Director's Office

The Backlog initiative is a quick – at a glance – document indicating the amount of incoming work and what our Field Staff were able to complete per region (please see attached).

FABULOUS JOB keeping the completion rate higher than 80%- WOW! This means that we are completing what we started 80% of the time and our customers are taken care of quickly. Additionally, the average transaction time 47 minutes- NICE! As a reminder to the Field Services Team and keeping with the BPR principles, just because the average transaction time is 47 minutes, we shouldn’t be setting an expectation to complete a specific number of actions per day. As we all know, every case is different and it depends upon what track staff are working in. For example, staff working in the Green track can’t be compared to those working in the Yellow track in terms of number of items completed. The daily numbers worked at the individual level will vary based upon the track they are working and if they have easy, difficult, or typical cases. The key here is to shorten what we have control over, our gap times, and take the steps to complete our cases so determinations are made for our customers. As Change and Innovation Agency has stated many times, we can’t complete our work faster without compromising our quality- and both are important, so we focus on what we can control by challenging our expectations of what we think we can complete in a day. Thank you for sticking with the process and assisting our customers!

Sincerely,
Tammie and Aimee

March 2018 DPA Backlog Initiative Data

As we continue with the Backlog initiative, we wanted to inform DPA that the Northern Region (Fairbanks and Nome offices) will be joining with our MatSu Region (Wasilla and Kenai offices) on March 19th 2018.

What this means:

Northern Region will begin, effective March 19, 2018, with a clean slate, share non-lobby work, and process all incoming work the same day.

Preparation...

The Division will be providing monthly data on how we are doing with our Backlog initiative. By clicking on the following link, you will be able to see data on the incoming work (cases added), the number of items we cleared, pended, approved/denied, and no-contacted monthly. These numbers are in constant flux so providing monthly data will be important to you. Please remember that the “waiting to be worked” is not “cases” but items to be worked in PathOs which may include duplicates.

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!

Sean, Tammie and Aimee would like to express our thanks to all of the staff who met with us during our office field visits, to those who asked tough questions that needed understanding for you to provide accurate information to our clients, and for providing recommendations to improve upon the information being shared with the entire Division. Although we were not able to visit every office, we wanted to provide some written information for everyone. Therefore, the following questions and answers are a direct result of the discussions that the field staff had with us. As we mentioned during the visits, please do not hesitate to contact us if you have questions or need clarification.

We are very proud of our DPA team, the work that you do every day to help those less fortunate is very humbling. Thank you.

View the Medicaid Expansion Q&A.

DPA! DPA! DPA Rocks! Last week saw an almost 6% drop in the overall backlog, the best too date. Despite the ongoing work to register the outstanding FFM and SSP applications, the rate of processing backlogged MAGI-Medicaid applications kept backlog growth to a minimum. Outstanding work has been done on the SNAP backlog with very good progress across the board.

Naturally, we are also having a bit of rain on our parade. Due to federally-facilitated marketplace defects many accounts simply were not transferred to states. The FFM also didn’t transmit accounts for some applicants who requested full eligibility determinations by the state after they were determined eligible for a Qualified Health Plan (QHP). Lastly, about 53,000 duplicate accounts were transferred to states. The short story is we can expect about another 815 FFM transfers, some which may go back to August of 2014. Fortunately the defects have been isolated and the last of them will be addressed by late summer.

View the rest of the message and charts.

Just a short note and a big HURRAH this week with excellent progress made on addressing our SNAP backlog! Last week also saw drops in the backlog across all programs with the exception of Medicaid. A spike in Medicaid backlog was anticipated as more effort went into the registration of FFM accounts and SSP applications. While it resulted in a big rise in the Medicaid backlog, the great effort made across all programs kept growth in the total backlog down. Thank you all for keeping the pedal to the metal!

View charts.

Another week with the backlog going in the right direction! Last week there were reductions in the backlog for virtually every program, except Medicaid. However, with the effort underway to get FFM and SSP requests registered, some jump in the MAGI Medicaid backlog is to be expected. In April over 20,000 case determinations were completed. What an effort and what a team!

The goal of clearing the backlog before the implementation of Medicaid Expansion remains a significant challenge but I believe it is an achievable goal, so I have to ask everyone to stick with it. It has been a cross-country race with much of it uphill for the last few months. We are approaching the final laps and it will take a hard push for the next couple of months to get us across the line, but you have shown the colors of champions who will not flag or fail in the effort, despite the obstacles.

Read the rest of the message and view charts..

This is Public Service Appreciation Week. Have no doubt; there is no employee in state government more worthy of the public’s appreciation than DPA. I talk to a clients or providers every day. Are many of them frustrated by late benefits or decisions and concerned about help for their family or patient? Certainly they are. But, the people I talk to are also typically very grateful for the help and compassion they receive from staff.

As grateful as our clients may be, no one appreciates someone in public service more than their co-worker. What a grand team we have in DPA. Catch someone doing a good thing and praise them (there are tons of opportunities to say thank you around us every day).

Read the rest of the message and view charts..