The Division of Public Assistance staff continue to embrace the principles of Business Process Redesign (BPR) by effectively and successfully following the principles!

What’s Happenin’ with Statewide BPR efforts?

Your daily efforts are directly impacting our Customer Interactions with every client you see! By taking care of the customers entering DPA through the various access points (lobby, mail, and fax) with one touch resolution, this reduces multiple customer contacts. Approximately 8 out of 10 (80%) customers receive a decision to their eligibility of benefits during the first contact with us. Remember, this is the most effective strategy to eliminate unnecessary touches and repeat client contacts to address customer needs at the onset of the request whenever possible. Keep up the great work of approving/denying eligibility during our first contact!

Greetings everyone!

Although we have been remiss with communicating what’s happenin’, there has been a lot of action within DPA!

What’s Happenin’ you ask? Well, the MatSu Region is rockin’ it! They have reached a point where they are able to staff their PathOS work effectively and efficiently AND they have staff “left over”. This means they are able to work what is coming in daily for the MatSu region and they are, dare we say, looking for work... Therefore, the managers are assigning some staff to work the Backlog Domain to assist with clearing the backlog. The managers are primarily monitoring the incoming MatSu work daily and adjusting where they deem necessary. YAY!

We wanted to provide an update to you pertaining to the Virtual Contact Center (VCC).

What is it?
The Virtual Contact Center (VCC) will allow customers to contact the Division in various ways and our staff will be located throughout the state (not like a call center where staff are in one location). The access point that we will initially focus on is phone calls. This VCC product is currently being used by other Departments and Divisions throughout the State of Alaska. Therefore, it is a familiar product and will be fully supported by IT and the State Enterprise Technology Section as we grow with the use of the VCC. Read more.

Yesterday, an Anchorage grand jury indicted five non-residents for defrauding the Adult Public Assistance Program based on four separate incidents. One other non-resident was charged in Fairbanks. The Adult Public Assistance program is designed as a State supplement to the Federal Supplemental Security Income Program. The Adult Public Assistance program, which is funded entirely with state funds, is only available to Alaska residents. For full story

Good afternoon, Everyone!

History: We have MAGI cases that cannot be worked timely in ARIES because of programming issues related to continued development and improvements of the system. Originally, the decision was made to work all MAGI cases in ARIES so they could easily be tracked and staff would become comfortable working in the new system. The exceptions to this was if the case was over 12 months old or a medically urgent need was not able to be processed in ARIES, these cases were then processed in EIS.