On May 23, 2012, Tom Golfetto, Executive Director of the FSCO Dispute Resolution Group, issued a letter updating stake holders on the progress of DRS initiatives. The RFP procurement process in nearing completion and he expects that the first set of files will flow to the outsource vendors at the beginning of July. They expect that outsource vendors will be able to handle 2000 mediations per month and 500 arbitrations. This is in addition to the 2,793 mediations being handled per month by FSCO DRG staff. It was conspicuous that Tom’s letter did not give the number of cases currently in backlog but that was estimated at 30,000 (see our previous blog entry)
The problem with the math is that it does not account for the estimated 3,000 new cases coming in per month. If this number stays constant, FSCO staff can only keep up with the new ones and the backlog will be reduced at the rate of 2,000 per month over the next 18 months to 2 years.
The letter is available here.
In any event, the “warning” to be ready for the onslaught echoes my article “When the Dam Bursts”, FSCO warns: “please ensure that you retain additional staff as necessary, so that there are no scheduling delays due to unavailability of your staff”.
Cameron & Associates would be pleased to assist Insurers to resolve this challenge on a long and short term basis. Contact us for more details.
Thank you,