People needing assistance in Spanish from the Florida Department of Children and Families wait on hold for nearly an hour, according to a report from the Hispanic civil rights group UnidosUS.
The wait time for the call center, which fields questions about government cash and food assistance programs and Medicaid, has improved since the group started monitoring its efficacy in the summer of 2023.
Still, UnidosUS found that Spanish speakers deal with an average wait time of 54 minutes, whereas the wait averages 13 minutes for English speakers.
UnidosUS Florida Director Jared Nordlund. (Photo courtesy of UnidosUS) Thursday’s report is the third the group has published about the wait times, starting as the state began disenrolling millions from Medicaid following the end of the federal COVID-19 public health emergency.
While the wait time for Spanish speakers has gone down from 120 minutes in 2023 to 56 minutes, 45% of the calls the group made got dropped before reaching a live agent. Between September and February, UnidosUS made 174 calls to the English and Spanish lines at various times of the day.
By comparison, only 5% of the calls seeking assistance in English were disconnected, according to the report. The wait time for English speakers went down from 34 minutes in 2023 to 13 minutes between September and February.
DCF’s call center wait times have drawn scrutiny, with Floridians facing the second-longest wait time in the country last year. Concerns from lawmakers led to an investment of $12 million into improving the call center at the time.
READ MORE: Excessive wait time for Latinos in Florida is 'locking families out' of Medicaid
Jared Nordlund, UnidosUS’ Florida director, said the group is advocating for DCF to hire more bilingual call center agents.
“Clearly, the money we advocated for last session to beef up call centers worked,” Nordlund said in a phone interview with Florida Phoenix. “This has worked really well for English speakers, so clearly there needs to be more work done to help Spanish speakers.”
Additionally, testimony during a federal trial in Jacksonville last year revealed the department had blocked 54% of phone calls from people wanting to reach one of its call center agents that April.
Inefficiencies within the call center played a key role in the class action filed by Medicaid patients alleging Florida violated their constitutional right to due process when it took away their health care coverage without proper notice. Plaintiffs argued during the trial that call center agents gave them wrong information about their Medicaid eligibility.
At the time, the director of the call center testified that DCF planned to hire hundreds more people to handle the calls.
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.
