Your national officers and the Compensation Department are pleased to announce that the NALC Injury Compensation CD is now available.

Although the National Association of Letter Carriers has absolutely no legal obligation to represent letter carriers in their OWCP claims, the union often volunteers to assist those injured letter carriers who are members of the NALC in good standing. The NALC Injury Compensation CD has been developed to assist letter carriers navigate the bureaucratic process and to provide a reference guide to assist with the processing of claims.

The CD manual consists of easy-to-understand information about making a claim, receiving all benefits, the return to work process and other topics relating to your OWCP claim. You will also find an extensive appendix that contains links to the FECA, the Code of Federal Regulations, OWCP manuals and pamphlets, USPS manual sections dealing with workers' compensation, OWCP forms and relevant NALC contractual materials (including national level settlements and both regional and national arbitration decisions). The CD is completely searchable and contains many links that will take you to additional information on the topic selected.

Members may purchase the CD from the NALC Supply Department for $10. Call 202-662-2873 or write to: Supply Department, National Association of Letter Carriers, AFL-CIO, 100 Indiana Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20001-2144.

Workers' Compensation and the USPS Transformation Plan

The general purpose of addressing workers' compensation in the Transformation Plan is to reduce costs to the Postal Service for injuries that are sustained on the job. The Transformation Plan states that there are specific issues under FECA that are contributing to their escalating compensation costs:

1. The Postal Service's inability to contact the employee's medical provider by phone.
2. The fact that there is no waiting period before wage-loss compensation is paid for traumatic injuries.
3. They believe that compensation rates are too generous. They propose only one rate (66 2/3%).
4. The Postal Service contends that compensation should not be a lifetime benefit. At retirement age, compensation should be adjusted to a tax-free amount equal to what a retiree would receive.
5. Medical costs are not adequately controlled by fee schedule.

They are proposing five "sub-strategies" to achieve these goals.

Sub-strategy 1: Expand the Preferred Provider Organization Program with First Health and Office of Workers' Compensation Programs. We announced in previous articles, and on the website, that the Postal Service was undertaking a pilot program with First Health to save money on medical expenses relating to workers' compensation claims. This proposal would expand the pilot from its current locations and enact it nationwide. First Health pays medical providers at agreed upon rates that are usually substantially lower than what OWCP would allow through their bill payment system. This savings is filtered back to the Postal Service.

Sub-strategy 2: Move all Federal Employees' Compensation Act recipients to FECA annuity at age 65. The plan states: "Employees who receive benefits through the FECA program will receive 66 2/3 percent or 75 percent of their basic salary, the latter for employees with a dependent. This tax free salary is extremely generous and in many instances equates to as much as 25 percent more than what the employee would receive for a comparable OPM retirement through one of the government programs. The annual compensation cost of living adjustments that are added each year to an employee on total injury disability rewards someone who stays out on compensation versus returning to work." The Postal Service is proposing a FECA managed retirement program that would calculate benefits similar to those of a normal retirement for all present and former employees over age 65 on the compensation rolls of OWCP. What this means is that once an injured worker reaches age 65, his/her compensation benefits would be recalculated from the 66 2/3% or 75% level to a figure that would more closely mirror their earned retirement benefits.

Sub-strategy 3: Encourage the Office of Workers' Compensation Programs to revise current regulations to allow for direct contact with the treating physician by the employing agency. In January 1999 OWCP amended their regulations to prevent agency personnel from contacting an employee's treating physician directly (by phone and/or in person). The Postal Service is looking to regain that right in order to explain limited duty assignments and offer options to accommodate employees. The Postal Service believes that changing this current regulation would ensure that postal managers initiated close monitoring of employees' physical condition and it would allow early worker's compensation program specialists' intervention to assist the employee in a speedy return to the work environment.

Sub-strategy 4: Private sector outplacement of Injured Postal Service employees and the creation of new internal positions to accommodate injured workers. The goals of this strategy are to successfully implement, with OWCP, an accelerated private sector placement program that reduces the amount of time necessary for an outplacement from up to two years to less than one year, and to reduce the number of postal employees in non-productive rehabilitation assignments by placing them in private sector employment.

