October 29, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
One-e-App — short for “one electronic application” — is a Web-based system that allows people in four states to find out whether they are eligible and then apply for a variety of public-health and social-service programs, such as Medicaid, food stamps, and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Since 2006, the system has screened more than 2.8 million people for eligibility and generated more than 3.6 million applications for assistance in Arizona, California, Indiana, and Maryland.
One-e-App was designed to help people find out the full range of benefits for which they qualify and to make it easier to apply, says Claudia Page, codirector of the Center to Promote HealthCare Access, the Oakland, Calif., nonprofit organization that manages the system.
Without the technology, she says, people applying for assistance have to go from agency to agency to apply, often using public transportation and with children in tow.
“When they get to that next location, they’re usually completing a new set of paper forms, providing upwards of 90 to 95 percent of the same information that they put on the paper forms at the last place,” says Ms. Page.
The system can be used by individuals applying for assistance themselves, or by employees at social-service groups, clinics, or schools who are helping clients apply for benefits.
The Center to Promote HealthCare Access is experimenting with new ways to make the system available, such as placing kiosks at locations in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
For more information: Go to http://www.oneeapp.org.
