What do you do when the people who cause these problems still expect you to be able to meet all of the customer's needs and the State and Federal requirements, when you are already doing the work of 3 to 4 persons? Or more?
Policy requires that we see and issued benefits to expedited (emergency, in layman's terms) clients within 24 hours of receiving the application. What if you now only have enough staff and appointment slots to see 30-40 clients per worker per week - but there are more than 120 clients per worker that needed to be seen? We are still required to comply with Federal and State requirements? Who is left to interview them?
An office recently got called down because they did not have the means to interview an expedited applicant. Offices are already scheduling one or more "vacant" caseloads, which means if an appointment didn't show, the other "vacant" one would be put into it's place. Then there are the stand-bys who have to be worked in if they insist. Now you add the expedtied applicants, which can be quite a lot in larger cities. Workers are interviewing more than 4 times their normal caseloads/casebanks. They've lost the work time they used to have to actually complete the cases so the clients wait even longer now. (I do have to say that when I explain the situation to most of mine, they are shocked and then very understanding!) But what really ticks me off is that management expects business as usual, without coming up with a solution for it! Supervisors still expect their staff to maintain standards, when some of them won't even step in to help interview! Those that do stand behind their workers are forced to do things they disagree with, at the threat of their jobs. HHSC wants to blame the workers when they are already pulling more than their fair share. It is and was upper management's decisions that caused so many tenured, excellent caseworkers to go away!
The clients are most definitely suffering - waiting longer, standing all day in line trying to get into an office, etc. but let's not forget about the front line workers. Many are putting in unbelievable hours (how the hell are they coming up with the money to pay all this overtime?) Mandatory Saturdays? Workers staying till almost midnight? Losing time with their families and any kind of a personal life. They are stressed to the max - and then we find out that Workman's Comp is refusing claims due to stress? !
Many of us stay in this job out of loyalty....to our clients, to our co-workers. Others have too much time invested to just walk away, too close to retirement for example. For whateve reason we still hang on, we haven't forgotten about our poor, elderly and disabled. The powers that currently run the State of Texas sure have, though!
What I really don't get though, is that an uproar has not been made about the money involved. Accenture continues to get paid, with no financial penalties for failing to meet their end of the contract, Texas is paying more and more in salaries and training, to get temporary staff who might be there a month or so before finding greener pastures - and of course, this is a revolving cycle. Not to mention the paid overtime that the workers are getting. And now, on top of that, the State is having to pay "retention bonuses" of approx $930 per worker for staying 6 months, and then another payment after another 6 months. Of course, in the long run, it's not much money considering how few workers are left!
That's bad enough - but add in the money that the Feds refused to give us because HHSC went ahead without their approval. And of course, the financial penalties that Texas will now have to pay to the Feds for not meeting quality control standards! (And to think that we "State" workers have been getting Federal Enhanced Funding Bonuses for the State for the past several years - using the so-called antiquated "dinosaur" called SAVERR.) It's good enough for Wall Street. Why is it all of a sudden not good for Texas?
I am no longer proud to say that I work for the State of Texas. But I will not give up on it's citizens, and I certainly hope that we will cast our lost together and make sure that Perry does not get elected!
2 comments:
As a temporary employee at the San Antonio location, I want to apologize. I feel horrible about everything that is happening right now. I try my best but with the tools I have been given, it isn't much. I lose sleep at night worrying I have messed up someone's benefits and only added more work for you. :(
Thank you. I would tell you that all mistakes can be fixed, but I can only speak about SAVERR. It does not appear that mistakes are that easily corrected in TIERS.
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