Santa Cruz County Develops Call Center for Medi-Cal Enrollment Issues
Santa Cruz County has begun to establish an 18,000-square-foot Medi-Cal call center to help residents enroll and maintain enrollment in the program, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reports. Contra Costa, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties operate similar call centers.
The center, scheduled to open in March 2006, will cost about $1.2 million, but officials expect efficiency improvements to offset the cost.
A staff report states that the call center expects about 80% of calls to be handled within 20 seconds.
About 30,000 Santa Cruz County residents currently are enrolled in Medi-Cal, up from about 22,000 in 1998 (Seals, Santa Cruz Sentinel, 11/3).