(Editor’s note: We’re re-posting yesterday’s story after our source informed us we had been given the incorrect name of the telephone answering service hired (on a no-bid contract) by DOA to attempt to provide answers to the growing concerns of members of the Office of Group Benefits)
The news out of Division of Administration (DOA) and the Office of Group Benefits (OGB) just keeps getting more and more bizarre and emerging revelations only serve to solidify the fact that Commissioner of Administration Kristy Kreme Nichols and OGB Executive Director Susan are woefully in over their respective heads.
It’s not just that the Jindal administration just hired two new six-figure salary employees from Blue Cross/Blue Shield (BCBS) to unfix what Kristy Kreme and Susan West fixed—although that’s part of it. Paying Thomas Groves $220,000 a year must smart, given that it is $50,000 more than West pulls down as head of the agency. Elise Cazes will make $106,512 as group benefits administrator.
And it’s not that the OGB trust fund has dwindled from a $540 million pre-Piyush Privatization balance to less than half that amount today—although that’s part of it.
And it’s not that costs to some 230,000 state employees, dependents and retirees who are members of OGB will be going up by some 47 percent and benefits will decrease, Kristy Kreme’s soothing assurances to the contrary notwithstanding—although that’s part of it.
And it’s not that legislators and legislative staff members are eligible to participate in a better plan, LSU First (an option not even available to Louisiana’s other public university employees)—although that’s part of it.
And it’s not that the administration lied to state employees back in 2012, telling us that there would be no premium increases or benefit cuts—although that’s certainly part of it and it doesn’t help that the administration continues to churn out many of those same lies.
And it’s not that most of the staff at an agency that was operating at smooth efficiency and was widely approved of by member employees was fired in order to allow BCBS to take over as the OGB third party administrator (TPA) to handle claims—although that was a big part of it.
No, it isn’t any one of those things. It’s all of them, the cumulative effect of an administration rolling over its loyal employees, forcing many of them into early retirement (if they’re eligible for retirement) or worse, unemployment.
But as if that weren’t bad enough, seemingly with each passing day, the plot at DOA and OGB continues more and more to take on the appearance of a theater of the absurd than it does an administration of mature individuals responsible for running a $25 billion a year state government.
The most recent blunder involved the layoff of about two dozen OGB employees “because there wasn’t enough work for them,’ leaving a skeleton staff unable to man the telephones to take questions from thousands of OGB members, particularly retirees, wondering if they were going to continue to have health coverage.
To fill that vacuum, BCBS employees were brought in to answer the phones but were unable to answer specific questions because of their unfamiliarity with OGB policies.
So then to solve that problem, 20 DOA employees were brought into OGB’s IT section but have done no better.
The obvious answer? Ansafone Communications.
Who?
Well, it’s not Answerphone, a company out of Albany, N.Y., as we were originally informed. Our IT (“I’ll Tell”) source informs us the spelling was given to us incorrectly and that it should have been Ansafone out of Santa Ana, California, and Ocala, Florida. And the contract is for about a million bucks, not the $2 million we were originally told.
Still, it’s another of those emergency contracts that DOA is issuing with reckless abandon with no requests for proposals, no bids and apparently, if the Alvarez & Marcel (A&M) contract, which went from about $4.2 million to more than $7 million at warp speed, is any indication, no ceiling.
Of course, all contracts must be approved by the Office of Contractual Review. But the Office of Contractual Review works for…(ahem), Kristy Kreme.
Not much more is known about Ansafone than we were able to learn about Answerphone except Ansafone does include a little more hype on its web page: http://www.ansafone.com/
Kristy Kreme assures us in a Baton Rouge Advocate news story that Ansafone “in health care enrollment” and that “Ansafone representatives have experience with managing benefit plans and have been trained extensively on OGB and its offerings.” Apparently, their “extensive training” of a few days better qualifies them than the OGB employees who did that for years before they were shown the door.
http://theadvocate.com/news/10253537-123/ogb-hotline-hours-extended
It does have on its web page a cute “Five Star Recipe for Customer Service Failure,” however. http://www.ansafone.com/five-star-recipe-for-customer-service-failure/ Kristy Kreme and Susan West might want to peruse that a bit. Some of the ingredients included:
- A “tablespoon of no communication,”
- A “dash of not caring,” and
- “4 ounces of empty promises.”
Sounds like something this administration cooks up virtually every day.
Frankly, we don’t see the need to pay these folks. In fact, Kristy Kreme may want to consider collecting royalties from Ansafone for stealing the Jindal recipe for failure.
So while our source provided us with the name of the wrong company, we will gladly take our one error, embarrassing though it certainly is, over the endless examples exhibited by Jindal, Kristy Kreme, and whoever happens to in charge today at OGB. We would print the name, but given the new salary structure there, we’re not exactly sure who that is and we don’t want another glaring error—not this soon, anyway.
