There are few tasks as complex and demanding as providing health and human services at a state agency: The dynamic chase of renewal and recertification requirements for participants who may be eligible for multiple services at once, the moving parts of hard-to-reach participants, and the various documents they’re juggling.
And all of this comes on top of staff shortages that produce higher caseloads.
The stakes are also high: your agency’s capacity can mean the difference between a successful outcome or a participant falling through the cracks.
Whether your agency’s focus is a housing program, SNAP, temporary assistance programs like TANF, or elsewhere, much of your success comes down to your ability to efficiently gather documentation and meet clients where they are — regardless of the size of your staff.
Meet capacity and compliance demands
Funding for your programs and eligibility requirements fluctuate. But taking advantage of increased funding always depends on your agency’s ability to:
- Extend its capacity as needed (increase available resources to take on an increased workload)
- Effectively and consistently document progress for compliance requirements
Capacity
If your agency is like most, you’re seeing high staff turnover rates with vacancies created by highly educated workers trying to climb out from under student debt and struggling to do so.
Vacancies are inevitable: The state of Rhode Island, for example, with a population of just under 1.1 million in 2023, processed an average of 14,599 redeterminations per month according to the State’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS). They accomplished this with a Department of Human Service (DHS) staff 675 of 770. In other words, they operated with more than 12% of their staff positions vacant. The choice between providing suboptimal service to potentially hundreds or thousands of participants or terminating cases that staff can’t handle isn’t one your agency should never have to make.
Industry trend: Coordinated care. Some of the agencies we work with are implementing flexible regional case manager “pools.” This strategy allows them to shift caseloads as needed while social workers retain the dedicated 1X1 relationship with program participants.
How we help
Your staff lives by dates and deadlines: Renewals and recertifications. Multiply times X number of participants.
Sara works the same way. Sara can provide comprehensive, consistent, and measured follow-up in the form of automated workflows. This takes a substantial weight off of case managers and social workers to stay on top of compliance while giving each participant the attention and human expertise they deserve.
Agencies that use Sara client communication software are able to launch “always on” proactive outreach campaigns to program participants. Sara prompts participants and gathers required documentation like job search logs and pay stubs. It also sends appointment reminders and rescheduling options so your staff doesn’t have to juggle it all.
If a participant misses a group orientation, for example, Sara can follow up with a reschedule reminder for the next available orientation.
Compliance
Compliance is a tool to ensure that those who qualify for services don’t fall through the cracks, and it also ensures that participants who shouldn’t be receiving services, don’t.
Again, using a Title I program as an example, recent TANF guidelines (as of fall 2023) were proposed to help states further define requirements and ensure programmatic integrity. Adapting to new requirements is an ongoing reality for agencies.
How we help
Thankfully, there are now tools like Sara that make adapting easier on your staff — even with a high percentage of vacancies. By assuming the lion’s share of deadline-driven outreach, and producing case notes from all digital communication automatically, Sara provides an ongoing data source that can be used to satisfy program requirements as they change.
Get more responses from participants with less back-and-forth
Case managers and social workers are often saddled with outdated technology that slows them down on both ends: It creates more work for them to simply communicate what’s needed from program participants. It doesn’t communicate in a mode that matches workers’ and participants’ modern lifestyle.
Phone calls and in-person don’t work for all participants
Participants from Millennials down to Gen Z are digital natives who are less likely to return a phone call and who expect flexible online/in-person options. For Youth programs in particular, providing services and documentation to support the continuation of those services hinges on meeting participants where they are: in class, on a bus, with friends, and constantly immersed in nonverbal digital communication.
How we help
Sara offers text messaging and HIPAA-compliant virtual appointments to meet participants’ growing expectations of these options and to increase engagement. It also facilitates e-signatures, removing barriers for participants to submit crucial documents that keep the process moving.
Learn how The Mississippi Department of Rehabilitation Services increased response rates from younger participants.
A single hub for all digital communication, documented by default
Finally, one of the biggest roles Sara Client Communication Software plays is as a central source of truth for all of your agency’s digital communications, creating documentation automatically, and removing the extra step of “documenting” from your staff’s long to-do lists.
Sara is also adaptable to your state’s specific workflows and requirements. Whether you work in Section 8 Housing in California, SNAP in New York, NEON in Nevada, or anywhere in between, Sara is a teammate that hits the ground running, creating a more efficient and streamlined program overall. Ultimately, Sara’s workflow contributions are equivalent to 9 staff worth of outreach at approximately the cost of one caseworker’s salary. All of these gains are contributing toward a renewed focus on success for each individual, which is the goal of every effective caseworker and agency.
