Don McCubbrey's Blog

The Latest on CBMS

Sorry to have been away for so long.  Didn't have much to say, I suppose.  But, there are some new updates on CBMS, perhaps some hope that the new administration will finally get this thing fixed.  Here's some links to relevent stories in the Denver Post:

•February 23, 2012

•February 24, 2012

•February 24, 2012

•February 26, 2012

Enjoy, and keep your fingers crossed.

New Classroom Teaching Case on CBMS is Published

Professor Cindi Fukami and I just had a our third teaching case on CBMS published.  Its title is:

"Colorado Benefits Management System (C): Seven Years of Failure"

 Here's the abstract:

"In September 2004, the State of Colorado implemented a large information system it called the Colorado Benefits Management System (CBMS). Its purpose was to replace six aging legacy systems supporting various state-administered welfare programs with a single system using current technologies. The expected benefits from CBMS were better service to clients and assurance that the state‘s welfare programs were being administered properly.

The conversion was a disaster, and, as of early 2011, CBMS is still not working properly. Since 2004, there have been a series of promises and attempts under two separate administrations to fix CBMS so that it meets performance requirements. Nothing has worked.

This case chronicles events since late 2006 until early 2011. It lays the groundwork for class discussion of how and why public sector managers could fail to focus on fixing the problems with CBMS for almost seven years, and now will simply kick the can down the road to the new administration that took office in January 2011."

Here's the recommended citation:  

"Fukami, Cindi and McCubbrey, Donald J. (2011) "Colorado Benefits Management System (C): Seven Years of Failure, Communications of the Association for Information Systems: Vol. 29, Article 5.Available at: http://aisel.aisnet.org/cais/vol29/iss1/5"

For readers who are not academics, teaching cases are used in university classrooms to introduce students to problems faced by managers.  Students typically study the case before participaing in a classroom discussion.    When a case is followed by an update, the update is titled as the B case.  It is unusal to have a C case, but CBMS has one;  this one. 

Case writers also prepare a teaching note, available only to instructors, with suggested outlines and questions for facilitating the classroom discussion.  In the teaching note for the CBMS C case, the last question we suggest that instructors ask their students is:  "Do you think there will be a D case?"

 

 

 

Lawsuit for damages filed in child's death

On February 15, 2010, I posted a brief summary and link to the Denver Post story of the death of 9 year old Zumante Lucero who died because his mother, Zuton Lucero-Mills, was unable to get approval for his asthma medication.  She just filed a lawsuit for damages against the city and county of Denver according to Allison Sherry's story in today's Denver Post.

Here's a quote from the story: 

"Zuton Lucero-Mills said she called Denver County Human Services several times a week in the spring and summer of 2009 after she tried to get 9-year-old son Zumante's asthma medications at Walgreens and was told he wasn't eligible for Medicaid.  No one resolved the computer glitch. Most of Lucero-Mills' calls weren't returned."

And more:  "Lucero-Mills repeatedly tried to fill prescriptions at Walgreens.  The county automatically generated paperwork after her continual calls and sent it to the family's home. It verified Zumante qualified for Medicaid — yet pharmacists said he wasn't in the system".

"Can it really be acceptable that in government, no one answers the phone?" said John Holland, one of Lucero-Mills' attorneys. "Who is responsible for nothing happening? Is it nobody? Is it God? Is it a computer? Or is it the people who didn't act?"

"At the time the Denver Post published the first story of Lucero-Mills' loss, Denver County Human Services called it a "tragedy" and ordered a review of call-center responsiveness.  On Wednesday, Human Services declined to comment on the pending litigation, citing department policy".

My post in 2010 was entitled "The Saddest Colorado Benefits Management Story Yet". Can you imagine the anguish Zumante's mother went through trying and trying to get someone to untangle the computer glitches and get his prescription approved while all the time watching his condition deteriorate until he finally died?   As I said at the time, this has to be the saddest story in the long history one of the worst botched-up computer systems ever.  I'm glad a lawsuit has been filed.  I imagine a jury will have no trouble deciding on who deserves justice in this case.

Oh, and by the way, I wonder if anyone associated with Human Services has put procedures in place to assure that another tragedy like this one never happens again. 

