Postal Service Failing

The United States Postal Service announced recently that they lost $15.9 billion last year. According to the United States Census Bureau, there are 314,817,360 people in the U.S. That means each of us paid about $50.00 for the privilege of a daily delivery of catalogs, coupons and sweepstakes bait. "If the post office was a business, it would be in bankruptcy," said Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Fla. "It's insolvent."

The writing is on the wall (not on the paper). The inefficient paradigm of paper delivery is over. In fact, it has been over for a number of years. The fatally wounded delivery system continues to operate, not because it should, but because this lumbering beast is so large, that although the wounds are obviously and patently fatal, it continues to stumble along towards its ultimate demise.

The Office of Judges of Compensation Claims rolled-out electronic service in November, 2012. See Rule 60Q6.108(2)(e), http://www.fljcc.org/JCC/rules/#60Q-6.108. So, now you can send copies of documents to opposing parties and counsel using email instead of U.S. Mail. The automated process will make this e-service simpler and more efficient still. What does it mean?

I randomly surveyed ten OJCC case numbers assigned late in 2011. The injured workers in these cases e- filed an average of 2 documents in 2012 and employer/carriers an average of 4. Several of these cases resolved by settlement in the spring. However, this illustrates that 6 mailings per case is a low average, and that saves $1.50 per case in postage. The combination of e-filing (saving postage to send it to us) and e-service (saving postage sending to each other) will save workers' compensation practitioners and carriers about one million dollars annually. 

I am proud of the DOAH information technology team and our programmers. To date, we have not spent the first one million dollars on this system and process. That is efficiency. That is productivity. That is service.