SOG Travel Robotic Processing Automation 

Background

The Survey and Operations Group (SOG) at CMS consists of approximately 220 people, 80 of which are surveyors who conduct on-site surveys of facilities that receive Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements. These surveyors travel for 20 weeks (about 4 and a half months) per year and are still dealing with an overwhelming backlog of work as a result of the Public Health Epidemic (PHE). Travel is one of their main pain points due to the administrative burden of booking travel and stress related to potential audits.  

SOG is looking for ways to use technology to create process efficiencies. A taskforce was created to assess the surveyor’s travel pain points and identify opportunities to leverage Robotic Process Automation (RPA) which is software that enables you to create your own digital robots (bots) to automate any business process. 

Goals

The goal of this project was to identify a use case for RPA that would reduce the travel burden placed on the surveyors.   

The use case needed to address overall travel challenges as well as the unique aspects of SOG travel:   

• The surveyors often travel in large teams. 
• They must transport a large amount of equipment which cannot be stored in the facilities. 
• As a workaround they leave equipment in their rental cars, but rental cars are not authorized if rideshare options are more cost-effective. 
• Their travel includes multiple legs as they travel back and forth to the facility over 4-5 days and each leg must be considered in the review of rental cars vs. rideshare. 
• PHE has pinpointed specific issues such as using SUVs or standard size vehicles vs economy class to maintain safety and as recommended by CDC (Centers for Disease Control). 

• Parking is not within the acceptable range. 
• Lack of tools to support travel requests. 
• Missing documentation when vouchers are submitted. 

Stakeholders

• SOG Leadership 
• Survey and Operations Group (SOG) Operations Team  
• SOG Surveyors 
• SOG Robotic Process Automation Taskforce 

Approach

The SOG Taskforce team leveraged the CCSQ Human-Centered Design 6-step process to deliver Robotic Processing Automation solutions to the surveyors. 

1. Initiate 

• It was determined that travel was a pain point for the surveyors. 

2. Immerse 

• Shadowed two surveyors as they booked their travel to understand their processes. 
• Discussed issues with frequent audits, extra work to address and added stress 
• Observed a tedious process to compare costs for use of rental cars, personal cars, and rideshares:  

3. Synthesize 

• Identified pain points with audits and rental car justification. 

4. Ideate 

• Identified potential automation ideas: 

• Verifying SUVs not ordered 
• Verifying all attachments included 
• Generation of rental car justification (. access to CMS systems not needed) - SELECTED

5. Prototype 

• Surveyors were solicited to support user acceptance testing from each location.  

• Enhancements made based on feedback include changes such as: 

• Including tips in the rideshare costs 
• Calculating and including gas costs for the rental car 
• Adding the standard text for the COVID justification for the rental 

Input to Bot 

Output from Bot 

• Bot resolves addresses for airports, hotels, and facilities and using TaxiFareFinder identifies mileage and ride share options for each leg 
• Least cost rideshare option is identified 
• A summary table is created as well as PDF with screenshots for each leg, creating a complete file to submit with the travel request 

6. Implement 

• The pilot started 3/11/22 with the surveyors who helped in the previous step.  
• Feedback loop and backlog process has been defined and feedback will be actively solicited from the participants 

• Additional surveyors will be added on a regular basis. 

Results / Metrics

• Reduced process from 30-45 mins to 3-5 mins by leveraging Concur Pre-Authorization Itinerary and simple Excel template. 

• System provides data for most cost-effective choices for traveling 
• 800 hours (about 1 month) saved per year. The new system saves 30 min/trip, 20 trips/year, which equates to 10 hours saved per surveyor per year. SOG has 80 surveyors, which equates to 800 hours saved per year, or .4 SOG FTE savings per year.  
• This does not include time spent reviewing and responding to audits which will result in additional savings for the surveyors, their managers, and SOG leadership. 

Next Steps for SOG

The functionality is currently operational, and the team is making enhancements based on end-user feedback. 

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