Perhaps we can get some answers next Friday (Sept. 19) when the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget meets in House Committee Room 5 at the state Capitol at 9 a.m. or the following Thursday (Sept. 25) when the House Appropriations Committee meets at 10 a.m. in the same committee room. Both meetings are being held to address OGB’s rising costs, falling revenue and dwindling benefits.
Maybe Kristy Kreme and Susan West can both appear and enlighten the legislators tag team-style with their combined wizardry.
But basically, what we know is this:
- Two dozen OGB employees were fired because they didn’t have enough work to do;
- BCBS employees had to help on the phone lines but were incapable of answering the multitude of questions from members;
- About 20 DOA employees were brought in to help on the phone lines but that still wasn’t enough;
- A firm with a sketchy web page about which little is known was hired at a cost of $1 million to provide 100 operators in California and 100 in Florida to help out on the phones with problems in Louisiana.
All things considered, we can only borrow a phrase from the Ol’ Perfesser, Casey Stengel who said of his 1962 New York Mets baseball team (that lost 120 of 162 games):
“Can’t anyone here play this game?”
Louisiana Voice 
Hmmm. Not sure whether to laugh or cry! This one sounds like the name of a rap group – Ansaphone!?!?!. Could someone please enlighten me as I must be just awfully narrow-minded. Just how are people in CA and/or FL going to be able to anwer LA OGB questions any better than local people? Did those who were laid off from OGB move to CA and FL in a mass exodus? Is there some reason that some of those who were laid off couldn’t be re-hired from the preferred re-employment list as temporary WAE’s or Emergency Appointments? Wow, I guess I must have been given wrong information for 32 years as this is how I was taught to handle these sorts of situations!
BCBS employees can’t answer OGB Plan participant questions? I thought we were paying them $millions to administer this program and they can’t even answer basic questions? This might explain why in part the plan fund balance is disappearing like a flushed —-well, you know.
The DOA is worthless. They can’t even keep the contracts straight that they review. They are currently administering the liability insurance to 3 private contractor. This insurance policy is meant meant for state civil service employees and administered through the private FARA program. Even though these contractors meet none of the requirements for coverage, both the DOA and FARA are complicit. Why would a private insurance company cover someone that wasn’t eligible? Why would DOA allow it, when private contractors have specific clauses in their contracts holding them personally responsible. In fact, state law prohibits the state from accepting the liability of a contractor.
Who are they protecting? Follow the money.
I wonder if the IT people who tried to answer the phone have gone back to work at OGB doing their regular jobs? I tried to get into the OGB website this a.m. and got the message at the bottom of this post, beginning with “ERROR” below.
I can’t wait till the answering service kicks in. I can hear it now:
“Your call is important to us. Please hold for the next available representative. If you are calling about our benefit packages, please plan to attend one of our informative workshops in October. The schedule may be found at http://www.groupbenefits.org…Your call is important to us. Please hold…”
Then, look for this informative message when you go to the website while holding and/or listening to the answering service tell you they can’t actually help you:
ERROR
The requested URL could not be retrieved
While trying to retrieve the URL: https://www.groupbenefits.org/portal/page/portal30/SHARED/O/OGBWEB/EXPLORE_OGB
The following error was encountered:
• Unable to forward this request at this time.
This request could not be forwarded to the origin server or to any parent caches. The most likely cause for this error is that:
•The cache administrator does not allow this cache to make direct connections to origin servers, and
•All configured parent caches are currently unreachable.
Your cache administrator is root.
Generated Sat, 13 Sep 2014 13:02:09 GMT by http://www.groupbenefits.org (squid/2.6.STABLE21)
https://www.groupbenefits.org/portal/pls/portal30/ogbweb.get_latest_news_file?p_doc_name=4D7A49334E4445794D793551524559334D7A4531
The website is back up and new postings include the above press release. It all sounds good, now let’s see how it actually works.
Yet again DOA is at the center of the stink.
BCBS of Louisiana has members of the board scattered about the state. Past experience tells us DOA is without a doubt lying to Louisiana past and present employees concerning their health coverage. It’s a benefit you worked for. Jindal is going to want to blame all the disgruntled state employees concerning their health care benefits and rising cost on The Affordable. Care Act. (Better known as Obamacare. The rest of the country will not know who or what is driving the Louisiana health care debacle so its an easy default to Obama. Jindal thinks he’s got a great plan. Staged meetings to address concerns, will blame. Obamacare for rising costs, less coverage, andthe loss of the Charity Hospital system and on and on. But the truth is this has very little to do with Obamacare and everything to do with malfeasance in DOA administration office. Calling the legislators is good because it bothers them and some will dare to run for reelection but the BCBS of Louisiana board members need to be contacted and concerns expressed and requested that they attend the meetings. Insurance companies are big money making businesses that rely on participants paying premiums and refusing to pay for care whenever they can get away with it. BCBS covers millions of people around the country and have a public image to withhold. Call them and tell them what is happening and keep calling right up to the top tier of the organization. BCBS of Louisiana May want to follow Jindal’s plan but that doesn’t mean BCBS wants to have so many disgruntled group members that will spread the word of how it all went down in Louisiana and how BCBS took full advantage of an administration that is out of control.
