Using Intelligent Document Processing to Increase Efficiency in Unemployment Insurance
The U.S. Department of Labor recommends that unemployment insurance agencies adopt intelligent document processing (IDP) technology—which uses OCR, machine learning, and natural language processing to automate data extraction from various document types—to significantly reduce manual data entry, improve efficiency, decrease errors, and cut costs, thereby addressing backlogs and timeliness issues in claims processing.
Digitize Time-Consuming Manual Processes Using Automation
One of the recommendations that the U.S. Department of Labor’s Tiger Teams made the most was to bring the unemployment insurance (UI) domain into the age of intelligent document processing (IDP). Some states had pieces of workflow automation in place but weren’t taking full advantage of it. Others had plans but hadn’t executed on them. By and large, however, states had not advanced past simple scanning and maybe a few barcodes here and there. The amount of time and money spent on manually processing documents and going back and forth with claimants and employers was huge. We focused on this area right away because of the potential impact on timeliness and backlogs.
IDP is a technology that automates the capture, normalization, and extraction of data from both structured forms and non-structured, non-standardized documents. It can process all types of documents, including forms, papers, PDF files, MS Word documents, spreadsheets, and even hand-written notes. Using optical character recognition (OCR), intelligent character recognition (ICR), machine learning, and natural language processing, an IDP system can scan, read, categorize, normalize, and organize your inbound data into whatever format(s) you require.
Because all of these efforts do not require staff decision-making, this could be an area where your agency realizes the largest increase in efficiency by reducing data entry, manual processes, and human error – all while saving money. Other industries have been taking advantage of significant advancements in this technology for more than 10 years now; isn’t it time for our industry to do the same?
If you are interested in how implementing IDP can benefit your agency, Catalis can help. Contact us today to learn more about how IDP and other modular solutions can revolutionize your UI program.
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