Chair Hudson asks about Intro 101 processing improvements

And then with regards to Intro 101, you mentioned that there has been an improvement over the last month from the time.

Of submission to approval going from 28 days to 24.8 days.

What do you attribute that to?

Yes, I will let the executive deputy commissioner give a little bit more detail, but there's been a significant reorganization of resources and refocusing.

So items that were once done by both DHS and HRA are now just done with one unit in HRA.

And I think after the initial, of course, challenge of reorganization, we really started to make strides in making those faster.

But if you'd like to provide some additional details, that would probably be helpful.

I'm sure.

Thank you for that question, Commissioner.

So with the reorganization, we really tried to streamline.

the process for application review and approval.

As Commissioner mentioned, we went from a three-touch review to a two-touch review.

So there's one staff reviewing and one supervisor reviewing.

But we also changed the foundational lens of how we look at the review, and we look at three eligibility, four eligibility pillars.

It's the ownership eligibility, client and subsidy eligibility, and owner eligibility, so that the staffing have been trained

and they are now given the tools to be able to critically think and make assessments along those eligibility lens.

And so in the past, applications would go back and forth for simple reasons.

Now they're able to look at those eligibility and make sure that those are being met and so the application can move forward faster.

Additionally, we changed the life of the documents.

And so documents were about four months and now they're all at six months.

And so less back and forth to update documents.

Once the application is submitted, those documents also freeze in their valid time frames and so no longer back and forth for new updated documents.

In addition to that, the supervisors now have increased the comment section in the

electronic application, and so they're able to document whatever issues have been identified so that the providers, if we have to return the case, they know exactly what they need to do to send it.

case back.

So we've been able to move the needle.

We're starting to see a turn.

The applications are moving faster.

The return rates have gone down.

It's trending down.

I don't want to boast yet, but we're starting to see a turn.

And so hopefully as we continue to advance, we will see more progress.