Accelerating the MassHealth Medicaid Application Process
“I wanted to migrate my data years ago, but I have never understood that there was possibly something available to me. I wish I had found Kohezion 10 years ago.” - Jen-Alice Chromy-Babb | Owner at Symphony Application Specialists
INTRODUCTION
Symphony Application Specialists (SAS) is a Massachusetts-based organization specializing in MassHealth applications. With a constant increase in demand for services, SAS was struggling to find a flexible business software to process large volumes of data, while meeting all their business needs. SAS chose to implement Kohezion because it offered an affordable, HIPAA compliant solution that was customizable to accommodate organizational growth for the
small business.
After discovering Kohezion, SAS migrated their spreadsheet data to the intuitive low-code online database. As a result, they have cut down their application processing time from 1:15 hours to just 10 minutes. The realized efficiencies have helped SAS identify further opportunities for business growth and profitability.
Symphony Application Specialists (SAS) advocate on behalf of families to guide them through the complicated MassHealth Medicaid application process. SAS also works with 3 Boston-area veteran hospitals to handle referrals from inpatient services for acute cases that require long-term care or rehabilitation treatment for veterans without insurance.
As the owner of SAS, Jen-Alice was primarily a one-woman show. With her business experiencing steady growth, she hired another full-time Medicaid specialist. The growing business required data to be shared amongst the team, and maintaining HIPAA compliance and client confidentiality became the top priority.
" ... When I needed to expand my team, I couldn’t get it onto a server that more people could access at the same time while maintaining HIPAA compliance. That’s what lead me to Kohezion.”
- Jen-Alice Chromy-Babb | Owner at Symphony Application Specialists
THE CHALLENGE
SAS was previously using Tap Forms and Apple Numbers to process client data. While it maintained HIPAA compliance on Jen-Alice’s personal server, it was limiting growth, lacking efficiency, and preventing data collaboration required to accommodate increasing demand.
“Tap Forms was great in the beginning because it was just me, and I could self-design without needing to understand coding. When I needed to expand my team, I couldn’t get it onto a server that more people could access at the same time while maintaining HIPAA compliance. That’s what lead me to Kohezion,” said Jen-Alice of SAS.
" “We are working together to make Kohezion our one-stop-shop for documents and data, so all we have to do is log in to access this information.”
- Jen-Alice Chromy-Babb | Owner at Symphony Application Specialists
THE CRITERIA
Having an outside vendor who really understood the specific needs of SAS and could help deliver an efficient, intuitive solution was critical for Jen-Alice and her growing team. In addition, having business data centralized in the cloud would allow Jen-Alice and her team to access important information from anywhere at any time.
Customization, efficiency, and flexibility were also extremely important decision criteria for SAS. Jen-Alice found her business needs to be very specific and changing constantly. “I have to be really customizable because I don’t fit into the same mold as other businesses.”
SOLUTION
Jen-Alice was researching alternative HIPAA compliant solutions when she found Kohezion’s low code, online database builder. She took advantage of the free trial and almost immediately connected with the Kohezion team. “Thierry and I had a call within the first 48 hours and he immediately understood my needs for HIPAA compliance.”
Kohezion took the time to understand the specific business needs of SAS on a deeper level. According to Jen-Alice “Kohezion worked on my timetable, and my time zone. What I really liked about Kohezion from the beginning was that Thierry was patient, knew how to qualify my issues, and trained me so I would be able to do it in the future.” Kohezion’s outstanding and responsive customer service was what solidified Jen-Alice’s decision.
For SAS, it wasn’t just about understanding the platform to perform data-driven tasks. It was also about leveraging Kohezion to become an all-inclusive data management solution, giving SAS a competitive advantage. According to Jen-Alice, “We are working together to make Kohezion our one-stop-shop for documents and data, so all we have to do is log in to access this information.”
“Before I had Kohezion, I would fill out an application and it would take me an hour and 15 minutes. Thierry showed me how to connect the PDF forms to the database (a 40-page application with MassHealth). With Kohezion, it takes 10 minutes to fill in the form, review it, and fax it off to MassHealth. It is so easy and cuts off over an hour of our processing time per application.”
- Jen-Alice Chromy-Babb | Owner at Symphony Application Specialists
IMPLEMENTATION
Kohezion was a great fit for SAS and the data migration process happened within days, even though high security and HIPAA compliant data migrations were required. Jen-Alice provided the Tap Form excel backup to Kohezion for the initial migration, then customized the system herself to ensure it met the specific needs of SAS.
Learning the functions and understanding Kohezion on a deeper level was crucial because it meant that Jen-Alice and the SAS team could make changes to the application independently, and as often as necessary. Due to Kohezion’s low code architecture, the SAS team can be flexible and make changes as they continue to experience growth and change.
RESULTS
Jen-Alice and SAS noticed the impact of Kohezion right away and saw
immediate results, including:
Kohezion’s HIPAA-Compliant database software allows SAS Medicaid Specialists to process applications in 1/7th of the time.
Jen-Alice: “Before I had Kohezion, I would fill out an application and it would take me an hour and 15 minutes. Thierry showed me how to connect the PDF forms to the database (a 40-page application with MassHealth). With Kohezion, it takes 10 minutes to fill in the form, review it, and fax it off to MassHealth. It is so easy and cuts off over an hour of our processing time per application."
SAS now has the ability to access data remotely in real-time, resulting in more efficient and faster client deliverables.
SAS can view their business data in one centralized location, allowing them to analyze and gain valuable insight for future strategic planning.
Jen-Alice: “When we are doing an internal analysis of how many clients we have, or how much money we’re making, it’s easy for us to be able to look at all the business data in Kohezion and then break it down. There’s a lot of information you can access to analyze your business and make it stronger.”
Kohezion is a low-code, Online Database Software that empowers users to build flexible, customizable systems that meet their business goals now and in the future.
At Kohezion, we aim to deliver high-security database solutions in a fraction of the time, for a fraction of the cost.
