Software issue blamed for stop-loss backlog

[unhappycamper]

Software issue blamed for stop-loss backlog
By Jeff Schogol, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Friday, December 11, 2009

ARLINGTON, Va. — A software issue has led to the Army’s backlog of thousands of applications for retroactive stop-loss pay, said Maj. Roy Whitley, project manager for the compensation program.

So far, the Army has received 10,541 applications, of which only about 1,000 will have been forwarded to the Defense Finance and Accounting Service by the end of the week, Whitley said on Thursday.

A major limiting factor has been that the Army did not have case management software that could close claims electronically and send them to DFAS, Whitley explained.

“We could use parts of it, but it wasn’t fully functional, where we could actually hit a button, close a case, move data into to a DFAS report, and so on,” he said.

That software is expected to be ready by the end of the week and tested on Monday, he said. Once it’s ready, the Army can send more than 1,000 applications to DFAS per week.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=66598

[fasttense]

1. And yet the contractors kept getting paid. n/t