Before presenting additional preliminary results, I would like to provide some information on our scope and methodology. Specifically, we are interviewing key OWCP and Postal Service officials in Washington, D.C., to discuss and collect pertinent information regarding the employees’ claims for WCP eligibility and for compensation for lost wages and schedule awards. Additionally, we collected and reviewed a total of 483 Postal Service employee WCP case files located at the 12 OWCP district offices throughout the country. For the 12-month period beginning July 1, 1997, we randomly selected the claims and obtained case file records for injuries that occurred or were recognized as job-related during this period on the basis of the type of injury involved: traumatic or occupational; and on the basis of their approval or nonapproval for WCP benefits and compensation or schedule award payments. We chose this period of time because we believed it was current enough to reflect ongoing operations, yet historical enough for most, if not all, of the claims to have been decided upon. Also, in discussing the preliminary results, we generally present our analyses of claim processing times in terms of the “median” time to process cases covered by our review. This means that 50 percent of the cases were processed in the median time or less, and 50 percent of the cases were processed in more time than the median. We did our work from January to May 2002 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. We have not had enough time to fully analyze all of the data we collected, including analyzing the total percentage of claims processed within specified processing standards, or to fully discuss the data with Postal Service or OWCP officials. Accordingly, we are limiting our discussion to median time intervals between the major steps in the WCP claims process up until the time of the decision on the claim and initial compensation payment. Among other things, prior to this hearing, we did not have the time to (1) pinpoint and evaluate specific problems that may have affected the time to process the cases we reviewed, (2) address issues OWCP raised on how the claims processing times might be affected by “administrative closures” or schedule awards, or (3) evaluate numerous other factors that may have affected overall claims processing. Our work has not included an analysis of any time involved in the appeal process of any claim we reviewed, nor did we evaluate the appropriateness of OWCP’s decisions on approving or denying the claims. More detail about our sampling plan is presented in appendix I. Although OWCP is charged with implementing the WCP, there is a federal partnership between OWCP and the employing federal agencies for administering the WCP. In this partnership, federal agencies, including the Postal Service, provide the avenue through which injured federal employees prepare and submit their notice of injury forms and claims for WCP benefits and services to OWCP. Additionally, employing agencies are responsible for paying normal salary and benefits to those employees who miss work for up to 45 calendar days, during a 1-year period, due to a work-related traumatic injury for which they have applied for WCP benefits. After receiving the claim forms from the employing agencies, OWCP district office claims examiners review the forms and supporting evidence to decide on the claimant’s entitlement to WCP benefits or the need for additional information or evidence, determine the benefits and services to be awarded, approve or disapprove payment of benefits and services, and manage and maintain WCP employee case file records. If additional information or other evidence is needed before entitlement to WCP benefits can be determined, OWCP generally corresponds directly with the claimant or the WCP contact at the applicable Postal Service locations. OWCP regulations require that evidence needed to determine a claimant’s entitlement to WCP benefits meet five requirements. These requirements are as follows: 1. The claim was filed within the time limits specified by law. 2. The injured or deceased person was, at the time of injury or death, an employee of the United States. 3. The injury, disease, or death did, in fact, occur. 4. The injury, disease, or death occurred while the employee was in the performance of duty. 5. The medical condition for which compensation or medical benefits is claimed is causally related to the claimed job-related injury, disease, or death. Such evidence, among other things, must be reliable and substantial as determined by OWCP claims examiners. If the claimant submits factual evidence, medical evidence, or both, but OWCP determines the evidence is not sufficient to meet the five requirements, OWCP is required to inform the claimant of the additional evidence needed. The claimant then has at least 30 days to submit the evidence requested. Additionally, if the employer–in this case, the Postal Service–has reason to disagree with any aspect of the claimant’s report, it can submit a statement to OWCP that specifically describes the factual allegation or argument with which it disagrees and provide evidence or arguments to support its position. According