|
Notable Accomplishments
- The HRC answered 1,860,360 First Party calls, 857,240 Health Benefit calls and 1,642,667 Pharmacy Customer Care calls. The Outreach departments contacted over 41,110 Veterans for a total of more than 4.4 million calls handled to assist our nations Veterans in FY11.
- In FY11, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) embarked on a major initiative to reach out to women Veterans in order to solicit their input on ways to enhance the health care services VA provides to women Veterans. In support of this approach, the Women Veterans Contact Center (WVCC) was established as part of the Contact Management (CM) department within the Health Resource Center (HRC). Launched in June 2011, WVCC specializes in providing contact management services and support to our nation’s women Veteran population.
- In FY11, the Health Resource Center began utilizing Pay.gov, a new web-based payment option for Veterans to satisfy medication and/or copayment obligations. The HRC completed this 1 ½ year initiative to rollout the service nation-wide to all facilities in May 2011. Pay.gov resulted in $32.2 million in total payments to the VA by the end of FY11.
- The HRC rolled out the functionality of granting a Veteran caller a Debt Management Center (DMC) Lesser Amount when a Veteran receives a letter announcing intent to offset their VA income. If a Veteran would suffer hardship from a complete offset, the HRC will set the Veteran up with a “lesser amount” to be deducted in time steps from the VA payment s/he receives. On average, almost 200 Veterans are provided immediate relief each week, due to implementation of the program. For those Veterans on a limited VA Pension, this enables them to continue to receive a portion of their benefits while still paying their obligation to the VA. Additionally, the HRC added the Suspended Bills option, which prevents disputed charges from appearing on a Veteran’s statement until resolution has occurred.
- The Health Resource Center began taking calls to assist the caregivers of disabled Veterans in support of the VA Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers program.
- Emailing fulfillments allows Veterans to receive requested/needed VA forms from the HRC via email. Prior to implementation, all fulfillments were mailed to Veterans. This enhancement reduces the time it takes for a Veteran to receive needed VA forms and ensures the form is the most recent version available. The innovation also reduces cost to the HRC by reducing manpower and postage. During this same period, the HRC rolled out a system of printing, folding and inserting bar-coded and presorted print fulfillments that take advantage of all presort postage discounts. These enhancements reduced the number of forms ordered from the VA by over 75% and saved the HRC and taxpayers $22,746.89 within the first three months.
- HRC payroll added 2 additional Consolidated Patient Account Centers (CPACs) and the Health Eligibility Center (HEC) to their consolidated payroll operations. HRC Payroll now supports HRC, CBO-WFM and 18 additional Stations, totaling over 5,000 employees from HRC’s Topeka office.
- Over the past several years, the Health Resource Center has achieved significant success with their Continuous Process Improvement/Lean Six Sigma (CPI/LSS) programs. In FY11, the HRC reduced call handle time by 34 seconds per call; the equivalent of eight full-time contact representatives. Additionally, the HRC realized a cost savings of $287,000 annually by reducing the number of First Party Assist Line calls.
- In June 2011, the HRC participated in the nationwide VA2K - Employee Health and Veteran Homelessness initiative and contributed more than $8,000 in cash and goods donations towards Veteran homelessness.
- In 2012, the HRC placed 2nd overall in the VA-wide employee wellness program “In it to Win it” Weight Loss Challenge.
|
|
