ALLISON RUPP Star-Tribune staff writer | Posted: Friday, October 31, 2008 12:00 am
The Wyoming Women, Infants and Children program has updated its system to make it easier for clients to access their food benefits and for grocery stores to provide services to families.
Wyoming has utilized a paper-less system, which uses debit-like cards, for about 13 years, but starting today, women no longer have to separate their WIC order from the rest of their groceries, said Diane Johnson, regional nutritional supervisor for Natrona County WIC.
This system is more discrete, she said.
Before, a woman would have to separate her WIC items. Then the cashier would have to scan each WIC item twice and create a separate transaction for other groceries.
"A woman can now say, 'I can shop. I can use the program and not have anyone know I am using the program,'" Johnson said.
Wyoming WIC section chief, Janet Moran, said WIC targets a specific portion of the population.
"There's a stigma," Moran said. "We don't want people to feel bad for using the program. We are a program here to help."
WIC serves more than 1,700 women, infants and children in Natrona County and more than 12,000 across the state.
Moran said WIC worked with 89 retailers the past several years to implement the update to EBT, or the electronic benefits transfer, of WIC.
The state paid a private contractor to help develop a system, but it used ideas from Texas and New Mexico, which have already implemented the program, Moran said. She said the state should see some savings in the future because they no longer have to outsource the processing of these transactions to another agency.
The new cards also hold three months of benefits instead of only one, Johnson said. Before, a family would have to go to one of three chosen grocery stores to upload new benefits every month.
"We are one of the smallest WIC states, but we have some of the best technology," Johnson said.
Wyoming was the first state to begin delivering food benefits on debit-like cards in 1995. Currently, Wyoming is one of only a handful of states that has an electronic benefits WIC system.
WIC provides food items such as milk, cheese and eggs to pregnant women, post-partum women, infants and children up to age 5. For families to be eligible, income levels must be at or below 185 percent of the poverty level, which for a family of four is $41,070.
Contact health reporter Allison Rupp at (307) 266-0534 or allison.rupp@trib.com.