More on the Federal Audit of CBMS

A more detailed summary of the findings of the Federal audit of CBMS was published on July 8th in a newsletter of the Colorado Center on Law and Policy (CCLP).  You've heard me laud the pro-bono work that prominent Denver attorney, Ed Kahn, has been performing over the years in collaboration with CCLP.  

Take a look at their newsletter.

Colorado computer benefits system cited in federal audit

Actually, the headline  of Michael Booth's article in today's Denver Post says "Colorado computer benefits systems cited in federal audit for "serious," ongoing problems.  (I knew CBMS would not let me down by not generating more bad news for the blog.   I just didn't think it would be this soon after my last post.) 

Well, the bad (but not new) news is that, according to the article, CBMS "failed eight different tests in a federal review released late Wednesday, with auditors pointing to new "serious" problems while saying past failures are "nearly the same" despite five years of fixes."  Actually, the auditors' arithmetic is wrong.  CBMS will have had seven years of serious problems come September 1, 2011.  

The article concludes by saying that "auditors ordered the state to detail a number of fixes within 60 days of their report, including how it will stop denying benefits to people while gathering documentation for their applications."

Don't hold your breath.

 

 

 

A Third Case on CBMS Will be Published Soon

Sorry for being silent for awhile.  Spring quarter was pretty busy at DU, but now summer is here and my schedule has freed up quite a bit.  There's a few interesting things things on my agenda looking forward and I plan to post at least once a week from now on.

For now, I just want to tell you that my colleague, Cindi Fukami, and I recently had our third teaching case on CBMS accepted for publication in the Communications of the Association for Information Systems.  Entitled "Colorado Benefits Management System (C):  The Problem That Won’t Go Away", it covers the status of CBMS up to early 2011.  We published our first case covering the botched conversion of CBMS in September of 2004, and the second case chronically its continuing problems as of the middle of 2006. 

The way teaching cases work, if there is a follow-on case on the same topic, it's called the B case and if there is another it's called the C case and so on.  Each case has a teaching note, available only to profs, that offers guidelines for structuring a class discussion.  At the close of the teaching note for our latest case, which focuses on the problems and inept attempts to correct them from mid-2006 until 2011, we ask the students to ponder this question:  "Will there be a D case?"

If you'd like to see any of the cases, please send me an email at Don.McCubbrey@du.edu and I'll forward a copy to you.

Re: CBMS as of March 1, 2011. Maybe, just maybe........

Maybe there’s some cause for optimism.  Personally, I think Governor Hickenlooper understands that CBMS must be fixed and will see that it finally gets done.  Cross your fingers (and stay tuned).

 From two of Michael Booth’s recent articles in the Denver Post:  

 February 26, 2011:

“State officials agreed Friday to sharply boost performance of the much-maligned Colorado Benefits Management System by 2013, heading off for now a contempt of court request by legal advocates for the poor.

Gov. John Hickenlooper's office announced late in the day that state Medicaid officials had signed a written agreement with the legal advocates, promising to improve the recent abysmal performance of the benefits system. Requests for contempt of court last fall showed the system delaying benefits applications and requalifications more than 70 percent of the time in some categories”.

Read more at: Colorado sidelines contempt request over problems with state's computer benefits system - The Denver Post

 February 24, 2011:

Fixing the broken benefits system in Colorado is a "very high priority" for Gov. John Hickenlooper, his chief of staff said Wednesday, even as federal officials said potential fines remain on the table and Denver acknowledged an enormous backlog in aid casework.

"We've got to get a system that works for the counties and for the states and, more importantly, works for clients," said Hickenlooper chief of staff Roxane White, who was previously Hickenlooper's director of human services in Denver.

Read more: Gov. Hickenlooper puts priority on ending backlog in computer benefits system - The Denver Post

 And from the Editorial Page on February 18:

Editorial: Why is CBMS still such a mess?

Gov. Hickenlooper needs to make fixing the state's benefits computer a priority as it's hurting our most vulnerable people.

Read more: Editorial: Why is CBMS still such a mess? - The Denver Post

 

 

 

 

Well, OK, it's been awhile, but CBMS is still a disaster!

