Lesson Learned – We Must Clearly Communicate with Our Claimants at All Times

 

We strive to be responsive to the needs of our customers.  But, sometimes, things fall through the cracks, as it did for one of our claimants whose case had finally reached the hearing level of her appeal.

It takes months for a case to get scheduled and for the hearing date to arrive. For this claimant, a very long period of time had lapsed between communications with her advocate. She was feeling nervous, frustrated and angry.  After initially giving us feedback through one of our customer satisfaction surveys, she again reached out to us through our Web site, posting a comment about how dissatisfied she was. I am very happy she did this because, otherwise, we may never have realized that miscommunications were causing hard feelings.

I Can’t Reach My Advocate

The frustrations festered when the claimant, who identified herself as “A Very Distressed Jane Doe,” could not reach her advocate. It escalated when her case was transferred to another one of our advocates.

JD: “… I finally heard from Social Security and they gave a time and date for my hearing, I then called my advocate and told her . . . to my surprise, she told me that she had another hearing on that same day . . . then transferred [my case] to another advocate.”

The last straw was when Jane Doe’s advocate sent her important paperwork to take to her doctor for signature, which we sometimes ask our claimants to do so that we can move the appeal process forward more quickly rather than wait for the doctor to reply to our request. Her advocate didn’t know that this would be a hardship for Jane Doe:

JD: “I no longer drive because my pain medication is so strong.”

Voicemail Not Enough

Once I identified the case, I found out that Jane Doe’s advocate had been calling her, but she had only succeeded in leaving voicemail messages. It was long overdue for me to call Jane Doe directly. When we spoke she admitted that she was nervous about the paperwork and if we had received it. Together we reviewed all the medical records we had. Everything was in order.  I told her that had we known the hardship placed on her to get final documents signed by her doctor, we would have found another way. I was very concerned about her perceptions of our process and apologized to her if she felt she was not getting the service she deserved.

It turns out that Jane Doe was very impressed that I found out who she was. And, she was quite nice and honest. I think that she just needed some tangible assurance that her advocate, whichever one, was ready for the hearing. She was scared, and understandably so.

I also understand Jane Doe’s frustrations in not being able to reach her advocate every time she called. It’s because our hearing advocates are often out of the office with other claimants, appearing before a judge at their hearing. Now we’re making sure that we have a quick-response system in place so that miscommunications like this can be avoided.

A Positive Outcome for All

As for Jane Doe, I am happy to say that her new advocate successfully represented her in front of the hearing judge and she was approved for benefits.

Jane Doe’s real name is Brenda. She explains her overall experience at this final stretch of the appeals process in a comment posted to the Testimonials section of this Web site. Brenda provides some great advice – from the point of view of the claimant – on how to be prepared for a hearing.

Thanks to Brenda, we’ve learned a lesson.  Our advocates will make a better effort to clearly communicate with our claimants at all times.