(1) Speed up the adjudication of compensation cases, (2) Simplify the procedures and forms required for processing of claims (3) Enlarge and improve the efficiency of the staff of employees administering the program to expedite the decision and payment process; maintain the integrity of case files and correspondence: and make staff available to answer questions on policy and procedures and on status of claims. (4) Emphasize the preventive safety and health programs to reduce the on-the-job accidents and related illnesses. (5) Encourage District Office staff availability by authorization of staff travel to major installations, Mr. GAYDOS. If you wish to go over it, you may, or you may want to engage in a discourse generally and maybe we will accomplish more that way. It is up to you. Mr. GELLER. Perhaps I will choose the latter. I want to thank you for inviting our organization. Just to distinguish our group from the witness who previously testified, we represent Federal employees generally rather than in the Post Office. We are the oldest and largest independent organization. We are not affiliated. We represent about 150,000 Federal employees in various parts of the country, overseas, and in virtually every governmental agency. We appreciate the opportunity of being invited to speak on the subject to the Federal Employees' Compensation Act and primarily to discuss the difficulty in the administraiton of the program. I think there has been a tendency to fault the Office of Workers' Compensation, the Federal group, for their failure to promptly adjudicate claims. There seems to be a reluctance about the expansion of their staff. If my figures are correct, as I understand it there are approximately 200,000 injuries sustained by Federal employees over the year. There are approximately 400 to 500 employees in the Federal Compensation program. Mr. GAYDOS. How many employees? Mr. GELLER. Within 400 and 500 in the field that are working on the adjudication and processing of the claims. I do not know their particular breakout, but I would suspect that certainly not all of them are on the adjuication operation. There are a certain amount of administrative, clerical and financial employees, so that the people working on claims probably number no more than about 250. I think there are between 12 and 14 district offices around the country. Each of those district offices serve about four or five states. That is an enormous geographic dispersion for an office to cover. Mr. GAYDOS. Would you know offhand, about Pennsylvania specifically? We had a discrepancy as to some conclusions involving Pennsylvania. As I understand it, we do have in the State of Pennsylvania a processing office located in the City of Philadelphia. Mr. GELLER. That is correct, to my knowledge. It used to be located in Washington, D.C. In the movement to Philadelphia there was enormous confusion and the confusion continues. So that this is one of the causes of delay and confusion, loss of files, inadequacy of processing claims. I hasten to say that we, too, have found the administrators of the program to be sympathetic, well-motivated. They are not the sole organization at fault. We think Congress, the Office of Management and Budget,-- Mr. GAYDOS. Let me ask you how Congress is at fault? Mr. GELLER. Well, in not appropritaing sufficient funds for the proper adjudication of claims. There is a natural tendency-Mr. Le Fante, I am walking into the lion's den, being critical-but we do not want to enlarge the bureaucracy. Bureaucracy has an ugly connotation. There is a need for a competent and properly motivated staff within the Office of Workers' Compensation. We have been the victims of surly response or no response or delayed response. We think that an organization ought to be adequately staffed, properly trained, and have the opportunity to go out and investigate cases. We do not subscribe to the notion that there are any number of spurious claims. We, however, are very interested in that. We believe that the government, being a self-insurer, should have a program that is well-administered and it should be a model for the Workmen's Compensation programs in the various States and in the private sector. Mr. GAYDOS. May I interrupt there? I am glad you are summarizing your testimony because I think it is most beneficial, because we can then trade observations, and I am sure I will end up with a better understanding. Let's go back to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I am quite familiar with the Workmen's Compensation there. Having worked in the State Senate, I know its intricacies. I worked on appeals, which process has been subsequently changed. We used to handle the appeals from the referee's decision, et cetera. I may be prejudiced, but I think the statistics fortify what I am about to tell you. I thought it was a most expeditious handling of claims. I think the record speaks for itself. I think the referees, in disposing of the cases assigned to them, the Appellate Board, Compensation Comission, consisting of three people, which heard the appeals, and after that processing by the Supreme Court was most efficient. Having been intimately involved in it, I concluded it was the greatest system I had ever been exposed to as a lawyer and as a taxpayer. I thought it was fantastic. We had no difficulties. We had some enlargement of claims, I will have to admit, because of various time conditions, employment practices and things like that. But as a whole, when things increased, they increased in an orderly fashion and the adjustments were made. In total, I would have to tell you if someone asked me in good conscience to describe the workings of the Pennsylvania Workmen's Compensation Board, I would have to say it was close to being perfect. Now, why are we having so much difficulty? I do not think the budgetary problem, in comparison, is any greater or lesser than the Federal Government compared with what we offered at a State and local level. I do not think so. Why are we having so many problems? Mr GELLER. First on your premise, I think there is a difference in the number of people, although I must confess I do not know the size of the staff in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. However, there is more of an adverse relationship between a private employer and his employee. In the Federal Government, as you know, there were the 1974 amendments. They provided a 45-day continuation of pay Mr. GAYDOS. I hate to interrupt you. Right there, would it be your contention in your official position as legal counsel that prior to the 1974 amendments the thing was working after a fashion fairly well? Is that a proper statement to make? Mr. GELLER. No. There were built-in delays. I think the transition, because of the amendments, caused even greater delays. Mr. GAYDOS. But they were having trouble prior to 1974? Mr. GELLER. Yes. Mr. GAYDOS. OK. We have to understand this, because we are going to be bringing in these people. I would like to be able to be in a position to ask authentic questions based on fact, not fiction. You say there were problems before? Mr. GELLER. There were problems before, there were problems getting prompt adjudication. There has been poor organization