Injury Compensation Process Delays Prompt Payment of Benefits to Federal Workers

GAO reviewed claims processing under the Federal Employees' Compensation Act to determine where and why delays in the procedure were occurring.

Of the 564 compensation payments reviewed, GAO found that, under the Department of Labor's criteria, about 98 percent of the payments for wage loss were not timely. The average processing time from the date workers made the claim to the date of payment were 129 days for traumatic injuries and 270 days for occupational diseases. Workers, Federal agencies, physicians, and Labor must coordinate the processing of claims. The failure of any party to act promptly at a given point can delay the entire process. GAO found that all parties contribute substantially to delays in claims processing. Injured workers are not filing timely and well documented injury notices and compensation claims. Federal agencies are not complete or timely in processing injury notices and claims, and physicians' reports are also often untimely and incomplete. Labor's actions to resolve questions about notices of injury and to develop and pay claims are not timely. Labor has taken, or plans to take, actions which will help workers, Federal agencies, and physicians better understand their claims processing responsibilities. Finally, GAO found that a large claims workload and staff problems contributed to Labor's processing problems.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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