There is much good news to share. The backlog has been reduced almost 40% from its peak on April 6th at 12,530 applications to today at 7,589 applications. This is a truly amazing feat to accomplish in only 5 months! Also, the director was notified this week that the Food and Nutrition Service sent DPA a letter complimenting us on our improvement in SNAP timeliness and removing the pending sanction. None of these achievements would have been possible without all of the hard work that is going on in the field offices. Your dedication means that needy Alaskans will have nutritious food on their tables, warm homes, and access to affordable child care and health care coverage.
On September 1st Medicaid expanded to cover more Alaskans and 952 individuals have been approved under Medicaid Expansion as of September 14th. There has been quite a bit of interest in eligibility for medical assistance as evidenced by the dramatic increase in the number of individuals using the online screening tool (https://aries.alaska.gov/screener/?logIn=N) to see if they may qualify for Medicaid by answering a few short questions. The week of August 29th – September 4th there were 1,143 Medicaid screening applications completed.
Each and every one of you is contributing in some way to reducing the backlog. Thank you for all of your continuing efforts!