holistic view of applicants. Enable caseworkers to avoid manual data entry and other administrative tasks. Diverting those tasks to IT automation allows caseworkers to spend more time with clients. A robust system of document management recognizes when clients have previously submitted a birth certificate or other documentation needed to determine benefits to support a “no wrong door” approach. A holistic view of clients also makes it easier for them to access other applicable programs.
4. Provide agency leaders with better oversight capabilities. Having more digital data means leaders can get better insights into their operations and identify opportunities to use automation to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their work processes.
“We have more ability to get the right resources married up to the client in a timely fashion. These solutions automate a great deal of administrative oversight, keeping agencies from generating giant manual reports in [Microsoft] Excel spreadsheets like they do now.” - Don Abney, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Northwoods.
LESSONS FROM THE PANDEMIC: TRANSFORMING STATE AND LOCAL ELIGIBILITY PROGRAMS
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Case Study: Replacing Fragmented Legacy Systems To qualify for benefits, clients of economic assistance agencies submit required information through one or more intake portals. That fragmented system for collecting clients’ data hampers caseworkers who often must track down required data from emails, online portals, agency files or community partners, such as a library. Lacking a single portal for information undermines agency’ leaders, who rely on reviews of case documents to manage employees and gain visibility into operations. A cloud-based solution like Northwoods’ Traverse® automatically and securely centralizes documents and information into one automated workstream — regardless of how it was submitted — to reduce the time and effort agencies spend gathering evidence and improve visibility across the life cycle. Consider the example of a Medicaid renewal and the benefits all stakeholders realize. Clients electronically submit renewal forms and income verifications at the time and place of their choosing, without the restrictions of agencies’ office hours or locations. The immediacy of the process limits lapses in Medicaid coverage, among other benefits. The automated system notifies caseworkers when forms and supporting documents become available in clients’ electronic case files. The system streamlines workflows by automatically tagging documents to the correct person and case. The system handles what would otherwise be tedious, manual work, enabling caseworkers to focus on processing renewals and determining eligibility for additional benefits for customers. An automated, cloud-based system reduces bottlenecks and improves error rates for Medicaid cases, making it easier to pass audits. Agency leaders have visibility into caseworkers’ caseloads, and supervisors can better manage remote workers. Automated management of servers and software upgrades on systems’ backends decreases administrative burdens, reduces IT costs, lowers security risk and improves disaster recovery.
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HOW NO RT HWO O DS A ND AW S HE L P The partnership of Northwoods and AWS brings together the world’s leading cloud services provider and an IT solutions provider with deep experience in the health and human services sector. The result is Traverse, an AWS-based solution, purpose built for human services agencies, their caseworkers and clients. Providing access to electronic case files from anywhere, Traverse streamlines delivery of economic assistance programs. Clients can apply for government programs and submit necessary documentation with fewer errors and delays. Traverse’s automated functions remove mundane tasks from caseworkers, providing them more time to work with clients. Supported by AWS technology, Traverse is easy to install and intuitive to learn. It can be up and running in a few weeks to provide an immediate return on investment. For more than 20 years, Northwoods has concentrated on helping the agencies that help people in need. A significant percentage of its staff are former caseworkers and directors of human services agencies. Northwoods’ first customer was the Wood County, Ohio, Department of Job & Family Services, and now nearly 45,000 caseworkers nationwide use Northwoods solutions. “We don’t do anything but health and human services software,” Abney said. For more information, CLICK here.
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Conclusion For years, caseworkers at health and human services agencies went beyond the call of duty to compensate for inadequate legacy systems that made it difficult to manage caseloads and deliver services. Now those systems are teetering. If nothing is done, they will fail. “We’re at a point where there’s no amount of human effort that can solve this problem,” Abney said. “It is a problem that needs to be solved with technology.” A cloud-based solution designed to meet human services agencies’ distinct needs frees caseworkers and clients from inefficient workflows that can happen only at designated times and places. Clients submit documents at their convenience on the device of their choosing — and easily track their applications’ progress. Caseworkers easily access submitted documents in a single place, even when they applied for multiple programs. “This isn’t just a vision,” Jones said. “It’s tangible and real. Change is possible.”
ABOUT NO R T H WO O D S
A BOUT AWS
ABOUT GOVLOOP
Northwoods is a technology company truly focused on human services. Your mission is our mission. We help you save lives and strengthen families. Here’s how: nearly 45,000 social workers and caseworkers across the country use our solutions to manage, collect, view, and share content and data more efficiently, which saves them two hours a day. Workers repurpose that time to do more high-value work with clients. Agencies make the most of dollars and time, and have the information they need to make decisions and meet reporting requirements.
With over 6,500 government agencies using Amazon Web Services (AWS), we understand the requirements US government agencies have to balance economy and agility with security, compliance and reliability. In every instance, we have been among the first to solve government compliance challenges facing cloud computing and have consistently helped our customers navigate procurement and policy issues related to adoption of cloud computing. Cloud computing offers a pay-as-you-go model, delivering access to up-to-date technology resources that are managed by experts. Simply access AWS services over the internet, with no upfront costs (no capital investment), and pay only for the computing resources that you use, as your needs scale.
GovLoop’s mission is to “connect government to improve government.” We aim to inspire public-sector professionals by serving as the knowledge network for government. GovLoop connects more than 300,000 members, fostering cross-government collaboration, solving common problems and advancing government careers. GovLoop is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with a team of dedicated professionals who share a commitment to connect and improve government.
To learn more about Northwoods, please visit teamnorthwoods.com.
For more information about this report, please reach out to info@govloop.com. govloop.com | @govloop
To learn more about AWS, please visit aws.amazon.com. LESSONS FROM THE PANDEMIC: TRANSFORMING STATE AND LOCAL ELIGIBILITY PROGRAMS
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