Lawmakers Question DHHS BridgeCard Portal’s Front‑end Checks, Seek Data on Verification and Fraud

The House Oversight Committee on State and Local Public Assistance Programs spent a hearing pressing the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) over how the BridgeCard application portal handles guest applications, identity verification and fraud detection.

Committee members raised concerns that the portal lets users start and even submit applications without entering Social Security numbers or other identity documents, and that some pages accept self‑attested answers that are checked only later in the process. DHHS officials said the system intentionally accepts partial or “guest” applications to avoid blocking applicants who lack phones, email addresses or regular internet access and that verification occurs later in the Bridges mainframe and by specialist staff.

The issue matters because the portal is the intake point for food and cash assistance that can be renewed over months or years and, lawmakers said, the front‑end design affects how much hands‑on follow‑up DHHS must perform and how quickly emergency benefits are issued.

Dwayne Haywood, senior deputy director of the Economic Stability Administration at DHHS, told the committee that guest applications are converted into the Bridges system and subjected to the agency’s verification processes before any benefits are issued. "Once it actually goes in as a guest, then it actually is transposed through the My Bridge system into the Bridges system, and then it drops for the actual verifications, the income. And so it goes through the entire...to get us to a actual, benefit.…