Policy implementation challenges
Description
When presented with a policy, states are saddled with the burden of turning that policy into code. This translation is not always clean, and isn’t always updated when the policy itself is updated. As a result, logic can often reflect old, outdated, or misunderstood policies, resulting in people being improperly failed during ex parte.
What this looks like
The following are signs that the implementation logic may not match policy:
- Unintelligible error codes
- Failure reasons that no one can explain
- Very old/outdated documentation
- References to old policies
- Mismatches in estimates compared to live measurements
- For example, if a change was estimated to impact X people, but only impacted 1% of that, it may be a policy implementation issue
Potential solutions
Bring policy staff together with vendors and clarify:
- What does the policy actually instruct?
- Explain it in the plainest language possible and verify with experts.
- Cite regulation and statute if necessary.
- Call experts whenever anything is unclear.
- How is this logic currently implemented?
- Is the implementation correct?
- Are there people who are being missed by the implementation?
- Could the implementation be more efficient?
- Could the implementation be less strict?