The Lower Income Energy Assistance Program (LIEAP) is administered by The Align Team and Wyoming’s Department of Family Services. Wyoming LIEAP moved to a fully automated processing platform in 2015. The Align Team based in Cheyenne, WY is the 3rd Party contractor for the State of Wyoming Department of Family Services (DFS) to process and manage LIEAP cases.
State of Wyoming LIEAP Case Management
Align and the State of Wyoming DFS partnered with Tromba Technologies to move from paper-driven processes to electronic content and electronic case management, using TrombaAI, Tromba Technologies’ Automation Intelligence platform. The Align Team with TrombaAI can manage and track both documents and information through the entire benefits program approval process. Applications and supporting documents are in the form of paper, email, and web portal submission. All documents flow seamlessly through TrombaAI’s automation platform utilizing Intelligent Document Processing, Robotics Process Automation, and AI Process Orchestration to process paper applications, web applications, emails, and supporting documents.
Key Challenges
Today’s constituents demand faster, more efficient services. State Governments struggle to keep up. This is a challenge that The Align Team understands very well. When The Align Team received the first LIEAP contract, 47 boxes of paper applications and 3 palettes of 3x3x9 boxes of supporting documents were delivered. The benefits program could not keep up with the overwhelming amount of work with paper processes. For the first couple of years, the contract required The Align Team to ramp up more and more human resources until 31 people were working full time to process the paper and answer the phone calls.
Kathy Cathcart, President of The Align Team, explains, “The amount of time it took to process the paper case file caused us to receive 10,000 phone calls in the first month of taking over the contract.”
The Align Team recognized that there was an urgent need to adopt a more strategic approach to managing and processing the constituent case files. With a better view of constituent cases, The Align Team would be able to handle a higher volume of work more effciently and deliver a more responsive service to the constituents of Wyoming.
Solutions
The Align Team and the State of Wyoming embarked on an ambitious effort to replace paper-driven processes with electronic content, document cognitive capture, and automation workflows. The Align Team has taken control of the end-to-end constituent case lifecycle, using Tromba’s solution to document capture and managed content from the moment that it is received, and seamlessly integrate it with the State of Wyoming benefit eligibility and payment system.
Kathy Cathcart stated that “Timely Notifications to constituents are due to Tromba’s automation platform and significantly eliminated, not just reduced, the phone volume. Double data entry and multiple touchpoints were virtually eliminated. Paper applications and cases were difficult to process timely and accurately. But that has changed with a significant amount of work managed by automation. With Tromba’s automation platform, we have been able to use electronic workflows to handle exception, priority, and crisis cases immediately. Another critical feature of Tromba’s automation platform that is immensely valuable to us is the work management feature that balances work priority and work allocation assignments automatically. We used to have to use paper reports to manually assign cases daily and that too was difficult.”
Strong Partnership
From the very start, The Align Team worked with business partner Tromba Technologies to ensure that the TrombaAI platform was expertly configured and deployed.
Kathy Cathcart remarks: “We have a great working relationship with Tromba. They are a significant reason why this automation project was so successful over the last 6 years. The entire team has been fantastic at working with us to understand our business approach and tailor the platform to meet our unique needs.”
The Align Team kicked off its TrombaAI implementation in 2016.
Kathy Cathcart states: “Working with Tromba, we have hit every single deadline we have set for ourselves so even rolling out a completely new system never negatively impacted a benefit season
Results
Today, The Align Team is empowering the benefits program with full control over case files and processes, helping them manage growing volumes of work more effectively.
Kathy Cathcart gives an example: “When we started, we had 31 processors to manage the paper and manual processes. We just finished the last season with three times the volume and only needed 14 processors. That is HUGE for this benefit program and the constituents of Wyoming!”
She continues: “Today we’ve streamlined the case management file assembly, we use sophisticated automation rules and technology to extract key data from documents and move documents to the right processor at the right times, additionally we use Robotics Process Automation to automate web lookups and validations to meet federal requirements and compliance.
“Tromba doesn’t take a set it and forget it approach,” said Aaron Roybal, Program Manager at The Align Team. “They work with us closely to ensure the platform is working properly and as expected every step of the way. If not, they work tirelessly until it’s right.”
Reduce Risk
Introducing a centralized electronic document repository, flexible case management capabilities, and the use of automation technology has enabled faster, more reliable, and more accurate processing of constituent case files to get accurate approvals and help for the people of Wyoming.
Kathy Cathcart states: “Benefit processors access information online in a second, which helps them deliver a much more responsive service to the benefit program clients. Improved case file traceability also means that The Align Team responds to client requests much more quickly to resolve benefit approval issues.”
Greater levels of agility and insight are helping The Align Team to lift its benefit program services to new heights, driving continued growth and improvement for the benefits program.
Kathy Cathcart concludes: “Tromba’s AI solution has made The Align Team much more agile. They are really helping us to blow away previous processes metrics year on year. We have been incredibly impressed with the Tromba relationship and solutions. They have transformed the way we work. We can say that we have total control and visibility of benefit case files as they move through our business process and rules, and the ability to work with information in a much more accurate and efficient way. We are excited to continue working with Tromba to explore new ways to use the TrombaAI solution to help us work more productively and deliver an even higher level of service.
Solution Recognized Benefits
High volume document processing
Integration with internal data systems
Secure integration with state data system
Benefits Case Management
Solution Components
How We Support State Governments
Our solutions are designed to balance the realities of state agencies, combining innovation with operational demands. We bring domain-specific expertise across critical areas, including:
Results We Deliver
Streamlined Benefits Processing
We modernized a major state's health and human services portal, cutting processing times by 40% and improving citizen satisfaction.
Cybersecurity Fortification
For a state department of revenue, we implemented advanced threat detection and incident response strategies, resulting in a 60% reduction in vulnerabilities within six months.
Cloud Readiness at Scale
Tromba guided a state transportation agency through a comprehensive cloud readiness assessment, developing a roadmap that resulted in over $2 million in operational cost savings.
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