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give them the opportunity and then we deny the
claim.

DR. ROESSLER: So do you think it's
misunderstanding or they’re just hoping that it
will go through?

MR. TURCIC: There was -- there was some
misunderstanding, but there was also some areas
where it was -- you know, there were groups that
were telling people to file. They wanted to up
the numbers maybe so that, you know, you could say
here we’re being denied from Part B. So it was a
mix.

DR. ROESSLER: [It seems that a number like
that portrays a lot of negative feelings about the
program.

MR. TURCIC: Yeah, but we're forced -- you
know, if an individual wants to file a claim, our
-- if they go -- and a large percentage of our
claims go through our resource centers, and the
resource center staffs are very good at explaining
to people, you know, when they come in and they’ re
filing a claim for a condition that’s not covered.
However, Lhey’re instructed, because they’ re
entitled to have, you know, the whole adjudication

process, that if they insist on filing under Part

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you know, of the expected population.

And Seattle, again, just briefly -- the one
site that we are really focusing on that we don't
seem to be able to get a handle on is the Hanford
site. With it being so large, we have relatively
few claims from Hanford. So we've -- we have a
pilot project that we are working on with PACE to
try to, you know, make some inroads there.

We have ten resource centers that we operate
jointly with the Department of Energy. We'll he
cpening another one in the Bay area in California,
and this just shows the regions. They're regional
centers and the regions that they operate in.

From the beginning, we've -- we've had, you
know, some 575 town hall meetings about the Act,
and we've conducted, you know, 29 traveling
resource centers. Give you some idea, in 2001 the
areas -- Amarillo, Simi Valley; Buffalo, New York.
For 2002 these are the areas that we had the
traveling resource centers. We found that this is
a very effective method. We'll go into an area --
when we go into an area for a week or two at a
time, we're able to get a lot of good press, and
that -- that seems very helpful when you can just

see, you know, when we target specific sites that

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in like three days. Within three days our
payments are being made. So it is a change, but
you know, there is a -- there's a change in that
we don’t make -- you know, it’s a compensation
program, unlike, you know, a screening program,
and so we have not been making the appointments
for the claimants and we don’t pre-pay, you know,
their airfare and things like that, if they're...

DR. DEHART: My other question deals with the
statistics as you've reported them. Does that
include the Worker Comp filing?

MR. TURCIC: No, that’s -- this is only
Subpart B. That does not include Subpart D.

DR. MELIUS: Following up on the medical
information, has there been an increase in re-- in
requests for reimbursement on the cancer side,
also?

MR. TURCIC: Yeah, it’s -- it's -- everything
seems to be going up. We've done a lot of
outreach in that -- in that area, and what we've

found there was a number of claimants, even though

they were receiving medical -- you know, received
benefits, they -- and we are -- by law, we are
first payer -- they would still maybe have their

insurance company pay their medical bills. And

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materials, you know, to reach these targeted
populations.

We're trying to expand the participation of
our stakeholder groups. And again, we’ve gotten
great cooperation with the labor unions, and we're
working very hard in that area to try -- we've
also gotten great cooperation from, you know, many
of the corporate verifiers from the AWEs and
getting us the information and contacts to -- to
find potential claimants.

Some of the -- some of the analysis that
we're doing -- we're trying to look at each
individual site and do an analysis and some
research to find potential claimants. Some
demographic studies, one of the things that we
looked at which was very interesting that we've --
we've done the Hanford site and now we're doing
some of the other sites. What we looked at was
based on the mortality studies that were conducted
at Hanford, for example. We went back and looked
at the state where the death certificates came
from, and it was very interesting. We found that
there were more death certificates from thoaa
former workers at Hanford in California, Florida

was a surprise to us, Utah was a surprise, and

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we do start receiving claims from those areas.
And in 2003. So far this year we’ve been into
Pleasanton, California and San Diego.

We have -- as I was saying, we have a major
effort in outreach going on. Our goals are to
inform as many potential claimants as possible
about the compensation, about the requirements of
the Act, how to file a claim, and to provide
whatever assistance is necessary in -- in filing
those claims.

And our strategy is to try to maximize the
claimant contact and using the resources of our
national office staff, our district office and our
resource centers. We have a -- we’re targeting
specific potential claimant populations based on
analysis that we’re doing. For example, we're
putting a big push -- for several reasons -- in
the area of our beryllium vendors, particularly
subcontractors. We have virtually no -- very few
claims from subcontractors. They are covered.
And from beryllium vendors, so we’re trying to put
a focus on that. We’re also going ta be focusing
in the area of the AWEs. Our AWEs, we're trying
to put a big focus on outreach for the AWEs and

we're trying to provide improved outreach

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payments through. Quite a sum of money has now
been paid, as you're reporting. Are you using a
third-party administrator? Are you requiring the
claimant to make the payment up front and then be
-- you would reimburse? How's the procedure
operating?

