CASE STUDY: TRUST SERVICES, INC.
OVERVIEW
Trust Services, Inc., a national firm based in Greenville, Texas, is a trust-owned service company that acts as the management arm for asbestos and silica settlement trusts. The firm manages trusts charged with liquidating asbestos and silica claims, following insolvency in Federal bankruptcy actions. Trust Services provides a full spectrum of services to trusts that have been established by Federal bankruptcy courts, including financial management, treasury, claims handling, insurance settlement negotiations and operations management.
CHALLENGE
It is the responsibility of Trust Services to process hundreds of thousands of claim files annually. Approximately 70 percent of each claim file consists of paper documents; the balance is made up of documents electronically submitted to Trust Services. Documents are typically submitted by claimants and/or their attorneys from all over the country. The manual methods used for processing the paper documents, combining them with any related electronic documents and matching them with existing claim files were time-consuming, inefficient and costly. Thousands of cubic feet of storage space was being used to store documents that may be needed for future reference. If documents were needed after filing, Trust Services' employees would have to physically search for claim files and pull the original documents.
SOLUTION
Business Imaging Systems, Inc. (BIS) provided a document imaging, indexing, storage, retrieval and management solution. The solution makes imaged claim files available in a central document repository for faster processing and ease of distribution.
The system converts paper documents in a claim file - which averages between 35 and 50 pages - into digital format. Fully functional since February 2004, the system implemented by BIS images all claim-related paperwork, including claim forms and supporting documentation. Such supporting documentation may include information on product exposure, depositions and answers to interrogatories, social security records, medical records, etc.
The following products were used in the solution:
- One Spectrum 8125 High-Volume Scanner from BÖWE Bell+Howell
- Kofax Ascent Capture with Functions and Release Scripts Customized by BIS
- MasterScan Data Transformation from BIS
- An Existing Legacy Trust Management System
- Training, Implementation, Project Management and Other Related Services Provided by BIS
All paper claim documents are scanned into the Spectrum scanner and passed through Kofax Ascent Capture for document capture. Capture functions are provided for both paper documents, using the scanner, and electronic documents, using MasterScan Data Transformation. All documents - paper and electronic - are processed and cataloged using Trust Services' intelligent data capture system and retention database with custom components integrated into Ascent Capture by BIS.
The custom application provides proper indexing and queuing of documents for processing. It attempts to automatically match documents with an existing claim file in the database, and if a match is found, the images are immediately captured and indexed. It can conduct pattern matching functions using such data as social security number, name, claim number, etc. If the application cannot intuitively match the documents with an existing claim file - usually resulting from incompatible file naming conventions - the documents are placed in a holding queue to be reviewed by Trust Services' research analysts, who perform cross-indexing functions to find the associated claim file.
Once all claim file documents are scanned and properly indexed, a custom Ascent Capture release script then outputs the documents for integration into Trust Services' legacy trust management system. Each file is then assigned to an analyst for processing.
Most original documents, with the exception of certain release forms, can be destroyed. Documents are typically indexed and boxed for temporary storage and then cycled for destruction within days of scanning. For each document, a box number and a page position within an innumerate box are tracked by the system. The indexing is a convenient way to locate and rebuild a day's work in the event of a hardware failure or data corruption that necessitated rescanning documents.
All electronic documents and the images of paper documents can be accessed at any time through Trust Services' legacy trust management system.
RESULTS
An imaged file can be retrieved in real time, and any of the documents in that file can be viewed or printed. Trust Services' personnel no longer need to maintain or search paper files in order to retrieve documents. Because of the reliability of scanned images, most original paper documents, with the exception of certain release forms, are destroyed within days of scanning. This has enabled Trust Services to eliminate thousands of cubic feet of storage space and has resulted in significant savings in the firm's long-term storage costs.
All procedural and system inefficiencies have been reduced or eliminated. Through imaging, automation and real-time processing and retrieval, Trust Services has increased employee productivity, freeing up personnel for more important tasks. They have been able to reduce headcount by hiring fewer people than they would have otherwise required. Furthermore, customer service has improved considerably because staff can retrieve claim file information in real time.
"Through a variety of cost-saving benefits we've achieved, we expect the new system to have paid for itself well within the first two years," said Doug Fowler, chief operating officer for Trust Services. "We have been very pleased with the document management solution that BIS customized to meet our specific needs. BIS worked closely with our IT and Data Control staff to create custom components that capture and integrate scanned documents into our claim transaction systems. The end product is a highly flexible and virtually seamless process that exceeded our expectations," he added.
