“Interoperability” refers to systems’ ability to interact with each other to share data so that a customer is connected with as many benefits as possible in an efficient way. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was originally intended to be interoperable, but this has not occurred yet. Promoting interoperability in the ACA is imperative, as it would help alleviate food insecurity through automatic benefits enrollment.
As part of its ongoing commitment to streamline access to benefits by Californians in need of assistance, the California Department of Social Services is exploring electronic options to help simplify and modernize the processes for obtaining required verifications for CalFresh and CalWORKs eligibility. This report lays out a set of options and opportunities for consideration, as well as a list of key verification considerations that would benefit both clients and staff.
The inability to apply for Medicaid and SNAP in person during the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a new way of interacting with social service agencies through online application submission. States can facilitate this by making online applications and systems more accessible and allowing for telephonic signatures on benefits applications.
Since March 2020, states have been using temporary SNAP (food stamps) flexibility to provide emergency benefit supplements, and ease program administration during the pandemic. These options have allowed states to deliver more food assistance to struggling families, help manage intense administrative demands, and ensure that participants maintain much-needed benefits.
Code for America helped expand GetCalFresh (a service that guides Californians through the SNAP application process and helps government deliver food assistance to people in need) from a small pilot into a statewide service. They also recently concluded a similar pilot in Michigan along with Civilla and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
About 12 million Americans risk missing out on stimulus payments provided through the CARES Act. State outreach efforts are critical to connect people to the $1,200 stimulus payments, and the CBPP lists various resources to assist in state outreach efforts on this webpage.
Some states are adding unnecessary complexity to benefits application processes by requiring Remote Identity Proofing (RIDP) before applying or truncating other business. This paper provides background on RIDP, explains when it’s required, and makes recommendations on how states can preserve the security of online interfaces without the barrier of RIDP.
Though the rhetoric of “waste, fraud, and abuse” is ubiquitous when it comes to welfare programs, low-income households receive little relief from benefits programs. Most efforts to make public benefits systems more “efficient” actually just waste time and money in practice. They instead serve to stigmatize low-income families and chip away at the little assistance that remains available to them.
The existing system for evaluating state safety net programs does not adequately capture the human experience of accessing services. This new National Safety Net Scorecard is a more meaningful set of metrics that can effectively asses the true state of the current program delivery landscape and measure progress over time, creating a more human-centered safety net.
The share of WIC-eligible families participating in the program has declined, though the number of individuals eligible for WIC has likely grown substantially. By working together, state WIC, Medicaid, and SNAP leaders can use data to assess the extent to which WIC is reaching eligible families and enroll more of them.
