Case Study: Florida Division of Emergency Management achieves verified COVID-19 time tracking and fraud prevention with Merit

Time-tracking for Florida’s award-winning COVID-19 vaccination program

The Florida Division of Emergency Management faced the challenge of efficiently and safely tracking shift records for thousands of medical professionals across its COVID-19 testing and vaccination sites. This was critical to prevent fraudulent claims and to ensure complete documentation for full FEMA reimbursement, as their previous paper-based and patchwork systems were ineffective for a crisis of this scale. They partnered with Merit to implement its verified identity platform to address this need.

Merit's solution digitally processed staff registration, verified medical credentials, and tracked hours worked in real-time. This partnership supported over 103 sites, tracking more than 850,000 hours and 114,000 shifts. By capturing actual shift data, Merit eliminated fraudulent charges and provided the gapless documentation needed to expedite federal reimbursement. The state agency was subsequently named a StateScoop 50 Award winner for “State IT Innovation of the Year.”

Florida Division of Emergency Management

Kevin Guthrie

Director