LINCOLN — Doris Gunn spent more than five hair-pulling hours online so her disabled son wouldn't lose his Medicaid and state assistance.
It took that long for the Roca, Neb., woman to complete an application using the state's revamped system for handling public assistance cases.
To complete the process, Gunn spent 40 minutes on hold, in the middle of her workday, waiting to talk with a caseworker at a state call center.
"If my son didn't have me as an advocate, he'd be in a world of hurt," she said Monday at a meeting in Lincoln organized by community groups to collect comments and suggestions from people who have dealt with the system, called ACCESSNebraska.
Under the ACCESSNebraska system, the state is closing many local benefits offices and setting up four call centers to replace local caseworkers.
The centers are expected to process the bulk of applications and case reviews for state and federal benefits such as food stamps, Medicaid, energy assistance, and aid for the aged, blind and disabled.
Call centers in Lincoln and Fremont are up and running, and a center in Scottsbluff has just started taking calls. The Lexington center is scheduled to start taking calls by February.
Also part of the initiative are online applications and electronic scanning and storage of documents.
Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services officials said the changes are aimed at modernizing and streamlining the way the state provides benefits.
"It's more about expanding services, not limiting access," said Jill Schreck, a Health and Human Services economic assistance administrator.
She and other officials said they were working to iron out problems and would review Monday's comments to look for ways to improve.
"This is new to us as well," said Scot Adams, interim director of Children and Family Services for HHS. "There is a learning curve, a growth curve."
Most of those who spoke Monday said the system has made it more difficult for people to get the help they need. They told of long waits on hold, lost documents, lack of continuity and the loss of personal contact with caseworkers who know and understand their cases.
Ed Mischler of Lincoln said one of the biggest problems in getting help for his father after a stroke was a lack of continuity. Each time he calls the Lincoln center, Mischler said, he gets a different caseworker and has to explain the situation again.
"Some people were extremely helpful, some not so much," Mischler said.
He also told of dropping off a large stack of documents required for his father's application with a local office, only to be told later that the documents had been lost.
Diane Nieveen, a social worker at Gold Crest nursing home in Adams, said her clients commonly encounter lengthy waits and lost documents, but they are more troubled by the inability to talk with a person face to face.
The cumbersome system also is discouraging health care providers from taking on Medicaid patients, she said.
Roy Schneider, administrator of the Duff Memorial Nursing Home in Nebraska City, said processing Medicaid applications for residents now takes up to six months, which means payments to the nursing home are delayed. Processing took only a couple of months under the previous system, he said.
In addition, Schneider said, the nursing home's social worker spends hours helping residents with issues related to public assistance.
"My nursing home social worker is taking the job of the state social worker," he said.
Other speakers reported poor treatment from caseworkers at call centers.
But Cynthia Cox, a call center worker who had to apply for public assistance under the former system, said ACCESSNebraska is better than the previous system. She said she had to take time off work to meet with a caseworker, only to repeat the trip if she didn't have the needed documentation with her.
"For me, this system we have now, with all its brokenness, is an improvement," Cox said.
State officials have estimated that ACCESSNebraska would save $5 million in state and federal funds annually when fully implemented next year. The savings come largely from cutting an estimated 225 positions.
One state worker, who declined to give her name, said many of the system's problems -can be traced to the loss of experienced workers.
Comments from the Lincoln meeting and four other sessions will be compiled and submitted to the Legislature for an interim study on ACCESSNebraska.
Contact the writer: 402-473-9583, martha.stoddard@owh.com
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