The Intake Process

The Intake process

Thomas: Tell us a little bit about that kind of second prong of the advanced referral system, which was your intake process. What did that look and feel like?

Laura: Well we created some forms just for them, just for this advanced referral system, which were a modified version of what a benefits specialist would do with an intake. Again, they were the ones that had the relationship of trust with the customer, and we wanted to make sure that the customer knew they had a choice, that they could work with us directly, or they could work through their service provider that they already had that relationship of trust with. So initially we did get Mike and his team to agree that they would provide everyone they met with that they thought needed benefits planning services with our brochure, and let them know that there were two ways they could access the services. So it didn’t have to be through their counselor in case they didn’t have that relationship of trust yet, but we found that most of them really did, and they wanted to work through that system, and we trained their staff on, you know, what our release forms looked like, why they were important, what to do with those release forms, how to contact the local office, what the BPQY looked like, what the evil TPQY looks like and why that isn’t what you were requesting, and give them the contact information at the local office. We made sure that they knew who to contact, and I think maybe it’s important to mention that I mentioned that entitlement specialist: we trained those job coaches on the conversational knowledge or we didn’t the training agency did, but they gathered the releases and everything from their customers and gave them to the entitlement specialist, and she is the only one that contacted Social Security to request information. So it was easier for her to understand when things weren’t happening the way they were supposed to, and it was also easier for her to keep on top of those job coaches when maybe she wasn’t getting referrals she thought she should have, to make sure that they knew the information and what the releases should be looking like and all of that, and she’s the one that handled that intake system.