OPM’s unprocessed retirement claims backlog grows

The Office of Personnel Management received nearly 400 more retirement claims in October over the previous month. That, combined with a lower number of claims processed for the month, erased much of the gains OPM made in September in reducing the size of its inventory of unprocessed claims.

OPM received 7,326 new claims in October, compared to the 6,946 it received in September. But, where OPM was able to process 8,134 claims in September, bringing its inventory to a three-month low, it only processed 5,795 claims in October. This was the lowest number of claims processed for a month in over a year.

OPM ended October with 16,667 unprocessed claims in its inventory, which was about 1,500 more than it ended September with. It’s also the highest total inventory OPM has had on hand since March.

October also saw the percentage of claims processed in 60 days or less drop to its lowest point in over year — 58 percent. That percentage has steadily declined ever since its high point of 82 percent in March. But the steepest drop occurred over the last month, when the 60-day or less turnaround went from 77 percent to 58 percent.

The average number of days it takes for OPM to process a case in 60 days or less is 49, and 91 is the average number of days it takes to process a case in more than 60 days.

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