Philadelphia DHS IV-E Eligibility Project
Child welfare agencies are constantly struggling to balance maximization of Title IV-E revenues while meeting federal eligibility regulations, and the Philadelphia Department of Human Services (DHS) is no exception. While the City had a contractor in place to process its claims, they needed to ensure that the work being completed was accurate and transparent. So DHS engaged CSF to conduct a management audit of its Title IV-E and compliance process. CSF conducted a quality assurance review of over 2,000 cases; standardized interviews with the contractor and DHS staff; generated a workflow analysis; and produced a report and recommendations for improving the City’s Federal Financial Participation (penetration rate). Following the initial engagement, the City of Philadelphia continued to contract with CSF to conduct the work necessary to re-place onto the City’s Title IV-E claim those cases removed from the claim of October 2003 Title IV-E quality assurance services as well as technical assistance and consultation to strengthen the capacity of DHS to maintain the highest level of Title IV-E FFP. This contract also involved the assessment and development of business process re-engineering recommendations for the overall Title IV-E operations including individual assessments of the practices in place within DHS to:- Assure that licensure information is available for each child placement,
- Complete the redetermination of eligible Title IV-E cases; and
- Assuring that each eligibility determination has the required court order documentation.
