Happenings
Division 34 Recognizes Employees for Exceptional Performance
Coach of the Quarter: Santosh Kadukuntla
Santosh Kadukuntla, a senior developer in the Front-End Systems Department, knows that effective teamwork makes a difference. He notices when people need support and steps in to offer his assistance. His business and technical expertise make him a valuable resource for Java coding questions and design decisions.
Santosh has volunteered to be a mentor for many new team members. His positive, flexible and conscientious attitude has increased team productivity. He sacrifices his own time in support of his team members, Division 34 and Palmetto GBA overall. A positive role model for the team, Santosh demonstrates his commitment to the team’s success.
Examples of his many contributions: establishing test and defect standards, representing the team as member of the Development Engineering Practices Group (DEPG), resolving highly visible system issues, assisting with interviews across multiple teams and offering customer solutions for increased productivity and efficiency.
Associate of the Quarter: Paul Hudacko
With more than 30 years of operating systems experience, Paul Hudacko, an analyst in the eCommerce System Support Department, often acts as advisor to his teammates on many Unix low-level questions. He understands the need for continuous improvement, so he encourages his teammates to ask questions and raise concerns.
In addition to his exemplary efforts in supporting his team’s production environment high availability, Paul has worked closely with various application teams assisting, guiding and coaching the developers in their pipeline deployment onboarding efforts. Paul has played a crucial role in the ongoing migration of applications from Solaris to Red Hat Enterprises Linux platforms. He also has stepped in to assume key responsibilities for the IBM Liberty middleware product after a key member of the team transferred for a new opportunity.
Process Improvement of the Quarter:
Cost-Effective Solution for File Transfers
The Electronic Data Interchange and Competitive Bidding Implementation Contractor teams in the eCommerce Department devised a cost-effective, short-term solution that would allow one of their bidding systems to continue file transfer operations while they decommissioned a server that was running only one process. The solution allowed their system to continue receiving file transfers until the planned electronic funds transfer modernization is implemented.
Decommissioning the server will save $36,000 a year. The team’s solution eliminated the need for a new server and the associated labor costs. The result is a cost savings of $122,320.
Team members: Beau Bauerschmidt, Honey Comer, Akash Dewan, Stephanie Harvey, Chetana Honnarayanahalli, Ratna Meda, Ahamed Saklaen and John Serio
Management team members: Hal Bowles, Jamie Potteiger and Jenelle Wright-Thomas
Team of the Quarter:
Documentation Status Widget Team
A group of associates representing multiple departments—Provider Outreach and Education, Technical Operations, Medicare System Support, Medicare Statistical Analysis Department System, Part B Claims, iFlow and eServices—collaborated to enhance the eServices provider portal. They created a widget for the provider’s homepage that displays outstanding additional documentation requests (ADRs) that require their attention. The provider can quickly drill down to see the specific ADR letters requiring action. A second click generates a pre-filled response form they can submit with the requested information.
This innovation gives providers easy and immediate access to vital action items and helps to avoid denials and lengthy appeals.
Team members: Terry Austin, Mallikarjun Challamalla, Frances Hui, Bhavana Kakumanu, Melanie Lancaster, Mieorka Lites, Charles Offutt, Chiranjeevi Munaga, Mike Pritchard, Sudharani Parise, Jane Salter and Candice Rabon.
Management team member: Jason Autry, Lester Badillo, Robbie Cassel and Christine Radermacher
Special mentions: Bonnie Miller, Yoshiko White, Gayle Patterson and Krithika Ponna (contractor)
