Outsourcing Government

I applied for Social Security and Medicare last year, just before leaving the country. My Medicare card was sent to my old address and was not forwarded to my sister’s home in Arizona (perhaps it’s not supposed to be).

No big deal – I couldn’t use Medicare where I was anyway.

So I'm back to the States now and I called SS yesterday to ask about the card. No problem, they say, they will send a replacement card.

I should have it, they tell me, in about thirty days. Thirty freaking days to mail me a card!?! Are they nuts?

I spent a major part of my working life in BPO companies that handled paperwork processing (among other functions) for major manufacturers’ marketing/advertising programs.

We would get invoices from retailers who had advertised or promoted our clients’ products. We would check the invoices and documentation to ensure that the promotion was run in compliance with plan, that the amount charged was reasonable, that the retailer had bought enough of the product to justify the payment, and other factors. If all was in order, we would cut a check and mail it. If all was not in order, we would send out an explanation of why the invoice was not being paid or paid in a lesser amount.

Our promise to our clients was that all this would be done within five working days of the receipt of the invoice. We mostly kept this promise – at peak seasons we would might slip to seven or eight days.

And it takes the government about twenty ‘working’ days to mail out a simple card? What the hell are they doing with their time? (I suspect I don’t want to know the answer to that question). If the government were to outsource this function, it could be done in about one-fourth the time for probably less than half the cost.

But of course that will never happen.