The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is already in the news because users are going to be able to post reviews about the service online on sites like Yelp. To be determined whether that becomes one of their concerns or not…but they should already be concerned about their latest workers’ compensation claims status.

An audit of the department shows that even though the administration has been trying to manage their workers’ compensation claims, they still might be lacking and costs are increasing. They currently have two medical case management systems. One is for transportation security officers and the other is for the Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS). The recommendation from the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general is to do a cost-benefit analysis to see if they can’t use one case management system.

The inspector general also recommends that the automated online case-management system include FAMS as well. They were not included in a previous audit so they are not on the system, which includes an efficient early intervention/nurse case manager service. The administration says they are targeted to be on that system by next summer.

The third recommendation is for the TSA to formalize their chargeback procedures. Costs for federal employee’s lost wages, medical care and survivor’s benefits are billed through what is called “chargeback” which is monitored to control for costs. The problem is that the TSA has never formalized the procedures to review and monitor chargeback, so there may be errors and higher costs because they do not operate on a formal review system to catch and eliminate excess agency costs or data errors. The TSA said they are hoping to do this by the end of September.

Since their last audit in 2007 the TSA has done a lot to enhance their workers’ comp program, like implementing a safety information system for the injury records of their employees so they can document every case and try to make corrective and preventive measures against what caused the injury. They hired more people to work in the workers’ comp division so that claims are processed faster and more efficiently.

Even though the number of cases between 2010-2014 declined, costs rose by about $8 million. They think that might be due to higher pharmacy costs, high vocational rehabilitation costs, more cases that were turned over on an appeal, and because FAMS officers are paid more than TSA officers since they are federal.