Announcements
Abilities Magazine
| October 13th, 2003 | |
The ForumCanada Pension Plan Disability ProgramWinter 2000. Issue 45: p. 55 ForumIn an article that appeared in the Spring issue of ABILITIES magazine, we told you about the improvements being made to the way the Canada Pension Plan Disability program is being delivered to over 280,000 people across Canada. In this article we spoke about our exciting Early Client Contact pilots that took place in three of our regional disability processing offices: St. John�s, Newfoundland; Chatham, Ontario; and Winnipeg, Manitoba. We are pleased to say that the results to date have been positive and we are now beginning to implement this new approach across the country. What about this New Approach? For the past few years, the Canada Pension Plan Disability Program has received approximately 60,000 new applications for benefits annually. The applications are received, mostly by mail, at nine offices across the country. The traditional approach to adjudicating these applications has been for staff to provide or gather information from clients mostly by letter, although occasionally by telephone. During the pilot testing, staff adjudicating these applications contacted clients by telephone at specific points during the initial application process. Staff were able to provide clients with information about our programs, including the decision-making process, respond to questions about the process and gather any additional information prior to making a decision on the benefit claim. What did We Find Out? The results from the pilots indicate that our clients appreciated the personal telephone calls they received -- even if their application for a benefit was ultimately denied. Our staff also indicated that the contact made a positive difference to their job satisfaction. During the pilots, we learned that it was important for our clients to hear from us soon after their application was received. We also found that personal contact this was a good way to provide our clients with individually tailored information about other aspects of the CPP. These include our regular follow-up and vocational rehabilitation programs. Staff were also able to give clients information on other government or community programs that might be able to provide financial or other assistance to them. What about Our Plans? With this type of feedback from both our clients and staff, the Canada Pension Plan Disability administration has decided to adopt this approach to early client contact as part of our regular business at the initial application stage. More emphasis will be given to providing better information in a timely and clear manner to people who are applying for a CPP Disability benefit. We are already well on the way to implementing this new approach fully in Chatham, St. John�s and Winnipeg. We shall soon begin to phase it in at our other offices across the country. The bottom line is that this new approach seems to work -- it is a more interactive process that lets people applying for a disability benefit understand better what is happening to their application. It also gives clients more opportunity to provide our staff with further information about their case. By talking with clients throughout the process, we believe it will help us to communicate better with clients during important transitions in their lives. As one of our staff, Norm, pointed out, "Clients are very surprised to hear from a warm body. Most people don�t understand the process or the legislation and talking to them early on really helps." The Department is excited about this and other improvements it is making and has planned for the CPP Disability program. Early Client Contact is just one of a number of new Client-Centred Service Delivery approaches being tested or implemented this year. Our intent is to provide a more personalized service to clients from the time they apply for benefits until they are no longer in need of our services. Early client contact is a good example of our new way of doing business. For more information about the Canada Pension Plan Disability Program, please call Human Resources Development Canada toll-free at: 1-800-277-9914 (English), 1-800-277-9915 (French). If you have a hearing or speech disability and you use a TDD/TTY device, please call 1-800-255-4786.
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