The launch of a new health insurance plan overseen by the Office of Personnel Management for 1.7 million Postal Service employees, annuitants and eligible dependents is set to begin with its first round of bidding in two weeks, but a inspector general’s report wondering if there is a dedicated customer support plan for this.

OPM will launch the Postal Service’s Health Benefits System’s first open season on Nov. 11 with a multi-partner network of agencies and at least one contractor to handle the influx of customer experience requests.

The launch will be the first test of the new federal health insurance exchange designed to serve U.S. Postal Service employees, retirees and dependents, first created by the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022.

But while OPM detailed its customer experience plans and contingencies for the PSHB to the inspector general through “a set of flowcharts, Maximus task orders and communicated its plans in several meetings,” l The watchdog said it had failed to demonstrate a coherent strategy. to guide public-facing efforts.

“It is critical that OPM has detailed written plans, policies and procedures for providing customer assistance, especially during the 2024 PSHBP opening season, so that each agency and organization involved clearly understands their roles and responsibilities” , indicates the October 23 report. “Without such clearly defined documentation, there is a higher risk that customer support will be inadequate to meet demand, particularly during this first opening season. »

OPM coordinates its customer experience efforts through its Office of Retirement Services as well as the General Services Administration, Department of Labor, Department of Agriculture National Finance Center, Center of shared human resources services of the Postal Service and its customer support contractor, Maximus.

Through OPM’s Health and Insurance Office, Maximus is responsible for providing a helpline to PSHB customers, supporting “assistance navigating the portal, answering basic questions of the PSHBP and troubleshooting technical problems”, while also ensuring the registration of certain beneficiaries.

GSA uses its login.gov team to help provide access to accounts, while the Department of Labor, the National Finance Center and the Postal Service’s Human Resources Shared Services Center are also tapped to provide account services. customer support.

The report notes that the Maximus team will offer portal navigation assistance, basic answers, and troubleshooting help on the health exchange for the open season, but the OIG expressed apprehensions about the level of customer support available.

“Through meetings with OPM staff and requests for information, we learned that the RS Maximus team consisted of 16 customer support specialists (specialists) to support approximately 650,000 annuitants. The OIG expressed concern about the low number of specialists,” the report said. “OPM stated in a meeting on July 25, 2024, in response to questions from the OIG, that it was not focused on staffing levels for the Maximus RS team, but would instead rely on its contract with Maximus to ensure that annuitants received the necessary customer support. .”

Two months later, OPM updated its task order with Maximus to “include nearly five times more specialists than originally planned,” with 77 specialists available for bidding. The contractor also plans to have “daily and weekly contact” with agency officials to evaluate open season performance metrics and resolve issues as they arise.

“OPM has explained that if Maximus is unable to manage customer support at required performance levels, OPM’s contingency plan is to leverage the resources of OPM’s RS Retirement Information Desk , then the Postal Health Benefits Team,” the report said.

The Contractor will be able to route calls to the 160 customer support agents in the RS Retirement Information Office or to the 10 additional staff members of the Postal Health Benefits team via a system interactive voice response service operated by OPM and Maximus, with potential overtime available to contract staff in the event of an increase in call volume.

But the OIG noted that while the agency’s customer support plan was “robust,” it did not have a comprehensive plan for how it would work. The watchdog offered a single recommendation that OPM “document comprehensive plans, policies and procedures for the operation of its customer support experience that ensure all agencies and organizations know their roles and responsibilities.”

Although OPM officials agreed with the overall recommendation, they said in response to the report that they had “focused considerable effort on data integration and had established both a cross-functional team Data Tigers and an Enrollment Reconciliation Team” to help resolve coverage issues. problems quickly.

OPM also said they are establishing a technical command center to respond to technical issues and have tasked a corporate postal operations support team to help respond to incidents and troubleshoot problems.

The OIG said it appreciated the addition of the cross-functional Data Tiger, Enrollment Reconciliation and ePOST teams, but could not comment on the coordination of their customer support because “OPM had not previously shared d information regarding these teams with the OIG. »

“As OPM emphasizes, the customer service experience is complex and involves multiple OPM program management offices, as well as external agencies and organizations, the watchdog said. “It is critical that OPM communicates plans , policies and procedures in a clear and concise document or series of documents, to ensure that all parties convey the same message and are clearly aware of their roles and responsibilities.

An OPM spokesperson said Government executive in an email stating that “OPM is committed to ensuring a seamless transition for all Postal Service employees, annuitants and their families. We’ve made a number of updates since the summer and have a solid customer service plan ready for Open Season.

Editor’s note: The story has been updated to include OPM’s comments on its efforts to open PSHB.