In my opinion, BCBS of LA and its board don’t give two …%#$&!.. about State employees or retirees and what they are provided in exchange for Third Party Administration of its benefits. You hit the nail on the head, Lee K, with “…big money making businesses” and “…board members across the state.”
BCBS execs are indeed sitting on boards of other companies across the state…other companies that further influence and control everyone’s access to healthcare, workman compensation, equal protection and access to the courts, hospital and medical safety, and much more. Answers to the legislature’š most difficult financial and economics questions are influenced by BCBS of LA insiders or family members.
Jindal is a puppet. Look deeper into BCBS execs, board members and VPs and their involvement and connections with other influential people or boards, and I think you’ll find a handful of people (gathered in a few places and all having some past LSU or Big Insurance or DHH connection with each other) are dictating policy and controlling finances….the budget..in the state for their personal profit. My opinion!
Oh, and no matter how Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt that Organization is, no one will ever fully investigate or prosecute because these people control access to healthcare and insurance for federal employees, too. Again, my opinion.
As Third Party Administrator of benefits for State Employees and Retirees, neither BCBS nor the State are required under the Patient Protection and Affordable care Act to apply the 80% to 85% of premium dollars towards payment of claims. Commonly referred to as Medical Loss Ratio or MLR. So I don’t see how anyone can claim “Obamacare” has any negative financial impact on BCBS or the State in respect to the OGB. The impact is on beneficiaries only. The employees and retirees. My prayers are with you.
Dear Tom: I am speaking to one of the teacher retirment groups on wednesday (lunch) and am being asked to give them the latest on the OGB situation as well as any legislation that passed that may or may not affect them. Could you help me by giving me the bullets on how the OGB situation came about and what’s the next steps? Anything you can give me would be a big help. dee
Now we know how “job creation” works in Louisiana. First, fire the competent Louisiana employees. Next, hire an overpriced administrator to fix that mess. Then, hire twice as many out-of-state workers to fix the even bigger mess created by incompetent management. It’s like medicine in the 1700s when doctors would bleed the patients to death trying to heal them.
Charlie, you don’t know just how right you are. From the minute Jindal took office, he starting whittling the State workforce, and all these Jindal supporters were clapping their hands & nodding their heads in agreement and thinking (my own words here) “look what a great job he is doing by getting rid of so many of those state deadheads & bringing in people who will do a much better job” for less money. Yeah, right? I don’t think so. While people in general seem to have a low opinion of State workers, I can honestly say that I, my family members who are/were State employees, and many hundreds of others with whom I worked during my career were all hard working, conscientious individuals who cared about their jobs and put forth our very best efforts every day, and most of us were paid only fairly decent wages which resulted in even lower retirement incomes. But instead of taking the time to look into these agencies and see what most were accomplishing and realizing that he and the State were more than getting their money’s worth (or their pound of flesh, if you will), he just started bringing in contractors from everywhere and cut the State workforce in so many agencies that you have one person doing the work of definitely more then 2 people but with no extra pay. Those cuts always affect only the real “worker bees”, NOT the managerial/supervisory hierarchy. They never get touched. In fact, they get GREAT pay and don’t much have to worry about where these proposed changes by Jindal and OGB are concerned which are going to crucify the majority of State retirees and active employees. But to finish my point – you know all the money the Jindal worshipers praise him for SAVING?? Well, the fact is that all those contractors that he has brought in during the years he’s been in office were paid outrageously high prices which could probably have maintained a State workforce twice the size of what we have now & more, and the State workers could have done a better job. In lots of cases and in certain agencies, the State workers still had to go over every piece of work done by certain contractors, correct their mistakes, yet the contractors never had to suffer a penalty for negligence or their errors as far as I know. And let’s not forget that the whopping several million that Jindal had the State pay by bringing in that firm who did the study on the State employees’ health care system could have paid a LOT of medical expenses for those of us who worked so hard over the years to pay those premiums. And here so many of us are – now past 60 – with multiple health problems, limited income, and seemingly about to be either devastated financially or in an early grave because we can’t afford the new health care costs. I hope Jindal and his cronies are really proud of what they’ve done. If I were in his shoes, I couldn’t sleep at night, but then again, I guess that what separates people who have a conscience vs. those who have none & think only of themselves & their own selfish aspirations in life.