I know, I know, I haven't posted in awhile, but I promise to get back at it. 

In preparing for class tomorrow, I wanted to retrieve a news story on the current status of CBMS.  I give my undergraduate students a synopsis of the two larger cases Cindi Fukami and I published for graduate students.  Basically, it asks them whether or not CBMS should have gone "live" on September 1, 2004 with all of the evidence around that it was not ready for prime time.  I've used the synopsis in undergrad classes for years now, and students cannot believe that such an important computer system could be broken for so many years.  It's a real eye-opener for them and recalling it will keep them out of trouble when, sometime in their careers, they will be a non-technical manager serving as exceutive sponsor for an IS project.

I'll finish the discussion with the most current status report on CBMS from the Denver Post on January 23, 2011 (below) and watch my student's jaws drop in bisbelief.

"Massive delays continue to plague the state benefits system for Medicaid, food stamps and other assistance, obstructing hundreds of thousands of residents and prompting a new contempt of court call by legal advocates for the poor.

"In some categories, the roadblocks have worsened despite years of attempted fixes. Tens of thousands of clients a month are suffering illegal delays on 71 percent of Child Health Plan Plus re-enrollments and 44 percent of initial adult Medicaid applications, the contempt filings claim.

"With state and county caseloads bulging from the recession, the delays affected more than 248,000 people seeking to start or extend medical benefits in an 18-month period from 2009 to mid-2010.

Click on image to enlarge (The Denver Post)

"While applicants may eventually receive back benefits, they miss vital food aid during the gaps and watch doctors, clinics and pharmacies refuse them care for lack of insurance.

"They've regressed," said Ed Kahn of the Colorado Center on Law and Policy, a party to the lawsuit against the state dating to 2004. In rulings and negotiations since then, the state has been required to improve the system performance or face sanctions.

"Legal advocates fear further breakdowns in the system as 300,000 more Coloradans become eligible for medical assistance through new programs taking effect by 2014.

"It's pretty obvious the current system is not able to handle the expansion," Kahn said.

Read more: Needy still suffering from persistent delays in state's benefits system - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_17171568#ixzz1DCQkVNMv
Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse

 

 

 

CBMS on National Public Radio

An NPR piece was broadcast Friday morning, April 23 about food stamps and CBMS. It's worth a listen:

 

http://www.kcfr.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=94&Itemid=234&target_pg=com_search&kword_comatters=newsfeature&stype_comatters=and#load_article|Waiting_for_Food_Stamps2

 

More on CBMS

Under Allison Sherry's byline, the following story appeared in the March 3 issue of the Denver Post:

"Paperwork maze endangering Colorado Medicaid patients" 

You can access the full story at http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_14502853

Here's an excerpt:

"Last summer, a 9-year-old Denver boy died after his mother was unable to fill his asthma medication prescription because the computer inexplicably said he was not covered by Medicaid. Zuton Lucero says she called the Denver County Human Services call center every three days. The county generated reports verifying that her son, Zumante, qualified for Medicaid — yet pharmacists said he wasn't in the system.
The boy still had an inhaler and nebulizer, but being without Advair was creating a life-threatening situation that his mother didn't recognize until it was too late.

"A band of legal advocates is pressing the state to not only answer for Zumante Lucero's death but also probe the computer problems or human mistakes that are disrupting Medicaid eligibility.

Denver Human Services called the boy's death a tragedy. County workers are in the middle of a "business review" of call-center responsiveness, including spring and summer 2009, the time of Zumante's sickness and death.

"The Colorado Attorney General's office has asked for more time to respond to the Lucero matter because of the complex computer programs responsible for Medicaid eligibility and enrollment".

The Colorado benefits Management System was converted on September 1, 2004 over the objections of the user community and with the promise of a fall back plan in case it didn't function properly.  It is still not functioning properly as we approach the sixth anniversary of the original conversion.  I've been in the IS world for much longer than you have as a consultant and an academic and I have seen and heard about many, many, systems failures. However, I've never heard of one that has stumbled along for almost six years.  Has anyone else?  Is this a record?

Read more: http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_14502853#ixzz0hoVfElDX