Change brings challenges and rewards for our Coach of the Quarter

Susan Henry was promoted to Accounting Supervisor just before the pandemic. Along with her new duties she had to oversee the department’s transition to a work from home environment requiring significant changes to our processes.

Many of our vendors and internal customers relied on paper documents and check payments. Under Susan’s leadership, we transitioned them to provide documentation electronically. Susan took this transition a step further to utilize iFlow, our workflow and documentation system, to house and organize the new files. Research can now be conducted within minutes.

Susan’s “out of the box” thinking helped improve processing, verification and disbursement of payments to vendors. Her goal to encourage vendors to the use Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) payments succeeded with approximately 95 percent now using EFT disbursements.

Susan promotes professional growth by encouraging online course participation for her staff. She recognizes associate’s strengths and utilizes each to achieve department goals. This approach has added confidence to the team and earned Susan Coach of the Quarter honors.

CFO Reporting /Financial Processing team is up to the challenge

The CFO Reporting team is responsible for critical duties in the Finance and Accounting Division. In the fourth quarter of 2020 the team did not miss a single cutoff release resulting in billions of dollars in timely payments to Medicare providers. This year, the team not only managed these normal payments but also issued more than 8,000 uploads for the COVID-19 Accelerated/Advanced Payments (CAAP) Relief activities initiated due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They revamped quality control protocols for these special documents and conducted daily and weekly reporting for CAAP activities. Despite the increased workload the CFO Reporting team remained on track and met all of its 252 external key measures. This was possible due to the team member’s attention to detail.

The CFO Reporting /Financial Processing team is the last step for keying, accuracy and process completion. This team is often the go-to area for complex inquiries and steps in to help other teams when urgent items are needed. Last year, with the Debt Management System (DMS), they answered more than 9,000 requests and met their Quality Control Key Measure.

Even while working remotely, the team came together to participate in giving to the Families Helping Families holiday drive. Their support of each other, other departments and people outside the organization who need a helping hand is the reason this group was awarded Team of the Quarter honors.

Team members:
Kasha Bells, Zack Dedonis, Jessica DelCastillo Adrien DePace, Yuliya Fida, Sean Garrett, , Shanika Goggans, Omar Haygood, Hunter Jones, Yolanda Lawson, Lexi Neely, Payne Robertson, Savannah Tolonese, Jesse Tribbey, Troy West, Ericka Young

Research Automation of Part B New Notification Document Control Number (DCN) in iFlow earns Process Improvement of the Quarter

The Finance Appeals staff is tasked by CMS with stopping recoupment on demanded 935 debt that is appealed within 8 business days. Due to the extremely large volume of appeals that are received daily that include non-overpayment and overpayment cases, it is very hard to identify overpayments since providers are not required to include the overpayment information in their appeal submissions. To reduce or eliminate missing cases, a new process was created comparing the beneficiary number to ones included in our accounts receivable ending balance report to ensure the overpayment was identified and worked properly. The ending balance report is generated daily from the Healthcare Integrated General Ledger Accounting System (HIGLAS).

To reduce research time, a series of steps or queries was added to reduce the number of cases that required manual viewing of submitted documents. The ending balance report includes pertinent information for each account receivable. By tracking the individual cases and creating a systematic comparison of the provider provided information as it is indexed to the ending balance report, the staff was able to greatly reduce the amount of manual research required by eliminating cases that have non-matching criteria.

Team Members:
Melissa Carpenter, Tyler Pearre and Thomas Sorrells

Associates of the Month

October – Staci Peed
Staci Peed, Accountant III, always volunteers to help others and to brainstorm new ideas that make our jobs easier. Staci has stepped in to assist with projects including testing and system changes, updating Healthcare Integrated General Ledger Accounting System (HIGLAS) in response to COVID-19 payments and balancing the first required CMS Contractor’s Monthly Bank Reconciliation Worksheet for the Railroad Retirement Board Specialty Medicare Administrative Contractor.

November - Ericka Young
Ericka Young, Accountant I, is known for taking the initiative to help with new tasks and provide valuable input on ways to improve processes. Ericka consistently jumps in to help other teammates. In November she processed 754 Jurisdiction J A/B MAC documents and 350 Jurisdiction M A/B MAC documents in addition to her usual workload. For the COVID-19 Accelerated/Advanced Payments (CAAP), Ericka worked more than 1,100 requests including prescreening, consulting with providers, and processing of the payments.

December - Zachary Dedonis
Zack Dedonis, Accountant IV, was the force behind a successful start to administering COVID-19 Accelerated/Advanced Payments (CAAP). He quickly created a database for the Jurisdiction J M A/B MACs for a large amount of data from all potential payment recipients. Zack efficiently worked through multi end-user feedback and included a provider level checks. This led to an approximate 99% accuracy rate for more than 8,000 invoices. Enhanced system processes are the result of Zack’s attention to detail.