Happenings
Division 10 Honors Outstanding Associates for Q1
Associate of the Month — January
Quantra Smith
A provider file specialist II in Provider Enrollment and Division 10 January Associate of the Month, Quantra Smith works diligently to ensure documents are indexed correctly and sent to the appropriate department in a timely manner. She is detail-oriented and consistently produces high-quality work.
Recently, Quantra went beyond what is required to help a Document Control associate understand how to split large documents submitted by providers. To assist, Quantra sent examples and followed up with them to ensure they understood and were able to complete the task. Known for being team oriented and collaborative, Quantra steps up to motivate colleagues during difficult periods ensuring work gets done and group goals are achieved.
Associate of the Month — February
Susan Gonnella
After 31 years with Palmetto GBA, Susan Gonnella, a change order analyst for the Change Management Organization (CMO), is an expert on the Quality Management System (QMS) and the Enterprise Electronic Change Information Management Portal (ECHIMP). The CMO team uses ECHIMP daily to complete processes that are critical to meeting contract deadlines set by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). On March 10, ECHIMP became extremely slow. Susan took immediate action to address the issue. In addition to helping with the system repair and testing, she determined that the event was the result of a program release to ECHIMP. Susan then helped CMS with the application updates to correct the system-wide issue.
Process Improvement of the Quarter
Modified Field to Allow Alphanumeric Characters
Team members: Kiran Adluru, Phabian Barrett, George Brooks, Honey Comer, Ragha Dandamudi, Brenda David, Kevin Donahue, Elaine Hensley, Chetana Honnarayanahalli, Rodney King, Pamela Patterson, Jenelle Wright-Thomas
The Competitive Bidding Implementation Contractor (CBIC) Department receives many written messages, mostly through email, about medical equipment and supplies. Each message is entered into a database and assigned a document control number (DCN). If the message arrives as an email, the database assigns a DCN comprised of numerals and the capital letter “I” as the sixth character. The data is then transferred to another computer program that tracks the messages but will only track numerals. As a result, staff had to manually change every “I” to a “1,” which took about two minutes for each document. Any inadvertent keying errors could result in an additional ten-minute repair.
This team of associates collaborated to change the computer program to accept DCNs with letters, eliminating the need for manual changes. As a result, staff spent roughly 14 fewer hours each month making manual changes to DCNs. In recognition of the improved efficiency and cost savings, this team has been awarded the Process Improvement of the Quarter award.
