Vocational Rehabilitation
Ticket to Work/Reimbursement
- Tracker -
Tracker Logo
Background
  In 2001, Mr. Morrow (owner of Morrow Consulting, LLC) was an employee of the State of Vermont Division of Vocational Rehabilitation working under a research grant to provide benefits counseling around the state.  One piece of information being used as a part of the outcome measures for the research was the Unemployment Insurance (UI) earnings records.  Central office staff was also using this information in a limited way to determine when VR cases had met Social Security Reimbursement requirements.

Seeing the opportunity to improve the way Reimbursement processing was being performed, Mr. Morrow devised a way to automate the processing and tracking of these payments.  He created a program that combined information from the state’s VR case management system, the UI records, and the State Verification and Exchange (SVES) Social Security data.  The system searched all the records to determine which cases had the correct Social Security type and had met the earnings requirements for Reimbursement.  Using the VR information, the system then calculated the amount of time and direct services that had been provided for that case.  This information was then used by the system to create all the necessary documentation to submit Reimbursement claims.  The program was able to pick out many more claims than had been possible in the past, did it much faster, and was able to reduce computational errors.

When the Ticket to Work legislation went into effect, the ability to process and track Ticket payments was added to the program.  This again used the UI records to determine which cases had met the requirements and filled out all necessary forms to submit claims for payment.

The success of the system in Vermont caught the attention of other New England states who then contacted Mr. Morrow.  The original system did not have much for a user interface and required a fair amount of skill programming databases to run properly.

Since other states were now interested in purchasing a system to process and track the Reimbursement and Ticket payments, Mr. Morrow created the first version of the Vocational Rehabilitation Ticket to Work/Reimbursement Tracker.  This system had to be user-friendly and accessible to individuals with varying levels of skill, so a user-interface was included in the design.

The original Tracker application has gone through two major revisions to get it to the point it is now.  Each revision added functionality and improved system operation.  It was originally programmed in MS Access, but as more states began using the system, maintenance and updates became problematic.  To address these issues, the Morrow Consulting team reprogrammed the Tracker application in ASP.Net and SQL Server.  The system is now installed using an executable file programmed in Advanced Installer.  This has greatly simplified the installation process and allows Morrow Consulting to send out update files as needed.