MR. TURCIC: Okay. We -- we do -- we use a
third party payer, we always have, and the third
party payer will pay directly to the medical
providers. It’s a elmple taek of getting the
medical providers, you know, signed into the
program, and we will make the payment directly to
the medical provider. I think where some of the
issue came from is tended to be many of the people
who, on an annual basis, travel to either National
Jewish or somewhere like that for the beryllium
testing, and ORISE, when it was part of the --
when they were part of the DOE screening program,
they paid up front for the medical -- I mean for
the airfare and all that. What we have instituted
and we have procedures in place that when -- when
the claimant is authorized for that, the
information is -- all that they need is sent to
them with a pre-- FedEx package that they get it

back to us and we have bean making those paymente

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establish the medical condition -- you know,
showing that they had a covered medical condition.
And this is rapidly increasing, we're at now 700
where the cancer was not related or the POC was
less than 50 percent,

Just some -- some questions have been raised
about our final adjudication branch, and just to
give you some information relative to that, we
have been requested and held and have completed
380 hearings. And of the 26,900 cases that have
final decisions, almost 1,600 have been remanded

by our final adjudication branch.

The processing -- one of our standards that
we use is that we -- we set standards that our
claims -- if it’s a beryllium vendor, an AWE or

DOE subcontractor, that an initial decision be

made within 180 days and if it’s a DOE or RECA --
DOE facility wr RECA, that that initial decision
be made within 120. Just to show you, in FY 2003

the average time for the beryllium and AWE claims

was 183 and a half days. For this -- we worked
off our backlog last year, so that’s -- you know,
that -- that inflated those numbers. There were

some old cases in there. Average time for 2004 is

that 99.1 days we issue a recommended decision.

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providers that if they were paid by somebody else

that we could reimburse that -- that payer. But
it’s tough to get -- you know, it’s -- it’s very
tough.

DR. MELIUS: Separate question, In terms of
the -- I think it was about 2,000 claims that you
said had been turned down, or 2,400 ‘cause they
were not eligible. To what extent are you having
problems verifying employment and -- if -- I mean
some of them would be turned down ‘cause they --
they don’t meet the requirement or they actually
- you know, there's a record that they realiy
didn’t work there. But what about people that
where there’s problems verifying -- particularly
among subcontractors and so forth.

MR. TURCIC: Yeah, subcontractors are
difficult. One of the things that we've just done
there is that we have gone in -- entered into a
contract with the Center to Protect Workers Rights
and they have access to a lot of other information
for subcontractors that -- you know, such as
@ispatch records and other -- but you're
absolutely right, the subcontractors are a --
they’re a -- they're a difficult situation. But

the vast majority of those that were denied

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we've also entered into an agreement with the
State of Ohio because especially, particularly
with the beryllium folks, there's a number of
joint claimants, and so we now have ways to cross-
Match with the state of Chio to ensure that, you
know, we’re the ones that are paying the medical
bills as opposed to the state of Ohio.

DR. MELIUS: ‘Cause I would think that one of
the problems with the cancer is that you're
eligible from the time you apply. The process
takes a while, and meanwhile you're having your

regular insurer handle the bills. So getting

people to -- informing them about the
retrospective ability to collect it -- and do you
do that as part -- like at the time when people do

file, is there communication with them telling
them, you know, save your bills, you know --

MR. TURCIC: Yes.

DR. MELIUS: -- even though you send them
someplace else, you can, you know, get -- ‘cause
there --

MR. TURCIC: Yeah, there is, there's contact
and then when they receive the benefits, they
receive a packet of information and -- and again,

we've also tried to do as much outreach to the

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Texas than there was from the state of Washington.
So you know, there was more death certificates in
-- from those states than -- than those -- than
the state of Washington.

Some of the other demographics we're trying

ims,

to look at, we‘re -- we‘re looking at our cl
where they're coming from, particularly survivors
versus employees. And we're trying to also tie in
with the former worker programs to make as many
contacts as possible. And then we have some --
we're looking at a marketing strategy -- we're
developing a marketing strategy to try to get into
some of these retirement locations where you're
trying to pick out a few people, you know -- you
know, that may have worked in this program out of,
you know, many, many people in retirement areas.

And with that, I would take any questions
that you might have~.

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Pete. Who wants to
begin questioning? Roy and then Jim.

DR. DEHART: In December there was some
discussion about the medical portion of the
payment to the claimant who had been found
€ligible. Basically I was -- if I understood

correctly, there was difficulty in getting those

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initially had from Department of Energy in the

program as an estimate of the number of workers.

