Workers’ Compensation for DHS Customs and Border Protection

Accelerating Claims Processing Saves $5 Million

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency was having a difficult time processing Workers’ Compensation (WC) claims across their workforce of 56,000 employees, including Border Patrol agents, officers, aircraft pilots, agriculture specialists, trade specialists, mission support staff, and canine enforcement officers.

It was taking an average of 14 days to manually process a WC claim, and the backlog was on the rise. Administrators in the WC Program Office had grown accustomed to tracking individual WC cases using printed spreadsheets, but CBP employees spent too much time handling hardcopy documents and walking paperwork from office to office.

CBP needed to identify and implement a case management software solution to streamline the WC process, reduce the number of days required to process a claim, and trim overhead.

Reforming a Paper-Based Workers' Compensation Program Process

Around the same time, President Obama established the Protecting Our Workers and Ensuring Reemployment (POWER) initiative aimed at guiding and improving the collection and analysis of WC claims data. The POWER initiative set forth aggressive performance targets, and prioritized safety and health management programs. Going forward, all federal agencies would receive quarterly grades based on their ability to meet objectives set forth in the initiative, so in addition to needing a complete system and process update, CBP was now required to meet stringent goals as specified by the Obama administration.

The CBP team soon located and implemented a Workers’ Compensation application based on Tyler’s Application Platform.

Rapid Implementation Becomes a Reality

CBP conducted extensive market research, evaluating numerous case management and Business Process Management (BPM) vendors in the process. Ultimately, CBP selected Tyler’s Workers’ Compensation application and had it up and running in less than two months.

CBP chose Tyler’s Workers’ Compensation application for three main reasons:

• Past performance: Tyler’s Application Platform powers case management applications for more than 200 federal agencies
• Built-in best practices: As a pre-configured solution, the Worker’s Compensation application met 80% of CBP’s needs out of the box — the remaining 20% were quickly accomplished via rapid configuration
• Accelerated implementation: Workers’ Compensation application deployed in less than two months

With best practices, business rules, and terminology built right in, from the outset CBP was able to focus on the creation of CBP-specific forms, terminology, data structures, and workflows — quickly and easily configuring the solution to suit their needs. And, because the platform is continuously configurable, CBP is able to adapt their solution as federal requirements evolve.

Transforming the Workflow Process

The application implementation radically improved how CBP processes 10,000 annual WC claims. CBP employees who get injured on the job can now file claims from any internet-connected computer. Once a claim is filed, it is automatically assigned to a WC practitioner and the case management workflow is set in motion. After an online review and approval process, claims are automatically submitted to the Department of Labor (DOL) Office of Workers’ Compensation (OWCP). The Workers’ Compensation application allows CBP to communicate with the DOL via an automatic data feed, facilitating real-time data transmission. The application sends and receives Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) messages to the DOL system hosted at OWCP, automatically ensuring compliance with DOL Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) reporting requirements.

Tyler provided CBP with a full suite of services to assist with the launch of this critical project, including project management, requirements analysis, data migration, software configuration, testing, training, and application hosting services. In addition, designated CBP employees are empowered to make ongoing changes to the system, as needed. The CBP system operates on a SQL Server database, and is hosted in Tyler’s Cloud PaaS environment.

Agency Benefits and Federal Recognition

The benefits have been transformational. The Tyler application has enabled CBP to:

• Reduce the waiting period for supervisors receiving a reply back on submitted claims from two weeks to two days (or fewer)
• Achieve a 5:1 return on investment within the first 12 months of implementation
• Realize a $5M savings thanks to case management and information transparency
• Accomplish annual adherence to POWER initiatives
• Gain satisfaction among all stakeholders by including them in an iterative implementation process, and by making the system user-friendly

Tyler Technologies provided CBP with a web-based, configurable platform that accelerated claims processing and enabled critical adherence to federal initiatives. CBP’s implementation eliminated nearly two weeks from the claims processing timeline, streamlined the overall WC claims process, and positively affected CBP’s 56,000 employees — and CBP couldn’t be happier.