Case Study C03: Workers Compensation Recoup Productivity Review
Large NSW Agency
Situation
Workers Compensation recoup processing (getting payment from insurers) had previously been centralised from a number of regional centres. The centralisation had led to more errors and missing information, processing backlogs and an increase in staff required from 12 FTE regionally to 17.5 centrally.
Objective
- Reduce the level of missing information
- Eliminate as many errors as possible
- Decrease cycle times
- Improve productivity
- Reduce the staff requirement in Head Office
- Enhance staff satisfaction in the regional offices.
Method & Approach
We mapped the process from regional information input to central processing to the third party insurer. Our focus was on the activity at the Head Office as it was clear it held the most scope for improvement.
We visited central processing and a sample of regional offices and interviewed administrators, their managers, and their customers. We collected data from existing sources, databases, interview and observation. We then analysed the process and volume data and hotpoints gathered from our interviews.
Outcomes
In a single 5 day project we:
- Quantified savings of $1m pa ongoing (organisation constraints reduced realised savings)
- Identified unquantified savings of substantially more than $1m, from reduced staff cost, increased insurance reimbursement, eliminating unnecessary paper files, reduced repeat followup etc.
- Provided once-off savings of $250k
- Identified quarterly reconciliation losses of $800K ($3.2m pa)
- Provided a topline one year Return on Investment of 33:1 for annual savings