And locking at those and -- to give you some idea,
you know, at -- at the Oak Ridge, you know, with a
-- if we're looking at -- this doesn't -- this

doesn’t include the construction folks, you're
looking at an estimated worker population of about
60,000. We've gotten 4,800 claims received.
Again, at K-25 with an estimated number of 51,006,
we have 4,600, 4,700 claims. Savannah River,
33,000; we have 40-- little bit over 4,000 claims
from Savannah River, and so forth. Our largest
percentage is Paducah, and one of the things that
we're looking at and trying to analyze is what
worked so well in our outreach effort at Paducah
versus some of the -- some of the other sites.

Cleveland, again, here is the major DOE
sites. Our Cleveland district office kind of
covers the rust belt area, has the lion's share of
the AWEs and beryllium vendors. These are just
the DOE sites and you can see the percentages are
-- are very low and they are even lower when we
look at AWEs and beryllium vendors.

Denver, again, the major DOE sites, with

Rocky Flats showing about a 16 percent of what --

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B that they go ahead and take the claim.

DR. ZIEMER: Richard Espinosa.

MR. ESPINOSA: I know in Los Alamos there's a
lot of people that have filed just for the simple
fact of getting it on record. My question is,
though, is under what reasons are the survivors
not eligible?

MR. TURCIC: It -- the survivor issue now,
most of the non-eligible would be things like
maybe they weren’t married for a year prior to the

death of the worker. We have a lot of survivor

issues where, you know, you may have -- there
could be -- they can’t demonstrate that they are a
child of the -- of the worker, things like that.

DR. ZIEMER: Jim Melius.

DR. MELIUS: Well, first of all, I think --
really appreciate your -- the outreach program and
the effort that the -- the agency is making in --
in this overall program. One thought that came to
mind -- maybe this has been tried -- but one way
of reaching some of the retirees is through the
pension programs, mailers and so forth to them --

MR. TURCIC: Yeah.

DR. MELIUS: -- and I think a concentrated

effort there may be able to -- I mean both the

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and then we -- 16 were denied because we received
a dose reconstruction back from NIOSH that had a -
- resulted in a probability of causation less than
50 percent, and then another 24 because the
survivor was not eligible.

There was some question on our efforts in --
in outreach, and we're -- we have a focus -- we're
trying to focus a lot of attention in the next two
years on outreach, and seme of the -- some of the
tools that we’ve used is our web site, press
releases, local outreach, a lot of efforts with
Congressional delegations, traveling resource
centers, We're putting a big focus and have been
working very closely with a number of Labor
unions, and that has been -- that has really just
paid off and we're getting great cooperation and
we're getting claims in areas that we were not
getting claims from before. And then we algo have
a major effort in media outreach.

Just to look at some of the areas and what

we're trying to focus on from an outreach

standpoint, if you look at our -- this is our
Jacksonville office, the major -- with the major
sites, and we have some of the -- the major DOE

sites, the number of cases, along with what we

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An average time again for a DOE facility is down
from 148 down to 73 days.

The status of the cases that we've gotten
back from NIOSH, of the 1,403 as of this time
period, we're showing that 1,314 had completed
dese reconstruction, 89 did not require completed
dose reconstruction -- could be anything. There
was a lot of CLL cases originally sent to NIOSH.
Those came back, so there's -- that's the numbers
that are in that 89. Cases that we have
recommended decisions that have come back with
dose reconstructions, 409 to accept benefits and
862 to deny benefits. The final decisions, those
that went on to the final decision, with 357 to
accept and pay benefits and 384 to deny benefits

There was some question about Special
Exposure Cohort and what our experience has been
there. Total cases from a Special -- the three --
I mean the four Special Exposure Cohorts, 3,032
cases and we paid 2,608 of those. 2,772 cases
from Special Exposure Cohorts have been denied.
The reasons, 138 was the employee worked less than
the 250 working days at the three gaseous
diffusion plants. Or then 2,594 were that the

employee either claimed a non-covered condi

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because of employment really -- I -- probably half
of them, maybe -- maybe a little less than half of
those were claiming employment at sites that
aren't covered.

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Gen Roessler.

DR. ROESSLER: I think I'm talking about the
same figure as Jim is. On the final decisions and
claims, the total that have been turned down or
the final decision denied, there's so many, 9,000
out of about 15,000, that are non-covered
conditions. And I’m trying to figure out why
that’s so high.

MR. TURCIC: People in -- in certain areas
there seem to be a belief, and we try to explain
to people, they were either filing claims with no
condition at all or filing claims for things like
heart disease or other toxic illnesses probably is
more appropriate under, you know, Subpart D of the
program. It’s just -- you know, if someone wants
to file, they have a right to file. What we do
and the way we process that is if they’re not at
least claiming a covered condition, we -- in our
first developmental letter we will ask them and,
you know, we’ll explain to them what are the

covered conditions under -- under the Act, and we

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