The Challenge

In 2003 the San Mateo County Human Services Agency was already planning for improvements in client care for their families receiving Medi-Cal. Over 22,000 families approved for Medi-Cal were being serviced through a web of community-based offices and one to one workers, who provided case maintenance. In 2003, San Mateo County was faced with challenges in their Medi-Cal organization that they were unable to tackle alone- how could they prepare to handle an increasing case load, with a reducing budget and a requirement to consolidate resources and facilities. A consolidated call center for continuing Medi-Cal was the answer. Applications would still be taken in the County community based offices; so applicants, who chose to come in, could also be advised of other services for which they were eligible.

Although the leadership at the Human Services Agency possessed the core Medi-Cal content knowledge, they did not have the expertise in designing, building or implementing a call center. The Human Services Agency turned to InTelegy Corporation to partner on this critical initiative.

The Solution

As experts in Call Center design and build, InTelegy lead the build project through three main steps in the development of the center.

Step 1: Strategy, Budget & ROI
		Documented the complexity of the case worker’s role to forecast and allocate the appropriate resources required to perform the job in the new service model; built staffing and budget plans from this forecast
Step 2: Design and Build
		Built a project plan that incorporated call center processes, technology, infrastructure and training, to meet an aggressive 6 month build deadline
		Built call center processes and training that incorporated a sensitivity to high quality client care while introducing new techniques in call center management
Step 3: Ongoing Operations and Phased in Capabilities
		InTelegy and the Human Services Agency organized and co-led project teams within the Human Services Agency, leveraging the internal expertise on case management practices, and managed a very complex project plan through to completion.
		InTelegy provided call center expertise support as a part of all sub-committee work to ensure that processes were built to support the call center environment. InTelegy also took a leadership role with organization design, training, call center metrics and reporting.

The Results

The San Mateo County Human Services agency launched its Health Insurance Tele-Center (HIT) after 16 months of planning and work, with involvement of 70 agency staff and more than 6 county organizations. The net effect of InTelegy’s efforts in the San Mateo County Medi-Cal call center include:

	Consolidation of continuing caseloads of 7 client care offices to one state of the art call center.
	A 30% increase in case handling efficiencies.
	Through a cost-avoidance analysis done by the county, it is estimated that in five years, the HIT center will have a cost savings of over $22 million dollars.