Mgmt 591 Course Project

Tracking and Improving Productivity in the Workplace

Jennifer Mitchell

PSC 103 BOX 5316

APO, AE 09603

jennmitchell83@yahoo.com

(605)853-7876

MGMT 591 Leadership and Organizational Behavior

Professor: Michael Carr

December 16, 2012

Introduction

The organization that I will be discussing is the Sioux Falls Veteran Affairs (VA) Health Care System. The Sioux Falls VA is one of many VA Health Care Systems located throughout the United States. The VA has been around since 1917 when Congress established a system for Veterans benefits. Their primary goal is to provide exceptional healthcare to the veterans of America. The workload is constantly increasing and the VA has managed to still have positive performance results. Although for this paper I will be focusing more on a particular department than the VA as a whole.

The department I am focusing on is the Business Office of the Sioux Falls VA. They are responsible for a variety of tasks including customer service to Veterans, billing, insurance verifications, and accounts receivables. It is a small department consisting of only 7-10 employees. Most of the employees have been with the Sioux Falls VA from anywhere from 10-30 years. I am an Accounts Receivable Technician which means that I work mostly with applying patient copays to their bill or sending out refunds for overpayments. Throughout my time with the organization I have taken on more jobs to include scanning in new receipts and insurance verification.

The Department of Veteran Affairs had recently learned that congress had mandated a program that would consolidate all of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) business office functions into only seven regional centers instead of each facility having their own business office (Consolidated Patient Account Center (CPAC), 2012). This affected employee morale as well as productivity. Productivity had already been a problem since funding kept getting cut and so did jobs which are why the department...