Friday, 22 February 2002 Application Simplification Workgroup Present: Diana Tizard, Melba Bantay, Gloria Samson, Liane Hiramoto, Jeffrey Young, Pearl Tsuji, and Barbara Luksch. Regrets: Ruth Ellen Lindenberg and Maile Shimabukuro. GOAL To create a simple, easy to complete Med-QUEST application form that also complies with federal and state laws. OUTCOME Med-QUEST will receive complete applications that will expedite their process and end delays for customers who need health insurance. 1. This was our last meeting! Barbara thanked the group members for their hard work and endless patience in making a simplified application a reality. 2. Med-QUEST Update a. The new Rights and Responsibilities section has been reviewed by the attorney general's office and a draft will be ready when we do a final test of the new simplified application. b. They now exempt all ground vehicles, therefore we can eliminate motor vehicles from the asset list. c. There is interest at Med-QUEST for self-declaration of income and assets, therefore keeping the income and asset checklists will assist the application process when this is fully implemented. 3. Barbara mentioned a few errors she made in compiling Draft #14. We changed health insurance to medical assistance on all questions except 8A and 8B. We also added the Certification by Person Assisting the Applicant in Completing the Application section that was missing. 4. Copies of Draft #14 were sent to Med-QUEST eligibility supervisors, outstationed eligibility workers, and outreach workers for review and comments. Furthermore, Hawaii Covering Kids outreach workers had potential customers complete the draft and compile their feedback. Although it is a longer form, overall they found it much easier and faster to complete due to spacing, checkbox formats, and easy to understand questions. Themes that were noted by most of the twenty-six respondents were: a. Make YES and NO checkboxes consistent b. Add another page for listing more household members c. Add YES and NO checkboxes to the income list and asset list 5. We reviewed each question to make sure the language and layout were consistent and the reviewers comments were considered. 6. The next steps are to have the Hawaii Covering Kids administrative assistant convert a final draft to Microsoft Word (our desktop publishing consultant produced previous drafts in Adobe InDesign), have workgroup members make sure no questions were lost in the conversion (e.g., Barbara got all the changes right), and send the final draft to Aileen Hiramatsu and Susan Chandler. Oh yes, and we will celebrate the end of our eighteen month adventure!