Congressional Budget Justification - Retirement and Insurance Service 3

	U.S. Office of Personnel Management Congressional Budget Justification

U.S. Office of Personnel Management

Congressional Budget
Justification

RIS Goal 12:		Significantly enhance the Federal Benefits home page on OPM's Web site. Provide retirement and insurance forms, pamphlets, handbooks, booklets and reference materials that can be downloaded, and where necessary, provide links to the Social Security and Thrift Savings Plan Web sites.
	•	Continue developing and maintaining the existing electronic library of automated RIS forms templates, and offer them on OPM’s Web site. Use secure Internet technologies to address privacy concerns, and allow the transmission of data and service requests to OPM via the Internet.
	•	Continue to develop expert systems to aid personnel officers in guiding employees and making determinations affecting all areas of benefits administration.
	•	Enhance the Benefits Center CD-ROM and develop additional expert systems that can be accessed directly by employees and the public through the OPM Web site, and that explain benefits issues.
	•	Continue to use technology to make current benefits information more readily available to benefits officers, personnel officers, employees, annuitants and the general public. Carrying out OPM's leadership role with regard to the full range of benefits, continue to include and integrate information available from the Social Security Administration and the Thrift Savings Plan.

	•	OPM customer assessments indicate agency personnel find that training and informational materials are improved and have greater utility.

RIS Goal 13:		Continue to support agency personnel in the administration of the earned benefit program services for active Federal employees.
	•	Conduct the Ninth Annual Benefits Officers Conference, continuing to expand the attendance to include more regional and field office staff. Continue the pre-conference training and workshops to improve agency Benefits Officers’ and personnel officers' understanding of various aspects of benefits administration.
	•	In FY 1999, utilizing the experience gained with the FY 1998 Fall Festival of Training, provide agency benefit counselors with an expanded array of workshops designed to increase their knowledge and counseling skills.
	•	Use results of OPM customer assessments to establish performance measurement baselines for OPM support to the agencies in the earned benefits area.
	•	Develop performance measures and target levels for service delivery and customer satisfaction with agency retirement counseling.

	•	Measures will be developed during FY 1999 based on analysis of customer input..

OPM Strategic Plan Goal IV:
deliver high quality, cost-effective human resources services to federal agencies, employees, annuitants and the public.

FY 1999 Resource Summary:

Obligations (000): $82,531

Full-Time Equivalents: 904

By the year 2002, earned benefit programs customers will (a) be paid the right amount on the day payment is due, and (b) receive responses to their inquiries and service requests that are accurate and that meet or exceed their expectations.

RIS
Goal 14:

Maintain at FY 1998 levels, customer satisfaction, processing times, and accuracy rates pertinent to processing new claims for annuity and survivor benefits.

•

Process as many claims as possible at OPM's entry point in Boyers, PA, to save time and minimize handling.

•

Continue working with agencies to maintain and increase their participation in submitting retirement information in an electronic format that can be read into OPM's annuity payment systems.

•

Continue to streamline work processes when such opportunities occur in order to reduce claims processing times and improve processing accuracy.

•

Reduce claims processing error rates by providing increased training in workplace competencies.

PROCESSING ANNUITY CLAIMS - PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

Outcome Indicators	FY 1995	FY 1996	FY 1997	FY 1998	FY 1999
** Customers who received their first payment either before or when they expected.	73%	74%	78%	78%	80%
** Annuitants who indicate overall satisfaction with the handling of their retirement claims	88%	92%	90%	90%	90%
Output Indicators	FY 1995	FY 1996	FY 1997	FY 1998	FY 1999
Interim Payment Processing Time	7 Days	5 Days	5 Days	4 Days	4 Days
CSRS Annuity Processing Time	70 Days	42 Days	39 Days*	35 Days	30 Days
CSRS Annuity Claims Accuracy	5.9%*	5.7%*	6.0%*	4.0%*	4.0%*

* Data taken from Quality Assurance Reviews
** Data is collected through annual Client Satisfaction Surveys of new and continuing annuitants

PROCESSING DEATH CLAIMS – PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
Outcome Indicators	FY 1995	FY 1996	FY 1997	FY 1998	FY 1999
Survivor annuities authorized via "Survivor Express Pay"	36%	48%	62%*	62%	65%
Survivor Express Processing Time	13 Days	7 Days	5 Days*	4 Days	4 Days
Overall Survivor Pay Processing Time	38 Days	21 Days	11 Days*	10 Days	10 Days
CSRS Death Claims Accuracy	0.0%*	5.7%*	8.2%*	8.0%*	8.0%*

* Data taken from Quality Assurance Reviews

RIS
Goal 15:

Maintain at FY 1998 levels, customer satisfaction with RIS teleservices and the timeliness of written responses to inquiries.

