FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What is the NC FAST program?

The NC Families Accessing Services through Technology (NC FAST) program is implementing the reengineered social services process created in the fall of 1999 by State and County leaders. This new process is designed to support North Carolina families by providing a streamlined approach to delivering services. NC FAST objectives are to:

  • Enhance integrated, family-centered service delivery
  • Enhance process efficiency to improve effectiveness of case management
  • Improve data accuracy, usefullness and accessibility to support case
  • Management, accountability and decision-making at all levels

What programs are covered by NC FAST?

The NC FAST Program addresses how North Carolina families access the social services provided by county Department of Social Services (DSS) offices for the following programs:

  • Work First
  • Medicaid
  • Food and Nutrition Services
  • Energy Assistance
  • Refugee Assistance
  • Child Care
  • Child Welfare Services
  • Adult Services
  • Special Assistance for Adults

What is the status of Case Management?

NC FAST will carry out the Case Management Project in three stages: Planning, Procurement and Implementation.

The Planning stage was completed June 30, 2005.

Procurement is underway.

The schedule for Implementation will not be known until after the vendor(s) for design, development, readiness, training, data conversion, and migration, pilot, and implementation are successfully contracted.

What is the status of Online Verification?

Placed in interim implementation phase in October 2004.

Access to SCC3 & SCC4 options replaced by OLV, will be disabled in the near future. Due to additional functionality needed in some counties, the FirstStop option will not be disabled with this effort.

OLV will eventually be incorporated into the New Case Management system.

What is the status of Service Delivery Interface?

Until the NC FAST Case Management is built, SDI will only be rolled out to the counties that have their own case management systems, as an interface from FSIS to the county systems. As part of NC FAST's phased approach to development, it was important to test the interface before incorporating it into the new NC FAST Case Management system.

February 14, 2006: SDI Release 1, Phase 1 went LIVE to our pilot county, New Hanover, with three selected Food Stamp transactions.

August 1, 2006: SDI Release 1, Phase 2 went LIVE to our pilot county, New Hanover, with all Food Stamp transactions.