Start Today: a Medi-Cal application you can start and resume later
daguar opened this issue · comments
One-liner: A web site that lets you start applying for Medi-Cal (California Medicaid) and saves your information so you can finish it later.
Project Needs: Developer (simple web form app), designer, someone with knowledge of the Medi-Cal application/enrollment process
Status: Idea (identified as potential need in Long Beach) Started today (5/26). :) –Fureigh
More detail:
The Long Beach fellows ( @mollymcleod @fureigh @dget ) have mentioned this as a potential need they identified, and it seems like it wouldn't be too hard. I'd love to hear more from them.
Also, here is a CHCF brief courtesy of @lippytak on "Enrolling in Medi-Cal: the consumer experience" (note: it came out in 2012, so a big chunk of it may now differ given the rollout of ACA/CoveredCalifornia in 2014.)
(Project name inspired by the seminal NY hardcore anthem by the Gorilla Biscuits: Start Today.)
Very excited about this idea. Ideally it'd also include some elements to support someone in finishing their application. (Email reminders? Text reminders? An autogenerated paper slip? Some way(s) to help prevent those temporary applications from just getting lost forever.)
Reminders would be awesome -- it could also yield some data on what's
effective.
Do you have any more "on-the-ground" context to add to this idea? I recall
things vaguely, but I'd love to get a sense of who the folks were who had
this (are the users primarily case workers? potential beneficiaries
themselves?)
On Tue, Apr 29, 2014 at 4:01 PM, Fureigh notifications@github.com wrote:
Very excited about this idea. Ideally it'd also include some elements to
support someone in finishing their application. (Email reminders? Text
reminders? An autogenerated paper slip? Some way(s) to help prevent those
temporary applications from just getting lost forever.)—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/7#issuecomment-41742935
.
Dave Guarino
Consultant, Health Vertical
(2013 Fellowship alumnus)
Code for America http://www.codeforamerica.org/
dave@codeforamerica.org
LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/daveguarino/ |
GitHubhttps://github.com/daguar/
Sure; this is partly an answer to the "can't you just sign people up for Medi-Cal from the back of the ambulance?" hope, which came from the fire department. The current short answer is no, because even if someone is conscious and capable, they almost certainly won't have the necessary supporting documents on hand. And I'd say for optimal effectiveness, ideally a system wouldn't rely on its users to have email, have access to a computer, come back to their accounts later and remember them, etc.
The outreach workers at the Multi-Service Center also now have iPads that they're using with what seems to be great success, and IIRC they were excited about the hypothetical opportunity there to quickly start someone's intake process.
So for possible users, I'm thinking case workers, paramedics, discharge workers at hospitals, and potential beneficiaries themselves.
As a first step, I suggest looking more into the existing online application, linked from the front page of http://www.coveredca.com. That appears to require an account signup; I haven't yet tried it but am very interested in doing so.
Awesome! A bummer point on the technical logistics front is that the PDF application does not have typeable fields, making a web-form-to-PDF-writer -- like we're doing with Calfresh -- much harder.
CORRECTION! I opened it in Preview, and see now that we can TOTALLY write to the Medi-Cal application if we want!!!
One of the recommendations from the CHCF report:
"Make the application comprehensive. Many consumers were willing to spend 40 minutes or more completing an application if they thought it would be a comprehensive, one-time task. While many applicants valued brevity in the application process, they valued not having to complete multiple applications with redundant questions even more. Many consumers reacted negatively when they were told an application process required a follow-up interview or involved additional steps at a later date."
I think that problem is stemming from the application process and steps not being clear overall. There could definitely still be some benefit to having this "Start Today" thing as a tool for caseworkers/paramedics etc.
I'm parsing through the recommendations in the report, thinking about the reasons people drop off. It sounds like a significant chunk of application issues could be solved with plain language and better design. CHCF provides some pretty clear design recommendations (page 22), I'm thinking of make a super simple "How do I enroll in Medi-Cal?" type of site. Maybe I'll start a separate issue about it...
CORRECTION!
After opening it in Preview, I see now that IT'S TOTALLY POSSIBLE TO TYPE INTO THE MEDI-CAL APPLICATION!!!!!!!
One additional thought — it seems like for caseworkers using a mobile device, it might be helpful to have the fields sync with some data store (using AJAX) as they're filled in, so that if they have to stop and move on, it's not required to hit a submit button.
+1 to that additional thought, @daguar. Also important for when caseworkers' devices have spotty reception.
Here's a link for the "Single Streamlined Application [with Covered California]," including versions in the following languages:
- English
- Arabic
- Armenian
- Chinese
- Farsi
- Hmong
- Khmer (ahem, Long Beach)
- Korean
- Russian
- Spanish
- Tagalog
- Vietnamese
I went ahead and started working on Medi-Cal Fresh and So Clean, elements of which could be applicable for any start-now-finish-later online application.
Update: as this project's focus and functionality are a bit different, I switched to a new repo (Start Today).