North Carolinians with disabilities will receive more efficient services in a national pilot of a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony project led by the NC. Department of Information Technology and the N.C. Disability Determination Services.
Disability Determination Services, a division of the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, receives and makes decisions for federal and state disability benefits, including medical care, housing and food, for people unable to work due to a disability.
With the shift to teleworking during the COVID-19 pandemic, staff encountered several challenges reaching constituents. To call people who applied for disability benefits, staff used flip phones issued nationally by the Social Security Administration. Caller ID often identified agency staff as “call unknown” or “spam,” so claimants would not answer calls. The flip phones also had quality issues and low voicemail capacity, which did not meet the division’s business needs.
After two years of advocacy and different approaches, Disability Determination Services received federal approval to conduct a VoIP pilot.
Since March, NCDIT’s Voice Operation and Engineering teams have worked with Disability Determination Services and the Social Security Administration to implement and test NCDIT’s Next-Generation Enterprise IP Telephony VoIP system. Their efforts have included reviewing call flows, identifying features and functions allowed by federal policies and modifying firewall rules to allow voice traffic between state and federal data networks.
The project will move Disability Determination Services to a more efficient telephony system for staff work remotely and serve constituents in and out of the office – wherever there is internet connectivity. Staff can load VoIP software onto their laptops provided by the Social Security Administration to make and receive calls without the need for flip phones.
This collaboration by NCDIT, Disability Determination Services and the Social Security Administration led to a successful proof of concept, which received federal approval. Since the VoIP system went live on July 28, staff have reported that it is easy to use in and out of the office and has good call quality when talking with claimants.
The Social Security Administration plans to launch additional pilots in other states’ offices of Disability Determination Services and will use lessons learned from the North Carolina VoIP pilot to improve future pilots.