Worker's were extremely rude and I was told they couldn't help. When I asked to talk to a supervisor the worker hung up on me. No way to talk to a live person it's an automated system that can have up to a 2 day callback wait. So your expected to do nothing but wait for them to call back.
They are the slowest health department ever. I was supposed to get test results from them. They told me three different days that I would have them. On that third day, they never called and then closed for the weekend. Waste of time. Better off going else where.
Was approved for food stamps and 2weeks later still don't have any. They all like and say they are doing it today, like everyday
I was on hold over 2 1/2 hrs then they hung up on me
A good bunch of hard working people trying to help those that need it and filter out the lazy that just want to live off the taxpayers. Keep up the good work!
Richard Opper should be jailed for fraud and embezzlement. Department provides scant services to those in need, and has nothing to show for all the money plowed into it.
called waited two hours they hung up on me and then i called again and made me to a callback automated and cant call me back till the 7th and my kids are gonna starve this month cause im out of work and did not recieve snap benefits for this month
Always friendly, very helpful. Never had to wait to long, but I get there before 11am. After my stroke they really helped me with getting Medicaid, And SNAP assistance.
A joke, they do not care about the corrupt practices of the government workers they employ. I hope the federal government pulls all funding for D.F.S! They put my kids in a home with a pedophile!
3hrs in the phone queue just to be told they are closing when I only had a question about medicaid. This may speak to poor staffing numbers, a small budget to hire more employees, or simple inefficiency. This is at the Flathead field office so can't speak for other areas but I think the number listed is the same.
Considering the troll who posted his only google review earlier insinuating that their job is to "filter out the lazy who want to live off taxpayers", doesn't inspire much confidence in where my tax dollars are going if that's the sentiment of the management but I doubt it is. The system in place qualifies or disqualifies a person for assistance based on income and other factors. But is not at all subjective or based on the opinions of the secretarial staff who are the front line helping applicants and recipients of aid by processing their paperwork and answering questions.
Tho from my experience there have been several workflow errors from staff years ago which may be managed better now. Such as losing any record of delivered pay stub copies, assigning case numbers of other individuals to your case on accident, miscalculating what programs a person qualifies for and then correctly adjusted after escalating to a regional manager. So in that aspect the staff has the potential to fudge your paperwork before it's sent on to the actual decision makers.
But dealing with the staff they are usually very polite and attempt to be as helpful as they can be even with a poor computer infrastructure and website issues. Tho we can't see behind the scene what goes on, I have not found them to be discriminatory or manipulative of the information they gather for application purposes. But I have been swapped from one catagory of coverage to another without any preliminary notification, which just means their system for auto delivering letters or notices and internal policies on how early they pre-emptively inform you could perhaps be looked at to at least be on par with the federal govs SSDA office.
Thru doing most of my own social work I have enough patience to sit thru a long queue while I work on other things. However I also have a legal aid whom has skipped most of the front end and resolved issues within days compared to the weeks it takes when you are just an elderly citizen whom can't travel and does most of their work via phone and computer. So that may be a better option for some.
There are people who take advantage of the system tho. But you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater so to speak. And personally I think overall medicaid and some of these programs help those of poorer socioeconomic backgrounds become elevated to be more productive. But when it comes down to it, it's just a political issue of how our tax dollars are being funded and managed. And any inefficiency in a tax funded agency such as this is accountable to the public. But the citizenry has to do more than just a google review to effect any positive change.
I give it a 3/5 because the staff I have spoken with on the phone have been genuine. Call backs are really good tho it comes from a different number so I never know if it's a telemarketer or not. Lost 2 stars because of the phone queue which didn't have an expedited option for quick general questions (you can't even push 0 to speak to someone and be transferred to a specialist if it's determined you need one), and didn't tell me what place in line I was until 2hrs into the call, the website repeatedly logging out, and the lack of informative pre-emptive letters of changes to a recipients policy and/or programs.
The people I have worked with at this office regarding my moms case have been. Rofessionsl, knowledgeable, responsive, And very pleasant to work with. I know they are in a very tough job where staffing levels are low and they manage to be patient and address all my questions. I can t praise them enough. Thus goes for the staff is the Billings office that I had the pleasure of meeting in person, as well the folks I reached on the phone. Thank you for your great work!!!
So...basically it seems, considering helenas population, and the excuse for underbudgeting/under staffing....haha no excuse ,government job or not ,....all these chicks just keep walking around,lazily laughing,and not really doing anything. ..really no suprise,it's gotta be so hard just to sit around all day...OFF THE TAX PAYERS MONEY,and do absolutely nothing aside from anticipating lunch......waist of our tax money to throw at our capital ,to what sit and wait while they.....????......litterly,the buildings empty and we've been here for at least a half n hour already....all the other complaints were about the automated phone lines....well if theyr automated then I don't understand why it takes so long?,you'd figure get em in get em out ....should be a policy....n passed by our house of reps....#bewhampshirelivefreeordie
Best time to get there is first thing in the morning...there will be little or no wait time. Staff is very efficient.
Could not ever get a human being on the phone so the service is actually a negative 5stars the whole computer system sucks
It's impossible to talk to somebody on the phone.so you're forced to go down there when it's open and you do have to wait forever. Now I don't know what you can do to talk to him and try and myself right now
We literally waited 2 hours and they helped two people ahead of us. I know its government work but come on work faster!
Got a call from them regarding my Mother-in-law, for whom I have power of attorney. Missed the call. Took quite a bit to finally get connected with them, but when I did, they were courteous and it went well.
This place is seriously a fn joke! You can't go down and actually talk with anyone, and they change times for callbacks just because they want to. If I didn't absolutely have to deal with them at all I wouldn't. They can fk around and do as they please with people's lives, but can't be bothered to deal with actual people. Their lives don't mean anything more than actual essential employees, so why do they get to skip out on half their job?
An absolute joke. Worthless to go in considering they give you peanuts.. 81 bucks.. and I make chump change...
Waited maybe an hour and they went ahead and for me in and out
dphhs.mt.gov
