There were four times as many eligibility worker vacancies in February 2022 as there were at the beginning of the pandemic. ![]() ![]() Like many other employers and other state agencies, Texas HHSC is critically understaffed as a result of the Texas Legislature continuously underinvesting in state programs, particularly in the area of wages. This means significant numbers of new applicants are waiting months for access to health care and going hungry, even though they may be eligible for help.ĭespite agency use of these federally allowed flexibilities, the system is failing to meet the needs of too many Texans. ![]() Even with the waivers still in effect, in September 2022 only half of all new Medicaid applications were processed in a timely manner, and new SNAP applications are following a similar pattern with only 54% of applications considered timely. HHSC reinstated the SNAP waivers pushing out renewals and waiving interviews in June 2022 to help move through the backlog. However, trends quickly reversed once the one-time delays stopped being used and the system again became overwhelmed. When Texas HHSC took the rare step in October 2021 of requesting federal SNAP waivers to delay scheduled SNAP renewals by 6 months and waive client interviews because of the strain on the system, timeliness improved temporarily through January 2022. Unlike in most states, Texas requires people to renew their SNAP enrollment every 6 months. But families that need SNAP had to keep renewing their food benefits and have been hit harder by the backlog. During the federally declared COVID Public Health Emergency (PHE), Texas received billions more in federal funding to keep people enrolled in Medicaid, and people haven’t been getting kicked off that program due to continuous coverage provisions. Since 2020, federal pandemic-related flexibilities have enabled states to make it easier for people to keep their benefits and for workers to maintain manageable workloads. Kids are waiting longer than 45 days for new Medicaid applications as timeliness has continued to drop since February of this year. SNAP “timeliness” (i.e., processing within federal time standards) has been below the required threshold of 90% since July 2021, meaning thousands of families were unable to get the help they needed to feed their children within 30 days. But a surge of new applicants through the pandemic and very high turnover of eligibility workers led to significant delays in processing applications. Under normal circumstances, the Texas Health and Human Service Commission (HHSC) has consistently processed SNAP and Medicaid applications within federally required timeframes, with 90% or more processed in a timely manner. The backlog is causing families to go without food and health benefits while they wait for their applications and renewals to go through the system. Health clinic staff members report trying to assist a pregnant woman who waited two months for her Medicaid application to be approved, delaying her access to prenatal care. It’s not just SNAP - Texans applying for Medicaid are also facing delays. State workers themselves are accessing food banks while waiting for their own applications to go through. At the end of August, there were 198,025 new SNAP applications waiting to be processed. ![]() East Texans are reaching out to their local news stations with their concerns. In July 2022, a single mother in North Texas was still waiting on her benefits nearly two months after submitting her information. Sandra’s story echoes throughout corners of Texas. She and her husband must rethink where they find meals as the school year begins. The significant paperwork delays means Sandra’s family is watching expenses pile up without SNAP benefits to help with food costs. Her paperwork is stuck in a backlog because Texas doesn’t have enough staff to process the forms. That is, until she attempted to renew her benefits recently. Born and raised in Round Rock, Sandra, a 38-year-old mother of three and a full-time student at her local community college, signed up for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to help make ends meet for herself and her loved ones after she and her husband fell on hard times during the COVID-19 lockdown.
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