within that agency. The forms are not as clear as they should be. The agencies are not as well-informed as they should be, that is the individual agencies. Of course, the amendments caused a special change, and there is no question there are more claims that are going to be filed. Mr. GAYDOS. Can I stop you there and ask another practical question? When we have the Administration people in, we will ask about the number of claims filed, how they are approved, who monitors progress, who does the processing and what part of the overall program the individual agency is responsible for. What I am asking you is: Is a large portion of the problem in how the information is distributed among the employees, what kind of information we have in pamphlets and whether or not agencies have sufficient personnel to advise and to respond immediately to inquiries in a particular place of employment? Who governs that? Are those agencies interdependent or dependent; do they have some affirmative type of action which they are supposed to be taking? Is it discretionary? Mr. GELLER. I think those are all very legitimate inquiries. I do not know as I have all of the answers, but I do know this: Typically in those activities or agencies where they have a safety officer, they have charged the safety officer with the responsibility for processing, making the initial processing of claims, and that has advantages and disavantages. There is a tendency on the part of the safety officer to have a conflict of interest. He would like to have a sign outside the activity saying this office or this plant has not had a lost-time injury in 436 days. So when he sees a claim coming across his desk, he wants to demonstrate that he has a very good safety program. So that I would rather urge that a person, perhaps in the personnel office, be very knowledgeable on the processing of claims. All too often the agency becomes involved in the processing of claims. I am not so sure, unless there is an acknowledgement of the claim, that the adjudication should be made by the Office of Workers' Compensation. There is a tendency to short-stop the claim. Mr. GAYDOS. May I ask you a question? Mr. GELLER. Yes. Mr. GAYDOS. At the the Navy Yard of Philadelphia, how many safety officers would be available there to the employees? I think they have roughly 5 or 10,000 employees there. We just saved them for a while. They are trying to eliminate them. Let's take the figure of 10,000 emloyees. How many safety officers would they have, roughly. Mr. GELLER. I doubt they would have more than two. Mr. GELLER. They would be out of the Navy budget. Probably at one time they were part of what they call the industrial relations office; I think they have been separated from the personnel operation and independent of it. Mr. GAYDOS. If they were to have a consultation program or educational program on safety, whose budget would that come out of up there in Philadelphia? Mr. GELLER. It would come out of their general budget. It might come out of the personnel budget, it might come out of their supoprt budget, but I do not think they have the earmarking that the Post Office does. Mr. GAYDOS. If we are going to have safety officers, all their programs, printed paraphernalia through Philadelphia Navy Yard, and from there to all other phases of Federal employment and things of that nature, we are talking about a pretty sizable amount of money and personnel out of various budgets. Give or take whether they be on an enlarged scale in the department or broken down individually, you have a lot of money you are talking about. Mr. GELLER. Right. I think it is money well-invested. I know there is the great concern for the costs involved. We are concerned about that. We want this program to be well-administered. We do not want any malingerers involved in the program. I think the way you are going to achieve it is by having an adequate and well-trained staff plus a good safety education program, but I do not have illusions about preventing all accidents. Accidents are inevitable. However, every effort should be made, and perhaps that is one of the great faults touched on in the prior testimony; the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has been ineffective in the Federal sector and the Federal Government should be the model employer. Anything the Federal Government imposes upon the private industry, they should assume at least the same responsibility for their employees, if not a greater responsibility. Mr. GAYDOS. There is a big distinction between having machinery and processes in existence ready to be utilized for the injured employee after the injury takes place and a program of expenditure for personnel, education, what have you, prior to an injury? Mr. GELLER. Yes. Mr. GAYDOS. There is a big distinction there, is there not? Mr. GELLER. There is, but these two programs should go on sideby-side. There will be benefits undoubtedly but I have reservations about the large number of claims that will be reduced. As was pointed out, the illnesses, quite apart from the injuries, are becoming much more exotic. We have become involved in cases of pneumoconiosis, hepatitis, and the causal relationship there can be a very complicated one. So we could not prophesy as to whether claims will go down dramatically. I suspect they will level off. I think a good educational program is needed. When a person is injured we think there has to be prompt assistance to that individual. Many times the pamphlets and the instructions are not remembered by the people, because you do not think about the problem until the injury occurs, unless there is an installation which has frequent occurrences of this type. So there must be at least one person who is knowledgeable on how to handle the initial stages of a claim, the processing of the first form. This is where the program bogs down. I think a good deal can be done if the adjudicators in the district offices get out to some of these installations, investigate some of the cases. I do not know how you can have a program of high integrity by managing your case just at the desk. Mr. GAYDOS. Do we have a problem throughout the country relating to whether or not a claim has been approved or disallowed? Do we have a problem there? There are a lot of complaints filed by some people, whether with us or anybody else, there are a lot of complaints that the system is inequitable, unjust, and that legitimate complaints and cases are being turned down improperly. Is that the source of a lot of our troubles? Mr. GELLER. That is some of it. I think the larger source of complaint is the delay, the failure to coordinate papers. You touched on it; whether the office is in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania or Washington, there has to be an integrity of a file or correspondence system, and this requires people. Mr. GAYDOS. If it requires people, is there any truth to the allegations that a large number of employees down at the office here in Washington or, I imagine, Philadelphia or Chicago, are down there picking their fingernails; they are crude; if you go in there and make an inquiry they will just ignore you, let you cool your heels; they are basically incompetent, they do not understand |