State lawmakers grilled staff from the Departments of Human Services and Administration about what they deemed the “botched” rollout of a new state benefits system Thursday afternoon.
Rhode Island Public Radio’s Kristin Gourlay joined host Barbara Quill to talk about what lawmakers learned about a system that’s been plagued by backlogs and data glitches.
Transcript:
BARBARA: So Kristin this was a four hour hearing in front of the House Oversight and Finance committees to learn more about the roll out of something called UHIP. First – what is UHIP, and what are lawmakers so upset about?
KRISTIN: UHIP Stands for Unified Health Infrastructure Project. It rolls all of these decades-old computer systems for processing state benefits like food stamps and health insurance into one integrated system. It’s a $360+ million dollar behemoth, paid for mostly with federal dollars but also millions of state dollars. The reason this project is such a big deal is because one in three Rhode Islanders relies on benefits that pass through this system. And lawmakers have been hearing from their constituents that things aren’t exactly going well for everyone.
BARBARA: So what have been some of the problems and are they getting resolved?
KRISTIN: First let me say that this is a hugely complex system. Hundreds of millions of data points were transferred over. The system has to talk to lots of different federal systems. Major IT project. But, a lot of lawmakers think the Department of Human Services went live with this system too soon. They weren’t ready. Here are a few examples of what’s gone wrong: some Rhode Islanders weren’t able to access their food stamps. Some state-paid providers of child care didn’t get paid on time. There’s a massive backlog of new applications for food stamps and Medicaid, etc.– about 8000. Nearly 30,000 Rhode islanders didn’t get supplemental disability payments on time. And wait times to get help with your application in a DHS field office have been exceedingly long – hours.
BARBARA: So this system roll out has touched a lot of lives – even disrupted some. But I understand that the system has worked for the majority of clients – that’s well over three hundred thousand Rhode Islanders.
KRISTIN: Right. And Secretary of Health and Human Services Elisabeth Roberts, who testified, emphasized that success. She also told lawmakers that they felt they were ready to go live when they did, that waiting would cost more money and possibly interfere with the next health insurance enrollment period. She acknowledged that the U.S. Food and Nutrition Service, which administers the food stamp program, wasn’t happy with that decision. But they’re providing them with weekly updates.
BARBARA: What did lawmakers determine about the cause of some of these problems – is it human error? Technical glitches?
KRISTIN: It sounds like a combination of several factors. Sometimes it’s a case of mismatched data, which means a caseworker has to go through someone’s file and make all the corrections. Sometimes it’s bad computer code – a glitch that has to be fixed. There’s also the fact that this is a new system DHS workers are learning to use, and each new application is taking a little longer to process. Some of them were in the hearing audience last night, by the way, and they were pretty vocal about their frustration with the new system.
BARBARA: Where does the responsibility for some of these problems lie – is it just with DHS, or does the consulting firm that built the system, Deloitte, have any explaining to do?
KRISTIN: Some lawmakers really pressed that point. Some of them feel that Deloitte promised more than it could deliver. That they came in over budget and not on time. They’ve had some rocky systems projects in other states as well. But Deloitte has placed 50 extra staffers in the field to help with problems on site. And state officials who testified said they were happy with Deloitte’s partnership.
BARBARA: So Kristin, what are the next steps? How are they going to reduce wait times and clean up those backlogs and computer glitches?
KRISTIN: Lawmakers wanted to know, too. House Oversight co-chair representative Patricia Serpa said “we’re not done here,” implying there would be more hearings. And the committees are requiring weekly updates on DHS’s progress fixing the glitches. DHS director Melba Depena Affigne, who also testified, said they’ve extended office hours in the field. And their goal is get through the backlog of new applications in less than two weeks. Some new issues may continue to crop up. Some of these programs are cyclical – as in, a new check gets issued once a month or a benefit renews every month. So it remains to be seen what those issues are and how quickly they can be tackled. But lawmakers have definitely put human services officials on notice that fixes need to be fast.