122: AI in Play: More Social Work. Less Paperwork
29 min
Paperwork as a Barrier to Services
Did you know that one of the biggest barriers standing between millions of Americans and programs assisting with food, utilities, and healthcare is enrollment paperwork? It’s not so much the lack of programs or awareness of them, it's the capacity across many touchpoints in the health and human services ecosystem to support navigating the paperwork and enrollment process. In fact, in 2024, 5 million children lost their Medicaid coverage simply due to paperwork or procedural reasons.
How AI Can Help Remove Obstacles
In this episode, part of our AI in Play series, emergency care nurse, health innovator, and entrepreneur Kwamane Liddell, JD, MHA, BSN, shares how AI is helping remove the paperwork roadblocks such as internet access, issues of low literacy, and stigma standing between families and resources, and between care providers and the people they care for.
Meet the AI Enrollment Agents
At ThriveLink, multi-lingual, Agentic AI-powered chatbots are available to anyone via a quick, free phone call. These AI telephonic enrollment agents can walk people through complex forms out loud, turning confusing text into a simple conversation. This technology-based solution connects a world of existing resources, from food delivery to utility payment assistance to reduced-priced medications for millions of families, with the potential to deliver a billion dollars’ worth of social resources.
About See You Now Podcast
SEE YOU NOW is a podcast that shines a light on the real people changing the status quo in health: from nurses working in labor and delivery, with infectious diseases, and in hospice; to nurse allies in politics, business and tech. Created in collaboration with Johnson & Johnson and the American Nurses Association.
For more nursing innovation resources from ANA, visit https://www.nursingworld.org/practice-policy/innovation/resources.
Have questions or feedback for the SEE YOU NOW team? Future episode ideas? Contact us at hello@seeyounowpodcast.com.
Resources
- ThriveLink
- Programs & Services | HHS.gov
- Millions of children lose Medicaid coverage as state enrollment problems persist
- More than 13 million people lost Medicaid coverage this year, with Texas an epicenter of the 'unwinding'
- More than 5 million children lose Medicaid health coverage
- An Examination of Medicaid Renewal Outcomes and Enrollment Changes at the End of the Unwinding | KFF
- Medicaid Unwinding and Enrollment Tracker
- $30 Billion Left on the Table: Connecting More Older Adults with Money-Saving Public Benefits
- 55 US Literacy Statistics: Literacy Rate, Average Reading Level
- Literacy - The Policy Circle
- What Is Agentic AI, and How Will It Change Work?
- Meet the winners of the 2024 MIT Solve Health Innovation Award
- Kwamane Liddell wins ANA Innovation award | Stryker
