Sunday, February 14, 2010
Social Workers and EBT Authorization
Are the social workers in your office being used to authorize EBT cards? What percentage of their day or week is spent in EBT activities? If you are a SW having to issue EBT cards, could you please describe your usual work week? We will be taking these to the next meeting with management. Thank you!
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3 comments:
hi. i have been a gau social worker since 1991. many changes have occurred in CSO's since then; many ways of serving clients have been tried. overall our staffing levels have consistently decreased and we have found ways to work smarter and continue to meet our clients needs in a timely way.
However the recent addition of EBT processing to our workloads has interfered with successful completion of other social worker expectations including timely processing of medical evaluations, development of treatment plans, monitoring of client's treatments, paying bills to vendors, conducting client interviews, opening, terminating, and extending cases, and returning phone calls.
the impact of being one of only two people in my office who can issue ebt cards really hit home to me recently. On Jan 30th my father died in AZ; i was with him. i took the next week off.
on the day i returned to work i had 152 messages and many clients whose review medical needed to be processed so their cases could be reopened. I asked my supervisor if whatever accommodation for issuing ebt cards they had used in my absence be continued so I could catch up on my backlog of case processing. I was given one morning free of EBT.
in the week i have been back to work since my bereavement absence, i have not had time to work all my pending cases because of the demand of EBT and same day interviewing. On a day with a busy morning of EBT card issuance and 5 or 6 interviews there is little time left over to process cases.
typically, the other social worker in the office and i spend 4 hours every day issuing EBT cards; somedays we issue cards for more than 4 hours, depending on the schedule of the other social worker.
when i am the primary person for EBT cards, i am called to the front counter 10 or more times in a 4 hour period, most days; generally i have to interrupt what i am doing to go process the card. processing complex medical reports requires concentration and time to process all aspects of medical eligibility. frequent interruptions are not helpful.
giving out EBT cards is a huge impact on social worker time, further adding to the pressure of increasing caseloads due to increased demand for state help and decreasing staff.
anne flynn
Excellent report, Anne! Thank you! Please spread the word to the other social workers to do the same as you have. Our meeting with management is on February 24th and we need as many examples as we can get!
Posted for Melodie Keely
"I am a WorkFirst, First Steps, Good Cause and Teen Living Social Worker. In addition, I issue EBT cards. If one of us is gone then you issue cards all day long. We have no relief for issuing EBT cards and this makes getting our assigned work done and completed in a timely manner most difficult. There have been situations due to illness and emergencies where both of us were gone and that left no one to issue EBT cards. In my position as a WFSW, I will be called away to do assessments, home visits including other work related activities and am not available to issue EBT cards. This leaves only the other SW in the office to issue cards. She is a GAU SW and may be in an interview herself as that is a part of her job. As you can see, having only two people in a busy CSO office to issue EBT cards does not work. In other words... please help!!!"
Thank you for your input!!!
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