Socked by tens of thousands of childless adults applying for a new state health plan, Wisconsin is failing to meet requirements in federal law for timely approvals of applications for both the Medicaid health coverage and food stamps.
Since June 15, more than two-thirds of childless applicants with virtually no income -- the highest priority cases -- haven't received food stamps within the federally required seven days, state figures show. Nearly two-thirds of all the childless adults seeking food stamps haven't received them within the required 30 days.
The same process is used to check whether applicants are eligible for both Medicaid and the federal FoodShare, or food stamps, program.
Officials from the state Department of Health Services met Monday with federal officials to brief them on the delays and said they would seek to resolve the most pressing backlogged food stamp cases by the end of this week.
"We're going to have to work as hard as we can over the next eight weeks to deal with this really incredible backlog and volume of applications," said Health Services secretary Karen Timberlake. "It's absolutely unacceptable ... We need to get those applications processed in a timely way."
The good news for needy state residents without children is that thousands more are getting health coverage and food stamps. But the time taken to process these claims, already longer than the federal average, has shot up dramatically since these low-income residents started signing up for Medicaid through the BadgerCare Plus Core plan on June 15.
Crushing number
As part of the new Core Plan, the state and its private contractor, Automated Health Systems, took over from county workers the job of handling the complicated, time-consuming applications for Medicaid and food stamps made by adults without children.
So far since June, a crushing 95,000 applications have rolled in, forcing the state to put a waiting list in place for the Core Plan -- but not food stamps -- on Oct. 9.
One of those applicants was 55-year-old Mary Haugh of Fitchburg.
A breast cancer survivor, Haugh has struggled financially this year. She lost her business, a coffee shop, in April because of the recession and is now being forced to sell her home to cover business debts.
Uninsured and overdue for a mammogram, Haugh applied for just the Core plan with no food stamps on June 16 but didn't get accepted until October, a wait of more than three months. The state didn't have all the information and application fee needed from Haugh, contributing to the wait, but she said she had difficulty finding that out so she could provide it.
"I feel like a mouse trying to push a mountain," Haugh said. "I just feel very frustrated."
Since June, nearly two in five callers to the state's toll-free number for childless adults have hung up before their call was answered, with more than one in three callers waiting more than 20 minutes.
Jon Peacock, research director for the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, called it disturbing that applicants like Haugh had to wait so long.
But Peacock said the popular Core Plan is helping tens of thousands of people to get basic health-care coverage and, when they call to request it, to find out that they may also qualify for food stamps. The state taking on the childless adult cases also helps county workers who are already struggling with their own heavy Medicaid and food stamps caseloads because of the recession.
New hires
Timberlake said her agency would seek this week to resolve high-priority food stamp cases supposed to be handled within seven days by shutting down its call center for six hours a day so workers can focus on processing applications.
To deal with the overall Medicaid and food stamps backlog, Automated Health Services also hired 22 new employees at its service center to handle applications there, the state temporarily shifted another 50 employees to help the effort and workers in some 24 county agencies are being paid overtime to process applications.
Jean Daniel, a spokeswoman for the Food and Nutrition Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the food stamp program, said the agency was "concerned" about states failing to meet the federal standard. With record numbers in the food stamps program, the agency had seen wait times in some other states increasing as well, she said.
The agency could impose penalties by withholding payments to Wisconsin to help cover the costs of administering the FoodShare program but would first seek to work with the state, she said.
"Our first course of action is to work cooperatively," Daniel said. To see more of The Wisconsin State Journal, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.wisconsinstatejournal.com. Copyright (c) 2009, The Wisconsin State Journal Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
