Success Stories
Childcare Provider Billing System (CPBS), New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS)
The mission of the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) is to join communities and families in providing for citizens to achieve health and independence. The mission of the Child Development Bureau (CDB) is to reach the lives of children and their families by enhancing the quality, affordability, and accessibility of developmentally appropriate early care and education services, by promoting community based programs, which encourage healthy growth and development, and by coordinating childcare business operations, education and communication to support responsive customer service for childcare providers, parents, and department staff.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOWThe NH DHHS is an agency that helps people in partnership with families, community groups, private providers, other governmental agencies and many thousands of foster parents, neighbors, and citizens. The majorities of the people who use their programs and services have multiple needs and require services from more than one program. Its main purpose is to improve society by keeping NH healthy & helping those in need realize their full potential.
DCYF is comprised of six major program areas.
DHHS is responsible for the administration of State and federal funds. The Division for Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) within DHHS manages protection and juvenile justice programs and provides a wide range of family-centered services with the goal of meeting the parent's and the child's needs and strengthening the family system. CDB is responsible for the management and coordination of childcare services, and for initiating inter-agency and community-based activities to enhance early care and educational services and programs in DHHS.
Business ChallengesThere was a large number of child care providers. The childcare provider enrollment and billing for services are slower. The existing enrollment and billing processes were manual components that caused delays in paying child care providers for their services. Lot of time was consumed.
ObjectiveThe objective of this project was to design, develop, implement and deploy a childcare provider web billing application. The system should include the functionality to allow web billing by DHHS childcare providers for eligible children and invoice periods, notification of claims errors during input and invoice submission, creation of flat ASCII files available for importing into the existing BRIDGES claims processing, claim history and payment lookup, and provider reporting.
- The system should add childcare provider billing functionality to the New Hampshire DHHS website
- Expedite childcare provider payment processing, reducing the total turnaround time for claims processing and reimbursement. Existing turnaround time was eight (8) to twenty (20) or more days
- Reduce costs and provider dissatisfaction associated with rejected and duplicate claim submissions, and the delays in payment of their claims
- Identify claims errors for early correction
- Improve childcare provider notification of payment status, leading to improved DHHS and provider relations, retention, and ability to recruit
- Decrease DCYF, CDB and the Bureau of Data Management (BDM) staff time responding to telephone queries for payment status and other information
- Reduce paperwork and postage expenses by providing functionality online
The architecture has the following layers to enforce the logical separation of functionality, such as keeping the data, business logic and presentation layers separate from each other:
The following diagram depicts the functional overview of Childcare Provider Billing System. Each functional module in turn has related business functions grouped together as processes.
- Childcare Web Invoice Application Home Page
- Eligible Children and Invoice Periods Module
- Claims Entry and Invoice Submission
- Claims History
- Reporting
- System Administration Module
- Online Help
HCL has vast experience in implementing web based eGovernment solutions including Workforce Investment Act Implementation for the State of Florida (One Stop Management Information System – OSMIS, SunshineJobs.Biz Job portal), the State of Tennessee (enhanced Case Management and Activity Tracking System – eCMATS) and development of a Web based Public Utility Commission website for claim reporting for the State of Missouri. Based on that experience, HCL implemented a Web enabled claim submission system that is designed to streamline administrative functions for DHHS and also provide fast and efficient service to the childcare providers of New Hampshire.
HCL proposed an integrated, web-based, flexible and modular solution that supported functions for claim submission by providers, claim status tracking, payment history and report generation, secured data transmission and data confidentiality, automated notifications, user management and reporting in a cohesive, complete and scalable fashion.
The system will provide and manage project timeline for design, development, testing, training and deployment. HCL used industry standard project management procedures, including risks and issues. HCL developed the new system using ready available components from an existing .NET framework, which had been deployed for various projects of similar nature. The number of users of the system are 150 users.
Platform:| Integrated Web & Application Server Software | Microsoft C# .NET, Oracle 9i Client, ODP.Net 9.2.0.4.0, OIT – DAL.DLL, Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 – Service Pack 1 |
| Database | Oracle 9i Release 2 on HP-UX B11.11 server |
| Application Server | Windows 2003 Server, IIS 6.0 |
| Additional Software | Microsoft Visio Version 2003, Microsoft Project Standard Edition 2002, Adobe Acrobat PDF Writer, Lotus Notes 4.6 (State Standard Messaging solution), AllFusion Harvest Version 5.1.1, Visual Studio .NET Enterprise Architect version 2003, Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 – Service Pack 1, VCI with Patch for .NET |
Results
- Web enabled, browser based application accessible from any location
- Application will be accessible using hyperlink on Child Development Bureau page on the DHHS website.
- Web page design will follow State of New Hampshire Web Site Standards and Guidelines.
- Easy to learn and easy to use GUI
- Authorized access to functional features of the application.
- Robust reporting capabilities with support for standard, parameterized, detailed and summary reports to meet the DHHS reporting needs.
- Secure information streams to ensure expedient information flow, authorized approval and data confidentiality. Security audit log of each unsuccessful login attempt.
- Maintain audit log of user activity pertaining to database transactions (adding, updating or deleting of records). This will include recording time stamp and user Id associated with each transaction.
- Ability to undertake housekeeping and archival in accordance with DHHS defined guidelines.
- Scalability to add new functional features and support more users in the future without affecting the underlying architecture.
| BDM | Bureau of Data Management |
| CDB | Child Development Bureau |
| CPBS | Childcare Provider Billing System |
| DCYF | Division for Children, Youth and Families |
| DHHS | Department of Health and Human Services |
| GUI | Graphical User Interface |
| HCL | HCL (Mass.), Inc. |
| NH | New Hampshire |
| OSMIS | One Stop Management Information System |
