FOLLOW-UP: Florida’s Medicaid call center still plagued by long wait times and even higher disconnect rates, preventing eligible families and children from keeping their healthcare
Soon a million Floridians will have lost healthcare coverage because of poor infrastructure and bureaucratic red tape.
From April to December 2023, the number of Floridians with Medicaid coverage fell by 911,000, including 420,000 children. Put differently, Medicaid coverage in Florida declined by 17%—more than any other state except for Texas.
Caught in the middle of these precipitous health coverage losses are Floridians who are unable to connect with the system online or by taking time off work to visit a social services office to have their Medicaid redetermined.
This latest analysis, conducted between January 5–22, 2024, aimed to investigate call center wait times and measure the effectiveness of Florida’s newly launched Medicaid management website in reducing a call center’s call volume.
Key findings included:
- Regardless of language, eight in ten calls had their call automatically disconnected from the DCF phone system, 80% for English and 82% for Spanish callers.
- When people were able to get through, they experienced prolonged delays far exceeding the 30-minute typical maximum break time at work:
- Callers on the English helpline experienced a 66-minute average wait time to get a live person, which is almost double what it was in July 2023.
- The average wait time for a Spanish-language caller to get a live person was 47 minutes, which is an hour and 35 minutes less compared to July 2023.
- The longest wait time someone experienced was 134 minutes in English and just under 2 hours in Spanish.
unidosus_followupfloridasmedicaidcallcenterlonganddiscriminatorydelays.pdf
