Quality Assurance DSHS

Quality Assurance

I got a visit from the DSHS QA agent back in April of this year to audit me for food stamps. As stupid as it sounds, it appears to be a way for the state to trim random people off of food stamps. I'm not proud to be on food stamps but don't know how else I would eat otherwise. Like its not bad enough or embarrassing enough that someone has to rely on food stamps to eat, then they want to try to use tactics to try to reduce or remove them from you.

You have to comply with QA and allow them to audit you otherwise they have the right to remove you from receiving food stamps. You don't have to be doing anything wrong either to get your stamps reduced or removed. The process is set up to try to come up with any way they can to remove you from service. I'm a single parent and currently get over $400 a month in child support, but that's only when they pay. TANF which was the replacement for welfare, only ensures that I get $385 a month, but of course they freeze my child support until its paid back.

At any rate I wanted to share the details of what happened during this audit. It's supposedly random selection but a recent event with CPS leads me to believe otherwise. Anyhow, the letter claims that its random. So you have to call their office and schedule a good time when an agent can meet with you to audit you, and you have to be able to show bank records and all proof of income as well as rent receipts.

In April I had received my tax refund which actually doesn't count as income and I knew this as well. I don't like to leave money in the bank so removed it all, but in order to make a couple of purchases, I had to re deposit some money. This seemed odd in the audit but I just explained the details. The idea here is the auditor wants to try to find anything wrong in your records that could explain an overpayment in food stamps.

The way that questions were asked during the audit were pretty odd as well. For example, he explained that sometimes people report that they prepare meals separately from a roommate ½ the time or even ¼ of the time. But I don't, I prepare all my meals separately. This was obviously an attempt to pull my service. But he wasn't happy with that, he had to go talk to my landlord to confirm that I actually pay the rent that the receipt claims I do.

Another attempt was made to find a discrepancy by him sending a form to my roommates parents and asking them if I prepare all of my meals separately. I was informed after the interview that everything looked fine and he didn't anticipate me having any problems. Whats odd is he calls me three months later to inform me that he is still working on my case and just trying to close it out. He had asked about the ½ of rent that I pay and if he could confirm that with my roommate over the phone, so we did.

I wouldn't worry to much, I think he's just doing his job with thoroughness and honestly that makes me glad. Not that you feel harassed, but that the system does try to weed out fraudulent claims.

I used to work in a a pharmacy in Tennessee. About fifteen years or so ago, tenn introduced tenncare, which was a type of insurance for those with limited means. You wouldn't believe the fraud we saw with tenncare. There was one guy who drove a BMW and worked for the city, he was quite wealthy. And he was on tenncare. We reported him, he eventually lost his job and it was a huge amount of people deliberately defrauding the system.

I hope your situation improves, you sound like a wonderful and caring mother.