to the files we reviewed, about 99 percent of the Postal Service employees’ traumatic injury claims contained evidence related to the five requirements set by OWCP regulations. About 1 percent of the traumatic injury claims were not approved, according to the case files we reviewed, because evidence was not provided for one or more of the requirements. About 97 percent of the claims filed by Postal Service employees for occupational disease claims contained evidence related to the five requirements. The remaining claims, or about 3 percent, did not include all of the required evidence. Generally, the evidence not provided for both types of claims pertained to either (1) the employee’s status as a Postal Service employee or (2) whether the claim was filed within the time limits specified by law. We did not evaluate OWCP’s decisions regarding the sufficiency of the information provided. During the period covered by our review, OWCP regulations required an employee who sustained a work-related traumatic injury to give notice of the injury in writing to OWCP using Form CA-1, “Federal Employee’s Notice of Traumatic Injury and Claim for Continuation of Pay/ Compensation,” in order to claim WCP benefits. To claim benefits for a disease or illness that the employee believed to be work-related, he or she was also required to give notice of the condition in writing to OWCP using Form CA-2, “Notice of Occupational Disease and Claim for Compensation.” Both notices, according to OWCP regulations, should be filed with the Postal Service supervisor within 30 days of the injury or the date the employee realized the disease was job-related. Upon receipt, Postal Service officials were supposed to complete the agency portion of the form and submit it to OWCP within 10 working days if the injury or disease was likely to result in (1) a medical charge against OWCP, (2) disability for work beyond the day or shift of injury, (3) the need for more than two appointments for medical examination/or treatment on separate days leading to time lost from work, (4) future disability, (5) permanent impairment, or (6) COP. OWCP regulations, during the period covered by our review, did not provide time frames for OWCP claims examiners to process these claims. Instead, OWCP’s operational plan for this period specified performance standards for processing certain types of WCP cases within certain time frames. Specifically, the performance standard for processing traumatic injuries specified that a decision should be made within 45 days of its receipt in all but the most complex cases. The performance standards for decisions on occupational disease claims specified that decisions should be made within 6 to 12 months, depending on the complexity of the case. The case files we reviewed indicated that the length of time taken to process a claim–from the date of traumatic injury or the date an occupational disease was recognized as job-related to the date the claimant’s entitlement to benefits was determined–varied widely. For example, we estimate that 25 percent of the claims were processed in up to 48 days for traumatic injury and in up to 78 days for occupational disease. We estimate that 90 percent of the claims were processed in up to 307 days for traumatic injury and in up to 579 days for occupational disease. Finally, we estimate that 50 percent of the claims were processed in up to 84 days for traumatic injuries and in up to 136 days for occupational disease. Specifically, Postal Service employee claims for injuries or diseases covered by our review took the median times shown in table 1 to complete. The median elapsed time taken by Postal Service employees and Postal Service supervisors met the applicable time frames set forth in OWCP regulations. As shown in table 1, the median time taken by Postal Service employees to prepare and submit the claim forms needed to make a determination on their entitlement to WCP benefits for traumatic injuries to the Postal Service supervisor was 2 days from the date of the injury, well within the 30-day time frame set by OWCP regulations. For occupational disease, Postal Service employees signed and submitted the notice of disease form to the Postal Service supervisor in a median time of 26 days from the date the disease was recognized as job-related, or 4 days less than the 30-day time frame set by OWCP regulations. Upon receipt, the Postal Service supervisor then took up to a median time of 11 calendar days–also within the time limit of 10 working days set forth in the regulations–to complete the form and transmit it to OWCP. Also as shown in table 1, once OWCP received the form from the Postal Service, our preliminary analysis showed that OWCP claims examiners processed these notice of injury forms for traumatic injuries in a median time of 59 days to determine a claimant’s entitlement to WCP benefits. As mention earlier, the performance standard for these types of cases was 45 days, or 14 days less than the median time taken. According to OWCP officials, the 59-day median processing time inappropriately included the time during which certain types of claims were “administratively closed,” then reopened later when a claim for compensation was received.