In September, Lynne Kincaid retired as a Ramsey County employee, where she helped process Medicare — or Medicaid — applications for many years.

Medicaid helps people who are either elderly, low-income, or disabled afford health insurance.

RELATED: Ramsey County is seeing significant delays in Medicaid renewals

In late October, 5 EYE WITTNESS NEWS first reported that there was a delay in processing Medicaid applications and renewals.

At the time, a Ramsey County spokesman said there were about 500 people waiting more than 60 days to process their Medicaid applications and renewals.

Kincaid told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS she believes the number of people caught in arrears is “worse than that.”

“The problem is they don’t have enough workers to process these cases,” Kincaid said. “It’s unacceptable.”

Unacceptable, Kincaid said, because delays in processing claims mean patients can’t get prescriptions renewed and doctor appointments often have to be canceled.

In October, Susan Hill, a registered nurse, told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS she has five patients who have been caught waiting. Hill said they had to cancel doctor’s appointments and some didn’t even have their medications renewed.

“It’s the worst I’ve seen in 25 years,” Hill said.

A Ramsey County spokesman said there has been an increase in requests since the pandemic and staffing has been reduced. The county spokesman said they are hiring part-time employees from other counties and other workers are working overtime to try to catch up and ease the backlog.