Coach of the Quarter – Terra Holt

Terra Holt, a Lead Appeals Specialist, is a leader who motivates, encourages, and pushes the team to learn and work at the highest quality. She is eager to come to work each day and consistently assists the team in reporting and meeting metrics. As a leader, Terra understands the power of teamwork and steps up to help if projects need extra work. Each week, she sends a message of appreciation to her team to show her appreciation for their hard work. Her department says it best "We are so lucky to have Terra as part of the Appeals Team.”

Process Improvement of the Quarter - Mail Machine Maintenance Log

The Augusta Document Control Center has over 18,000 pieces of outgoing correspondence monthly. It is critical that the mail machine is well-maintained to avoid any service interruptions.  Historically, a spreadsheet was used to track maintenance on the machine except when a field technician or associate performed the maintenance. The creation of the new maintenance log provided a method for anyone performing maintenance to record the information.  This process improvement provides a way for all maintenance to be recorded.

Team Members: Garrett Black, Myra Christian, Selena Haskins, John Sessions and Daniel Toson

Team of the Quarter – Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) Specialty Medicare Administrative Contract (SMAC) Benefit Integrity Team 

Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) Specialty Medicare Administrative Contract (SMAC) Benefit Integrity Team provides excellent work to protect the Medicare Trust Fund. During 2020, the benefit integrity team reviewed over 115 investigations equaling approximately 27,300 claim lines resulting in $1.5 million in program safeguard savings. The RRB SMAC Benefit Integrity Team also works extremely hard to meet departmental goals. They consistently collaborate and communicate to ensure team members are prepared and understand current tasks. Finally, this team strives to perfect its processes. In 2020 they implemented five process improvements, one of which was awarded the Process Improvement of the Quarter.

Team Members: Van Dixon, Taryn Herrmann, Tammy Keel, Ricky Newton, Janet Pleiman, Becki Stroud, and Debra Watson

Associates of the Month

January – Sara Kim

Sara Kim, a Customer Service Coordinator, takes pride in her job and strives to produce the highest quality services for her customers. Not only has she performed her normal duties assigned, but over the past several months, Sara has stepped up to assist Customer Service in taking calls for the COVID-19 Provider Enrollment hotline. Most recently, Sara has been involved in post-production testing of the Provider Transaction Access Number (PTAN) Tool Enhancement to ensure that the changes are performing as expected. Her knowledge of the Provider Enrollment process is vast and very helpful in testing the quality assurance of this major automation enhancement.

February – Janet Costello

Janet Costello is a committed Document Control Clerk, who began her career with Railroad Medicare in 1986. She is extremely organized and consistently demonstrates effective time management, resulting in zero unscheduled absences during the unprecedented COVID period. This positive work ethic has awarded her with a regular overall individual quality that exceeds the monthly 96%. She works well with her teammates and is quick to collaborate and complete her tasks so that all functional areas have no delay in accessing their work.

March – Ginevra Martel

Ginevra Martel, a Claims II Processor, is always willing to help in supporting other areas as well as tackling her task promptly. Ginevra has a wealth of knowledge in multiple functional areas of processing and is willing to take on additional tasks and learning opportunities to improve processes. According to her team, she has been an exceptional asset in clearing out the claims suspended in the Medicare Carrier System (MCS) Pricing Location 043.