After RIBridges Breach, Rhode Island State Agencies Share High Tech Wish Lists at Budget Hearing

From mid-December to January, workers in the Department of Human Services (DHS) were forced to process public benefits like food stamps the old-fashioned way — on paper — after its system was hacked by cybercriminals.

Now, nearly four months after RIBridges — the system used to manage eligibility and applications for social services as well as the state’s health insurance marketplace — was taken offline, everything is in its right place again.

“I would say we’re back to full system operation,” Kimberly Merolla-Brito, DHS director, told the state representatives on the health and human services subcommittee of the House Committee on Finance at a hearing last Wednesday.

During the four-hour meeting last week, the subcommittee heard from DHS, the state’s Medicaid office, and the parent agency of both entities, the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS), about their respective agencies’ budgetary needs and predicted challenges in the upcoming fiscal year, which begins July 1. The Rhode Island House of Representatives drives the budget-making process after the governor’s office submits its spending proposal in January.

As the state’s health and human services agencies get back on their feet after the massive cyberattack that put the personal data of hundreds of thousands of Rhode Islanders at risk, officials continue to have a lot of tech on their wish lists.

“I see it all through EOHHS’ budget…it’s just the unbelievable amount of technology that we’re bringing into the state,” said Rep. Teresa Tanzi, a South Kingstown Democrat, about a $31 million capital plan request to replace RIKidsBridge, which child welfare workers use to manage cases.

Other big asks include $62 million from EOHHS to modernize its Medicaid information management system, with $6.2 million coming from state revenue and the rest coming from federal funding.

The state has already encountered problems with implementing one initiative: An income verification system that would automate eligibility checks for benefits applicants. It is contracted for $8.9 million, according to the EOHHS presentation, but the contract with Experian has not yet been inked, and the initiative is not likely to take effect this year as originally intended.

There have also been issues with a $91 million initiative to replace the state’s payroll system.

There could also be trouble down the road for the state’s modernization projects for Medicaid and RIBridges, according to Linda Haley, principal legislative analyst in the House Fiscal Advisory Staff. She told lawmakers in her presentation on the EOHHS budget that the federal match rate for Medicaid funding projects may be reduced soon — from the feds supplying 75% to 90% of funding to offering a 50% match instead.

Rhode Island, like other states, is waiting to see what the fallout will be from a Republican Congressional budget that opponents strongly suspect will have to slash Medicaid to meet its spending goals.

But for Rhode Island residents, the state’s current technology is at least working as it should, and access to public benefits is smoother than it was in December. Merolla-Brito said her agency acknowledged customers’ access to benefits as “a guiding principle,” and DHS managed to avoid interruption of people’s benefits over the duration of the network outage.

“But we did have some bumps in the road with some of the provider payments,” Merolla-Brito said.

RIBridges was brought back online in phases starting in January, with the employee backend coming first, followed by the online interface for customers.

As of March 29, the HealthyRhode mobile app used to access the benefits portal is back online and has been uploaded to the Google Play store and Apple’s App Store in an updated version. An EOHHS newsletter sent to providers in March showed the HealthyRhode app has also been outfitted with a number of user-friendly improvements.

But some distrust of the service remains among users, even if things are back to normal.

“We have seen a decrease in use of the mobile app … and we have seen a decrease in use of the customer portal,” Merolla-Brito said. “So there are efforts in motion for technology adoption, to rebuild trust and to get customers back into using these technologies.”

This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.