building a one-day benefits process in Michigan

In 2020, Civilla met a woman named Sharon as part of our research for a project with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS).

Sharon was a new mother with a 6-month-old at home in Flint. She had recently been laid off from her job as a server during the COVID-19 pandemic and was “piecing things together” to make ends meet. That summer, she fell behind on her utility payments and received a shut off notice. Worried about keeping her baby healthy and safe in the extreme heat, Sharon applied to the state for emergency relief and “hoped and prayed” her application would be processed within a week.

What Sharon likely didn’t know at the time was that Michigan routinely took more than 20 days to determine if applicants were eligible for public benefits such as food assistance, healthcare, cash assistance, child care, and state emergency relief.

Across the state, more than 2.5 million people per year apply for public benefits, often when they’ve lost a job, when a family member gets sick, or when they’re going through a significant life change. During these moments of uncertainty, they often struggle to meet basic needs for their families, like putting food on the table, heating their home, or accessing quality healthcare.

Sharon and other residents applying for benefits often can’t afford to wait weeks for help but are forced to because of the complexity of the determination process.

At Civilla, we believe that what’s needed are big ideas and big questions if institutions want to meet the needs of the public. Institutions will need to move beyond incremental improvements to create faster, easier-to-use services to meet the needs of people like Sharon.

the big question

MDHHS wanted to make their determination process a better experience for residents, so they partnered with Civilla to ask one big question:

What if we could cut the time it takes the state to determine eligibility for public benefits from 20 days to just one day? 

If that kind of change were possible, we wondered what impact it would have on residents, caseworkers, and the public benefits system in Michigan. This led to questions like – 

• How many fewer calls would Michigan receive from residents checking in on the status of their applications?
• What would it feel like as a caseworker to complete a case in one day and reduce their often overwhelming caseload?
• How would a system as fast as consumer services change how people view their government?
• What would an answer in one day mean for residents like Sharon?

In 2019, we began Project One Day with MDHHS to research opportunities to streamline the benefits application process toward a north star of one-day determinations. 

Through hundreds of hours of conversations and research, our team heard directly from Michigan residents about the challenges they face while trying to enroll in state benefits. We heard about the stress of filling out complex applications in times of crisis, about missing follow-up phone calls because they were at work, and the difficulty of tracking down needed documentation. 

On the caseworker side, we heard a deep, existing desire to speed up benefit determinations. But caseworkers had numerous barriers in their way from incomplete applications to document verification requirements to phone tag with applicants to get necessary information. Caseworkers want to help residents through the process, and they know if a resident is denied benefits because of missing information, they will likely just reapply, adding to the state’s caseload. 

Based on the findings from that research, Civilla suggested a combination of policy and business process changes to make one-day determinations possible. 

fewer required verification documents

Through our policy analysis and research with other states, the team found an opportunity to reduce the number of verification documents needed for determination. By expanding broad-based categorical eligibility and updating Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) policies, Michigan is now allowing residents to self-attest to assets that they own under $15,000 (the previous policy only allowed assets up to $5,000).

Similar to assets, many states allow for self-attestation of shelter and utility expenses as long as the information is not questionable. Michigan made this policy change, which meant that now reasonable assets and expenses could be verified by the information a resident provided on their application, rather than having to collect things like bank statements, leases, and utility bills.

two-hour registration

After residents submit their application, an administrative clerk enters it into MDHHS’s case management system, allowing frontline staff to begin processing it. Before, registration timelines varied by office, sometimes taking up to a few days. As part of Project One Day, MDHHS instituted a new two-hour standard for registering the application so staff could begin processing as soon as possible.

front-end processing

As part of the project, we added a new process where staff check the Work Number database—an online employment and wage verification system provided by Equifax—to verify a resident’s employment. By checking the database upfront, staff can collect the necessary verifications before the interview—saving time on back-and-forths and lessening the burden on residents.

two-call approach

To reduce phone tag and the resident's reluctance to pick up calls from an unknown number, the team established a two-call approach. If residents don’t pick up the first time around, staff leave a brief voicemail—sharing who they are, why they’re calling, and letting the resident know they’ll try again in a few minutes. Then, they call back a few minutes later.

verification collection

While policy changes decreased the number of needed verifications, some were still necessary. For those, the new process shifts the responsibility of collecting verifications from residents to caseworkers. Through a process called a “collateral contact” staff offer to reach out to relevant third parties (like employers and landlords) on the resident’s behalf to collect the required verifications. 

putting the changes to the test

Together, MDHHS and Civilla piloted these changes at two state offices and tracked how 815 cases moved through the Project One Day process. 

Sharon, the new mother in Flint, was one of the residents in our pilot. The day after she applied for benefits, Sharon received a call letting her know her application had been processed and approved. She was so surprised, she thought it was a prank. 

With the new One Day process, frontline staff were able to review Sharon’s application, collect missing paperwork on her behalf, and approve her benefits—in less than 24 hours.

“When things go wrong during the application process, it adds stress on top of the normal stress of everyday life. Getting an answer on my case quickly made things easier as I’m trying to take care of my household and baby,” Sharon said.

In the pilot, more than 50% of applications were determined within one day. Each of our changes incrementally helped speed up the process and showed that excellent customer service and speedy processing were possible. 

“Project One Day showed that it is possible to deliver excellent customer service at the moment when folks accessing benefits most need it,” said Civilla Design Director Sam Brennan. “The design challenge becomes how to sustain the change at scale with competing priorities, incentives, and the reality of limited capacity.”

One telling piece of data from the pilot was the drastic drop in procedural denials, where applications are denied due to missed interviews or verifications, rather than a lack of eligibility. During the pilot, MDHHS saw a 37% percentage point decrease in procedural denials. Reducing the number of people who are denied benefits in a time of crisis because of confusing paperwork or a missed phone call is one critical way to build trust in institutions and public benefit systems. 

That trust is something that institutions across the country need right now. One way to build trust is through big ideas like Project One Day. Institutions need to find ways to transform rather than merely update services. To move beyond incremental improvements, leaders need to stretch their imaginations about what’s possible. Now is the time to dream big and find the key dominos that can have a major impact on how institutions serve the public. 

Find more in-depth information about this work in the Project One Day case study.