Modernize your case management system enabling your regulatory agency to better manage and automate every aspect of the case management process. An efficient case management solution means improved business processes, greater efficiency in less time, lower costs, as well as reduced paper for your government agency. Discover the four key components of a case management system—document management, robust reporting, optimal workflow and a secure system—from a case management expert.
Niki Davisson, Technical Analyst for GL Solutions, with over 10 years of experience working on case management systems, helps us break down the key components of this complex process—with real-world examples. Her experience includes working with case management systems that track a small number of cases per year to systems that track over 100 reports per day. These case management systems range from contractor’s boards to death and serious incident reporting to cosmetology boards and alcohol beverage control.
Case management systems harness the power of document management to bring your agency order, efficiency and powerful reporting capabilities—along with a paperless workflow.
Document management helps keep everything organized for case managers, according to Davisson. For reporting purposes, the system helps you document the letters that you send in the system, and the dates you sent them—enabling you to track that information. When a case management system generates emails, that communication gets stored in the system, providing a trail of communication for your agency.
Document management facilitates communication between your agency and the complainant or your agency and the respondent—or whoever you need to correspond with. Davisson gives the example of an agency that facilitates their corrective action plans (CAPs), by placing them in a client portal online. “The provider can see what regulations they violated,” explains Davisson, “and provide back the plan from the web to correct them based on agency feedback. The agency will accept that plan or provide additional feedback on what the provider needs to do and submit it back to the agency online.”
In addition, use document management to keep your investigators in the loop, by alerting them to new documents received.
When your regulatory agency staff upload documents into a case management system, the system tracks those, marking that document requirement as complete. A case management system notes the date your agency received the document, when the upload occurred, and the staff involved in the process.
Powerful document management systems enable your government agency to upload and store any type of document with a record, along with multiple file formats. Examples of documents include original applications, correspondence, supporting documentation (such as applicant photos or fingerprint cards), scans of past records and scans of certificates. Case management solutions enable your staff to work with many file types, like PDF files, text documents, scanned records Microsoft Office, and audio and video files.
A secure case management solution defines what agency staff access documents, along with their permissions. Authorized users retrieve and re-send uploaded documents as needed, along with deleting or re-indexing them.
Document management helps eliminate the mailing back and forth, Davisson says. “If your complaint is against the medical system, for example, you get the data releases in a little more real time with the complainant because they can upload it to the system. And then it goes to the investigator.” One agency uses document management to easily get documentation out for FOIA requests. “For them, FOIA is a pretty big deal,” she says. “They keep track of their documents for cases. They’re in one place.”
Many agencies, Davisson explains, need to report on how long a case sits in specific phases. “How long was it in intake? How long does it take from open to close?” A case management system facilitates activity analysis. And a case management system also enables your regulatory agency to search for and report on anything in your system—from case numbers to certain violations, as well as social security numbers and date of birth.
Use case management system software to report and search on specific needs:
Use role-based security when creating reports and queries in your case management software to give access only to the users, roles or groups with permission to view these analytical reports.
A case management tool enables your agency to create searches on all fields in your system, such as where cases occur. As Davisson explains, when you understand the location of cases, queries help your agency to staff appropriately for those regions.
Design queries with input parameters, like date range, specific license type, status of an application or any other detail stored in the system, to refine or limit the data retrieved. Combinations of input parameters help your agency to maximize the value of reports and queries. A single defined query or report helps to meet a multitude of objectives.
Staff with sufficient knowledge design and create custom queries from any data maintained in the system.
Streamline the retrieval of data for all the case records in your case management system through an efficient search interface—combined with a powerful ad-hoc reporting system for regulatory compliance. An ad-hoc reporting feature allows your staff to quickly create on-the-fly queries.
A powerful tool, ad hoc reporting functionality enables your agency’s staff to create custom queries on any data in the system; a user creates simple or complex queries with multiple parameters. If needed, export the results of the query to Excel, Word or PDF. In addition, save the query for reuse in the future.
With Microsoft Business Intelligence reporting integrated into your case management system, bring your data to life through geographical maps, charts and graphs. View the information within your system or download the information.
These interactive reports allow staff at your regulatory agency to select from all fields to search; configure these as read only or read-write access based on permissions.
For the most efficient workflow in case management software, choose process automation. “The most efficient,” says Davisson, “is when agencies have people pre-assigned to regions or counties or other locations that you can automatically assign to work on the cases. You can have a case management system just do it for you.”
The automated workflow enables your agency to route questions and information to your licensing experts or board staff or even to an external agency for review, she says.
Besides automating staff assignments, a case management system enables your agency to automate your regulatory agency’s business process to “drive a case to completion,” says Davisson. Use business rules in your case management system, she explains, to determine if a complaint is founded or unfounded, for example. In addition, she says, “a case can be set up to create periodic checks to make sure they’re staying in compliance. It can track when they’ve submitted the documents, or the money needed to complete compliances and then track it through to completion automatically.”
While automation provides the greatest efficiency, case management software solutions also allow your agency to manually follow a workflow. Perhaps you prefer if your staff manually assigns investigators to claims. As Davisson explains, the manual system still helps your agency move work “seamlessly and not put paper on desks.”
Why keep your business process management system secure? “You want to keep the confidential data confidential, and limited to the people who can see it, so you don’t have data leaks or put your agency at risk,” Davisson explains.
Reasons to secure your system:
Choose a case management platform that offers you the highest levels of security. When reviewing case management systems, consider the following security measures.
Checklist of security authorizations and measures:
State licensing agencies use FedRAMP to ensure that vendors they work with meet standards for secure cloud services. FedRAMP gives state regulatory agencies a common set of security requirements for vendors. These standard questions simplify the process for state licensing agencies and yield a variety of benefits; by allowing the reuse of the authorization versus completing different authorizations for different agencies, FedRAMP helps states save money, time, and effort—for both agencies and Cloud Service Providers. Learn more about FedRAMP.
“State participation in StateRAMP is essential for safeguarding sensitive cloud-based data, given the heightened risk of cyberattacks on cloud applications,” according to Jessica Kashary, StateRAMP Chief of Operations. “By requiring cloud vendors to be StateRAMP authorized, government agencies can be confident that their data is being stored and processed in a secure environment. This can help to protect the privacy of citizens, the integrity of government operations, and the financial security of the government.” Learn more about StateRAMP.
To protect the security of your regulatory government agency, consider requiring SOC 1 and SOC 2 reports from your service providers. The SOC 1 audit helps you ascertain the reliability of a vendor’s financial processing and reporting. And the SOC 2 audit reports on a vendor’s controls related to security, availability and confidentiality. Explore the differences by type of SOC report in detail, as well as why these auditing standards matter to your regulatory agency.
Other important security measures include:
Editor’s note: Niki Davisson’s experience includes over 10 years working with case management systems; these case management systems, using GL Solutions’ GL Suite software, range from contractor’s boards to death and serious incident reporting to cosmetology boards to alcohol beverage control. Learn more about GL Solutions’ Case Management Solutions.