•

Continue offering customers access to retirement information and services via toll-free telephone lines and continue expanding services provided by the Teleservice Center in Pittsburgh, PA.

•

Give callers the option of using an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system to change Federal or state tax withholdings, purchase Savings Bonds, request forms and pamphlets, verify income, life insurance or survivor information, request replacement ID cards, or elect to speak with a Customer Service Specialist in person.

•

Evaluate weekly performance reports from new IVR technology installed during FY 1998 and those from the new Pittsburgh call center to revise performance baselines, set new performance goals, and develop new performance measures for the teleservice activities.

•

Improve communications with customers by deploying the new "Explanation of Benefits" booklet with clearer, more detailed and personalized information about their retirement, health and life insurance benefits at the time of their first annuity payment.

•

Improve the accuracy and professional appearance of complex correspondence while reducing staff effort by developing additional PC-based "smart" letters that can be tailored to meet different fact patterns, and personalized by retrieving information from selected databases.

•

Give all customer service staff access to, and enhance, the Graphical User Interface (GUI) to RIS' mainframe master records systems to provide faster, more accurate responses to telephone inquiries.

•

Continue to implement the Customer Service Specialist standards that include positive requirements for courtesy and responsiveness. Recruit applicants using screening devices measuring their interest, motivation and ability with regard to providing superior customer service.

ANSWERING RETIREMENT INQUIRIES - PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

Outcome
Indicators

FY 1995

FY 1996

FY 1997

FY 1998
Initiative

FY 1999
Projected

Callers who got through
on first attempt

31%

29%

39%

40%

45%

Overall Satisfaction with
Call Handling

78%

81%

89%

90%

Outcome
Indicators

FY 1995

FY 1996

FY 1997

FY 1998
Initiative

FY 1999
Projected

Overall Satisfaction with:

	— Content — Timeliness
of Written Responses

80%
71%

73%
70%

78%
76%

80%
80%

85%
85%

Output
Indicators

FY 1995

FY 1996

FY 1997

FY 1998 Initiative

FY 1999
Projected

% of Priority Correspondence Answered w/in 8 Days

93%

89%

92%

95%

% of Regular Correspondence Answered w/in 15 Days

96%

93%

87%

95%

RIS
Goal 16:

Continue to increase the volumes of customer service requests and account maintenance services handled through the telecommunications media, reduce the balances of account maintenance workloads, and maintain at FY 1998 levels, customer satisfaction with these services and the accuracy and timeliness with which they are processed.

•

Continue to modernize sub-systems used to process service requests. Integrate these improvements with existing automated systems.

•

Give all customer service staff access to, and enhance, the Graphical User Interface (GUI) to RIS' mainframe master records systems to provide faster, more accurate access to sub-systems used to process service requests.

•

Give callers the option of using an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology to change Federal or state tax withholdings, purchase Savings Bonds, request forms and pamphlets, verify income, life insurance or survivor information, and request replacement ID cards.

MAINTAINING THE ANNUITY ROLL - PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
Outcome Indicators	FY 1995	FY 1996	FY 1997	FY 1998 Initiative	FY 1999 Projected
Customers either very or generally satisfied with overall account maintenance services	77%	79%	89%	90%	90%
Output Indicators	FY 1995	FY 1996	FY 1997	FY 1998 Initiative	FY 1999 Projected
Number of Account Maintenance Transactions Handled by IVR Technology	N/A	107,445	173,043	Increase by 20%	Maintain at FY 98 Level
Processing Time and Error Rates for Address Change Requests	1.2 Days 0.9%	3.3 Days 4.1%	4.7 Days 0.1%	4.5 Days 0.0%	4.0 Days 0.0%
Processing Time and Error Rates for LI Enrollment Change Requests	95 Days 0.0%	No Data Available	49.5 Days 0.6%	30 Days 2.0% Errors	30 Days 2.0% Errors

By the year 2002, begin deploying a modern retirement system that fully automates a redesigned retirement process including retirement counseling, trust fund and financial management, and claims processing.

— By the year 1998, validate business requirements of the retirement programs based on input from Federal agencies and other stakeholders.

— By the year 1999, based on analysis of business requirements, develop alternative "Concepts of Operations" for modernized system and define system modules (i.e., retirement counseling, trust fund and financial management, claims processing, etc.).

— From 1999 through the year 2002, based on Concepts of Operation, develop and deploy technology solutions to defined modules consistent with OPM's Information Technology technical architecture

Page Updated 13 June 1998