County family assistance clients to lose access to benefits help processing temporarily

People on family assistance will lose access to their benefit accounts during the next few days because of statewide computer system and software updates, Kevin Lavoie, Montgomery County Department of Job and Family Services communication director, said.

Family assistance workers will not be able to access food and cash assistance account information during the following period:

• 4 p.m. Thursday through 9 a.m. Friday
• Medicaid system access will be unavailable Friday and Monday

According to a statement county agency officials released late Wednesday afternoon, staff will not be able to answer specific case questions during the period of the updates and they will not be able to authorize, deny or modify benefits.

However, people with benefits on their cards will be able to use them throughout the entire time the systems are done. While they can’t report a change or review their account balance, they can get thi through their card accounts.

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The Family Assistance Call Center and FAIR Department for customer service will operate on a limited basis. Those customers will have the ability to scan documents, complete paper applications and ask general questions.

Regular operations are expected to resume Tuesday.

The state's self-service Medicaid portal will be unavailable during the Medicaid outage time, but customers can still report changes and complete interim reports for food and cash assistance at odjfsbenefits.ohio.gov.

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