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U.S. Department of Labor Employee Benefits Security Administration May 2008
The Employee Benefits Security
Administration (EBSA) maintains a participant assistance
and outreach program to educate participants,
beneficiaries and plan sponsors about their rights and
obligations under employee benefit laws, and to assist
individuals in obtaining retirement and health benefits
that have been improperly denied. To improve the delivery
of participant assistance and outreach, EBSA has
established an Office of Participant Assistance (OPA) and
employs 108 Benefits Advisors located throughout the
country in the Agency’s 15 field offices. OPA formulates
the Agency’s strategic plan for participant and
compliance assistance, outreach and education; establishes
policies and operating procedures for the field and
national office programs; and, conducts quality assurance
reviews. The office is also responsible for developing
publications and other educational materials for
participants and plan sponsors and for the content and
design of EBSA’s Web site.
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In FY 2007, the Benefits Advisors
closed 143,585 participant inquiries/complaints and recovered over
$96 million in benefits for participants that had been
improperly denied through an informal negotiation
process with the employer. The Benefits Advisors inform
the employer about their responsibilities under the law
and facilitate resolution of the complaint without
formal investigation or litigation.
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Benefits Advisors also respond to
compliance related inquiries directly from employers,
plan sponsors and practitioners. Last year they handled
17,477 such inquiries.
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Benefit Advisors play a critical role
in EBSA’s overall enforcement program. When they
receive a complaint from a participant that indicates a
fiduciary breach by the employer or a problem that
impacts all or several participants in the plan, the
Advisor makes a referral to the enforcement staff for
possible investigation. These types of referrals from
our Advisors have become our best source of cases.
Referrals from Benefits Advisors in FY 2007 resulted in
611 enforcement cases being opened and closed with the
additional recovery of $71.1 million in benefits as a
result of these investigations.
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Often when situations require
investigation and litigation to resolve, participants
are left in limbo for months or years before a final
resolution of the case is settled. The
Agency has implemented a policy to keep participants
informed about the status of their complaint both before
and after it has been referred for enforcement. This has
helped to increase our customers’ satisfaction.
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The Agency began monitoring how
participants and other customers viewed the service
provided by our Benefits Advisors in FY 2003 through a
contract with the Gallup Organization. Customer
Satisfaction is one of the GPRA goals established by the
Agency. Over the last four years the participant assistance customer
satisfaction rating has improved by 14
percentage points. Training has been provided
to the Benefits Advisors by Gallup; offices have
developed individual team impact plans for improving
their overall office rating; and individual Advisor
scores have been used for training and individual
improvement. According to our most recent Gallup survey,
88.3% of our customers rate our service equal to or better
than their experience with the private sector, and 92.2%
equal to or better than public sector organizations.
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EBSA maintains a toll
free participant assistance line, 1.866.444.EBSA (3272). The
hot line complements the Agency’s Web site for
accepting electronic inquiries, www.askebsa.dol.gov.
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The toll free calls are directed to
the field offices and are answered by Benefits Advisors
in the region nearest the caller.
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The Agency’s Web site, www.dol.gov/ebsa, hosted over
2.11 million web visitors in FY 2007 where they had
access to numerous FAQs, publications and other useful
consumer information as well as easy access to the “contact
us” site.
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Benefits Advisors also have access to
a contracted translation service that can assist them in
providing assistance to non-English speaking
participants. The translation service provides
translation in 150 different languages.
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Benefit Advisors conduct both
participant and compliance assistance outreach in their
regions. Some examples of these outreach activities
include:
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On-site assistance to
dislocated workers facing job loss as a result of
plant closures or layoffs - Benefits Advisors
participate in state sponsored Rapid Response
sessions providing workers with critical
need-to-know information about continuation health
coverage under COBRA, special enrollment rights
under HIPAA and retirement rollover provisions. In
FY 2007 our Benefits Advisors participated in 671
Rapid Response sessions attended by 19,001 workers.
This direct
on-site service provides timely information
necessary for participants to make informed
decisions about their benefits when faced with job
loss.
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Briefings to district
congressional offices, state insurance
commissioners, and other federal, state and
community organizations - The purpose of these
train-the-trainer/advocate sessions is to educate
these professionals about the laws that EBSA
administers and the services offered by our staff.
The Benefits Advisors provide them with copies of
our brochures, Qs & As, posters, as well as our
website address and toll free number. In FY 2007
Benefits Advisors conducted 225 briefings to
Congressional district staff, reaching 259 members’
offices. These briefings result in more referrals to
our offices for benefit dispute resolution but they
also reduce informational inquiries to our staff by
enabling the staff in these offices to respond
directly to their constituents’ questions and
provide copies of our informative materials.
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Compliance Assistance
workshops for employers, plan sponsors and
practitioners - Benefits Advisors conducted or
participated in 467 compliance assistance outreach
activities in FY 2007. Those include sponsoring fiduciary education seminars, cosponsoring
HIPAA compliance assistance seminars with state
insurance commissioners, cosponsoring workshops with
the IRS, Small Business Development Centers and
local Chambers of Commerce for small business owners
to learn about retirement plan options to offer
coverage for their employees, participation in
workshops sponsored by associations such as the
AICPA, WEB and the IFEBP, and giving speeches to
plan benefits administrators. By educating
employers, plan sponsors and practitioners through
these types of outreach seminars, fewer errors are
made by the plan thus reducing the number of
individuals who might need assistance in resolving
complaints.
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EBSA now has 85 publications which provide useful
information to participants and beneficiaries about
their pension and health benefits. Eleven of these pubs
have been translated into Spanish. In 2007, 888,770 copies were distributed.
For more information about the Participant
Assistance and Outreach Program, contact the Office of
Participant Assistance at 202.693.8630. If you have a benefits
question or need assistance resolving a complaint or claim for
benefits, contact one of EBSA's Benefits Advisors, toll-free, at
1.866.444.EBSA (3272), or electronically at
www.askebsa.dol.gov.
This fact sheet has been developed by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employee
Benefits Security Administration, Washington, DC 20210. It will be made
available in alternate formats upon request: Voice telephone: 202.693.8664;
Text telephone: 202.501.3911. In addition, the information in
this fact sheet constitutes a small entity compliance guide for purposes of
the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996.
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