| Blue Streak Case
Studies |
 |
Customer Success Story: Louisiana Department
of Social Services Office of Family Support
Overview:
The Louisiana Department of Social Services (DSS) is responsible
for administering numerous federally legislated and funded
social service programs within Louisiana and issuing benefits
related to those programs.
The Department of Social Services, Office of Family Support
(OFS), is the lead state agency for the administration of
the Child Care Assistance Program that assists low-income
families to pay for the child care they need in order to work
or attend school or training. Statewide, the program serves
over 45,500 children and provides assistance totaling approximately
$7.1 million each month.
The Food Stamp Program provides monthly benefits that help
low-income households buy the food they need for good health.
The goal of the program is to promote the general welfare
and to safeguard the health and well being of the population
through the issuance of benefits to all eligible households.
Total benefits in FY 2002-2003 exceeded $664M – an average
of over $55M to 230,000 households each month.
Challenge:
The OFS Fraud and Recovery Section – a division of the
Louisiana DSS – investigates and seeks prosecution for
an estimated 1,000 active benefits fraud cases at any given
time. These fraud cases are the result of the illegal use
of social services benefits—and one of the most glaring
offenses is misuse of food stamps. Investigation and prosecution
of fraud cases are a multi-tiered process—and cases
can take over 6 months to investigate and close.
The OFS was challenged by a paper-based tracking system that
required employees to manually sort through file folders to
compile the monthly, quarterly and annual reports that are
critical to the agency’s bottom-line. On a day-to-day
basis, OFS investigators had to manually document case reports
and in most cases were delivering reports to the agency by
mail or fax. This system made it nearly impossible to obtain
the status of a specific case at any given time. Often management
could not determine the current status of investigative cases
without consulting a field supervisor via phone or e-mail,
and the field supervisors were frequently unavailable because
they were in the field doing work. The Fraud and Recovery
Section also needed a better method to track administrative
fraud hearings and their outcomes and a better method of entering
and tracking fraud hotline calls.
OFS determined that it needed to automate its data tracking
and case management process in order to create efficiency
and data reliability and ultimately be able to collect fraudulent
monies faster.
Solution:
The OFS Fraud and Recovery Section selected Metastorm Business
Process Management software, e-Work, to manage its investigative
activities. Metastorm was selected for its dynamic Web-based
interface and flexibility to integrate with a wide range of
external databases, as well as its agility and control features
– such as the ability to access real-time case information,
create an audit trail, and revise agency processes on an as-needed
basis.
Metastorm partner, Blue Streak Technologies developed the
solution for OFS using e-Work as the business process management
component and Information Builders WebFOCUS product for reporting.
Prior to implementation, Blue Streak Technologies worked with
the OFS Fraud and Recovery Section to reengineer the existing
investigative process, develop over 70 reports critical to
the agency’s reporting requirements, monitor cases assigned
for administrative fraud hearings, and enter and track fraud
hotline complaints.
The use of Metastorm’s BPM technology has resulted in
a huge shift in the way OFS does business by providing a dependable
flow of information between agency management and investigators
in the field. In addition, the OFS Fraud and Recovery Section
core processes are now documented and its employees have a
better understanding of the processes and how their work impacts
the agency at large.
With e-Work in place, the agency can now process more cases
per investigator, monitor case load weaknesses to determine
which cases are not being worked efficiently and assess its
performance against federal standards throughout each month.
All of these efficiencies help the Fraud and Recovery Section
open and close investigation cases faster, which allows misused
funds to be recouped in a shorter period of time and help
ensure that the agency will continue to receive critical federal
government funding.
The agency is also in the process of integrating e-Work with
a Geographic Information System (GIS), which will give them
the ability to associate existing fraud case data with the
physical locations of fraudulent activity. The combination
of BPM and GIS will provide OFS with intelligence on the patterns
of fraud within geographic areas—allowing them to detect
fraud earlier and prosecute cases faster.
Results:
With over 35 employees using e-Work, OFS now has an automated
means to track and monitor its investigative process and has
already realized tremendous benefits. e-Work has replaced
an inefficient, paper-based process and provided the agency
with systems that allow it to monitor case work in real-time
so that it can recover fraudulent funds faster and ensure
federal-level financial support.
“Metastorm
e-Work’s visual workflow environment enabled OFS to
rapidly create an application that automated processes according
to the agency’s specific needs. Critical fraud and investigative
processes are now defined, creating tremendous efficiencies,
and the processes are easily changed if needed,” stated
Ray Pease, Assistant Director of Fraud and Recovery, Louisiana
Department of Social Services.
Sherwood Lemoine, Project Manager, Louisiana Department of
Social Services explained, "Using the Metastorm e-Work
product to build the Fraud and Recovery Case Management System
has allowed OFS to rapidly design, develop, and implement
a browser based web database, workflow, and case management
information system to meet specific agency needs and on-line
reporting requirements."
|
 |
