How some states are trying to upgrade their glitchy, outdated health care technology

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/02/01/ [login to see] /how-some-states-are-trying-to-upgrade-their-glitchy-outdated-health-care-technol
In October, when Jamie Taylor's household monthly income fit within new state income limits after Missouri's 2021 expansion of Medicaid, she applied for health coverage. She received a rejection letter within days, stating that her earnings exceeded the acceptable limit.

It was the latest blow in Taylor's ongoing campaign to get assistance from Missouri's safety net. Taylor, 41, has spent hours on the phone, enduring four-hour hold times and dropped calls. Time-sensitive documents were mailed to her home in Sikeston but by the time they arrived she had little time to act.

Her latest rejection – she would later find out – resulted from a preprogrammed glitch in her application that a technician enrolling her failed to catch.

Taylor's struggles to get a benefit she was in fact qualified for are not uncommon in Missouri or nationally. They stem from extremely outdated technology used by a humongous web of government agencies, from local public health to state-run benefits programs. Matt Salo, the National Association of State Medicaid Directors executive director, calls the need for technology upgrades "the next great challenge that government has to solve."