Facing Challenges Of The Growing Arizona State Retirement System
The Arizona State Retirement System or ASRS is growing at a rapid pace and the number of the state’s retirees is expected to significantly increase as the baby boomers move into their retirement years. The workload of the Arizona State Retirement System has tripled its workload with this latest increase. Such a workload dictates changes in the system in order to accommodate the growing retiree population. The Arizona State Retirement System administers public pensions to over 450,000 members which includes 225,000 active members and 75,000 retirees. Now with the added boomers, the system is going to have to make changes.
The FileNet Solution
The Arizona State Retirement System is the overseer for its members account management, which includes data records for changes to wills and pay off of service purchases. It oversees the health insurance and distribution of retirement benefits. It also manages their Service Purchase Program which is a long term disability benefit program for its members. This program alone receives thousands of requests each month. The increased demand for all of these services has presented a major challenge for The Arizona State Retirement System. The storage of the mass quantities of paper and film has already filled the allotted storage spaces. The filing system is overflowing. Tracking member’s information and locating documents is becoming increasingly difficult. Service of the Arizona State Retirement System is not performing at its usual superior quality. It is not unusual for a member to wait six to eight months for a response to a service inquiry. Finding a solution that would enable improved response time and operating efficiency has created another challenge. FileNet was the only answer for the Arizona State Retirement System. It went on-line in 2004 and by 2006 contained more than five million images. When FileNet was integrated into the Arizona State Retirement System the many challenges that were clogging production of services was eliminated. FileNet was able to sort and locate documents for members very quickly. The application is able to process the information and initiate business responses in very short periods of time.
When a retirement program is literally busting at the seams, as the Arizona State Retirement System was doing, a FileNet application was the only solution. FileNet has now made the Arizona State Retirement System one of the most highly skilled manageable retirement programs. It has eliminated many of the headaches which were caused by retirement processes. Their customer service has returned as the quality it was always known for and the members are now receiving their benefits in a timely and smooth manner.