R.I. to bring in outside vendor to help with UHIP call volume

March 20, 2018 5:25 pm

By John Krinjak

Email: jkrinjak@abc6.com

Twitter: @johnkrinjakABC6

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) — The special master appointed to oversee the state’s UHIP benefits system is now asking for an outside vendor to support the Department of Human Services’ call center

The goal is to provide the center with more staffing–to field calls and help process food stamp applications.

It’s unclear how much the vendor would cost, but officials say it’s an important step in getting the system back on track.

"We’re getting about 10,000 calls a week in the call center, which is frankly more volume than we can currently handle, and as a result customers are having to wait on hold for about 2 hours and we just feel like that’s unacceptable. The changes we’re going to make to fix this in the long term are going to take us a number of months and so. He wanted us to take some more immediate action to reduce those wait times," said DHS Director Jennifer Hawkins.

Last year it was discovered thousands of pending UHIP applications were not processed.

Officials say there is currently no backlog of UHIP applications, and those applications are being processed more and more quickly.