WA Cares Fund Benefits and Customer Care Policy Program Manager

Make a meaningful impact on long-term care policy by embracing this exciting opportunity. The WA Cares Fund (WA Cares) is the first of its kind in the United States, showcasing why Washington State leads the nation in long-term care initiatives. Created by the WA State Legislature, WA Cares offers affordable long-term care insurance coverage to all working Washington's. This is a great opportunity to support foundational infrastructure for the nation’s first long-term services and support social insurance program.

As the Benefits and Customer Care (BCC) Policy Program Manager, you will support both our BCC teams and our Area Agencies on Aging (AAA) teams by creating, updating, and maintaining staff guidance which impacts their daily work in supporting WA Cares customers. In this role, you’ll learn how the Benefits & Customer Care (BCC) team and Area Agencies on Aging (AAA) deliver services, then turn that understanding into clear, accessible policies and procedures. You’ll collaborate with Intake, Call Center, Imaging, and other teams to see how their work happens in our systems and translate that knowledge into guidance staff can easily follow. You’ll also help make our technology instructions more user-friendly so both technical and non-technical staff can use them with confidence.

BCC employees and AAA community partners are the primary contacts for anyone who needs to contact WA Cares for any reason. These teams are the backbone of our support system. Their work includes assisting people who want to use the WA Cares benefit to apply and get assessed for eligibility, providers who need resources or assistance, and handling returned mail and imaging any paper documents. They are the teams who need to know the most about our system and are typically the first contact with most of our customers.

This role reports to our Beneficiary Policy Unit Manager and will be assigned to work on the aspects of our staff guidance which impact these customer-facing teams. Our person-centered philosophy for staff guidance is that we create staff guidance with people and not for people. That means we focus on involving subject matter experts as well as the people who use the instructions to do their work. That means that you will be a part of our dynamic beneficiary policy team as well as being closely aligned with our BCC and AAA teams to understand their specific needs for procedural guidance and process steps.

Your work will intersect with a significant part of the WA Cares system—from internal staff processes to contracted partnership processes. You will help create a shared understanding of BCC and AAA expectations for customer support, support our teams through improvement efforts, and ensure that statewide standards are clear and concise.

This Home & Community Living Administration (HCLA) WA Cares Washington Management Services 2 (WMS2) role offers hybrid telework within the state of Washington. Travel for meetings is expected to be infrequent.

Some of what you will do

• Foster strategic communication and collaboration with BCC teams to support person-centered policies and procedures.
• Identify key BCC staff and coordinate development of content for policies, procedures, and supporting documents.
• Collaborate on supporting documents that provide guidance, tips, or tools for assisting beneficiaries to apply, de-escalation techniques, assisting applicants who need support accessing or establishing their WA Cares account, phone routing guides, authentication of callers, use of DocuSign, and other guides which may be needed by the teams, ensuring consistency in instruction for all teams using the documents.
• Review policies, procedures, and supporting documents and recommend updates that strengthen statewide consistency between both WA Cares DSHS and WA Cares AAA teams.
• Collaborate with regional teams, contractors, and internal partners to support their needs, strengthen communication, and ensure shared understanding of expectations.
• Coordinate with training teams to ensure improvement efforts are reflected in learning materials before implementation.
• Lead, direct and oversee system-specific procedures including, but not limited to navigation of the system, communicating with customers in the system, and performing work in the systems.

Within your first six months, you will build strong working relationships with WA Cares BCC staff and our AAA partners to create a cohesive and collaborative approach to our customer-facing work. You will have a strong understanding of our person-centered policy development philosophy and our WE CARE values and understand how to create policies with people rather than for people.

Who should apply

Professionals with experience in program management in long-term care policy development for social services, healthcare programs, or state government programs with at least two years of demonstrated experience writing policy and procedural guidance.

A combination of education and experience may qualify, including:

• Nine years of progressively responsible experience* in program management in long-term care policy development for social services, healthcare programs, or state government programs.
• At least 2 of these years must show experience creating, updating, and maintaining clear, easy-to-follow policies and procedures in a complex, fast-moving organization.

*A bachelor’s or master’s degree in a public administration or policy related field, one of the social sciences, or other related fields will substitute for equivalent years of experience.

You will also bring skills in:

• Solving complex problems with people — Works with the people who carry out the work to understand issues, design practical solutions, and support successful implementation.
• Thinking strategically — Looks ahead, researches and interprets policies, spots potential risks, and helps create approaches that reduce or prevent those risks.
• Writing for leaders — Comfortable writing clear, accurate policies, procedures, and reports for executive leaders or legislative audiences.
• Building strong working relationships — Builds trust and works effectively with staff, peers, partners, committees, sponsors, and executive leadership.
• Explaining complex information — Breaks down complicated topics and communicates them in ways people can understand, based on their role and experience.
• Working independently — Manages work with minimal supervision and knows when to raise issues, risks, or decisions that need leadership attention.
• Staying organized — Keeps multiple work products moving, coordinates timelines, and meets critical deadlines in a fast-paced environment.

DSHS partners with people to access support, care, and resources. See why people like you chose careers at WA State Department of Social and Health Services.

Interested? Please list 3 professional references’ current contact information on your application and include your current resume and a letter of interest explaining how your knowledge, skills, and abilities qualify you for this role.

Questions? Please contact the Recruiter, Jenny, at bastrjl@dshs.wa.gov or 360-725-5810 and reference #07315. Learn more about DSHS.

Prior to a new hire, a background check including criminal record history may be conducted. Information from the background check will not necessarily preclude employment but will be considered in determining the applicant's suitability and competence to perform in the job. This announcement may be used to fill multiple vacancies. Employees driving on state business must have a valid driver's license. Employees driving a privately owned vehicle on state business must have liability insurance on the privately owned vehicle.

Washington State Department of Social and Health Services is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate in any area of employment, its programs or services on the basis of age, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity/expression, marital status, race, creed, color, national origin, religion or beliefs, political affiliation, military status, honorably discharged veteran, Vietnam Era, recently separated or other protect­ed veteran status, the presence of any sensory, mental, physical disability or the use of a trained dog guide or service animal by a person with a disability, equal pay or genetic information. Persons requiring accommodation in the application process or this job announcement in an alternative format may contact the Recruiter at (360) 725-5810. Applicants who are deaf or hard of hearing may call through Washington Relay Service by dialing 7-1-1 or 1-800-833-6384.

Relationship and Reporting Structure (Nepotism) Disclosure: If you are selected for hire, you must disclose whether you have a relative, household member, close friend, or romantic partner within your potential supervisory chain of command. DSHS has a Relationships and the Reporting Structure policy that prohibits nepotism and can be reviewed here (Download PDF reader) (Download PDF reader) (Download PDF reader). Applicants whose appointment would result in a prohibited reporting relationship are not eligible for appointment to that position.

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