Sub-strategy 5: Interagency work cooperation to attain organizational objectives. The Postal Service believes that cooperation must exist between them and the OWCP, especially as it relates to the timely processing of compensation claims and medical bills. The Postal Service wants to work with OWCP in developing joint strategies to achieve both agency's objectives and not at each other's expenses. The goal is to have all claims paid in a timely manner, while performing quality checks to prevent the duplicate payment of medical bills.

The National Association of Letter Carriers will continue to monitor the progress of these strategies and will provide you with as up to date information as is possible.

OWCP implements a centralized mail process

OWCP is implementing a new process for handling mail for each of their District Offices. They have created one central mail room to service the entire country. The central mail room contractor has the capacity to rapidly scan large volumes of documents and create quality images. They system will route these imaged documents to the appropriate District Office and directly to the assigned responsible claims examiner for review. The paper submitted will never return to the District Office. It is anticipated that this system will actually assist the mail in reaching the responsible claims examiner quicker than through the existing methods. The possibility of misplacing mail or filing it in the wrong case file will be greatly diminished.

A notice will be sent to all letter carriers who have active claims on a staggered basis. The new address for all mail submitted by injured employees nationwide is:

U.S. Department of Labor
Federal Employees' Compensation
PO Box 8300
London, KY 40742-8300

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CA-14 Revised / Replaces Notification Postcard

As part of their new communication initiative, OWCP has revised the process for notifying claimants of their entitlements and claim number. The CA-14 pamphlet will replace the normal postcard notification system.

When an injured employee files a CA-1 or CA-2 for an on-the-job injury, they will no longer receive a little green postcard with OWCP's address and the claim number assigned to their claim. They will now receive a blue pamphlet that outlines all the benefits associated with the Federal Employees' Compensation Act. The claim number will be printed on the pamphlet.

Please retain this pamphlet for your records and do not simply dispose of it once read.

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Telephone Inquiries

OWCP has announced that they have launched two new initiatives. The first is a toll-free national Call Center and the other is a toll-free automated Interactive Voice Response system.

The Call Center is intended for use mainly by injured employees who have general questions about their rights and responsibilities when filing a workers' compensation claim. Customer Service Representatives will provide answers to frequently asked questions about claims under the FECA, as well as referral information on the new Central Interactive Voice Response system, the program's web site (new address: www.dol.gov/dol/esa/dfec.htm) and the district offices. Callers will also be able to request single copies of commonly used forms from the Call Center.

The Call Center personnel will not be able to address any case specific questions, such as claims status, bill payments, lost wage claims or medical authorizations. They will refer the caller to their claims examiner at the district office for those types of detail.

Information is available in both English and Spanish. The telephone numbers are 1-866-999-3322 (voice) and 1-877-889-5627 (TTY), and the lines are staffed from 8 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday.

The Call Center is being made available in four phases by groups of states corresponding to district office jurisdictions. This method was chosen to allow for adjustments in service levels that may be required if the projected numbers of calls is considerably greater or less than anticipated. The schedule, which will be accelerated if major adjustments are not needed, is as follows:

Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Chicago: June 25
San Francisco: August 20
Jacksonville and Seattle: October 1
Cleveland, Kansas City, Denver, and Dallas: December 10

Callers from states where the Call Center is not yet available will hear a "blocking message". This message will refer them to the Central Interactive Voice Response system for the kinds of information that may be obtained there, and also refers them to the program's web site for detailed general information about claims processing. The caller is advised to call the district office for information that cannot be obtained from either of those sources. The Call Center does not have telephone lines connecting it to the district offices. For this reason, it cannot transfer or connect calls, and all calls to the district office will remain toll calls.

The Interactive Voice Response is a completely automated system that provides case-specific information about established claims. It is intended for use mainly by injured employees and medical providers. The information available includes case status, compensation payments, reimbursement of medical treatment and travel expenses, payment of medical bills and authorization of medical treatment such as physical therapy and diagnostic testing. The Central Interactive Voice Response system is available to all callers across the country. The telephone number is 1-866-OWCP-IVR. For the time being, callers may continue to call the district office IVR numbers if they wish to do so, but those are not toll-free calls.