Supporting Statement

Health Resources and Services Administration

SUPPORTING STATEMENT

BPHC Customer Service Survey

A. Justification

1. Circumstances of Information Collection

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) currently has approval under the generic clearance, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Control No. 0915-0212, to conduct customer satisfaction surveys and focus groups. This collection of information helps fulfill the requirements of:

1. Executive Order 12862, “Setting Customer Service Standards,” which directs Agencies to continually reform their management practices and operations to provide service to the public that matches or exceeds the best service available in the private sector.

This is a request for OMB approval of a qualitative, voluntary customer satisfaction survey or focus group under HRSA’s generic clearance. HRSA’s Bureau of Primary Health Care (BPHC) will obtain customer service feedback for inquiries received and tracked within the Salesforce customer relationship manager platform (referred to as Salesforce). One set of inquiries comes through the BPHC Helpline, which has been in operation since 2010 and is focused on providing assistance to BPHC staff, grantees, and designees on how to use the Electronic Handbooks (EHBs), HRSA’s grants management system. Another set of inquiries comes through “BPHC Answers” (program name may change), a new process introduced in 2016 to track Health Center Program inquiries from the public.

Executive Order 12862 directs agencies that "provide significant services directly to the public" to "survey customers to determine the kind and quality of services they want and their level of satisfaction with existing services". The objective of administering a customer service survey is to obtain feedback from our external stakeholders on how satisfied they are with the responses and level of service they receive from both BPHC Helpline and BPHC Answers.

2. Purpose and Use of the Information

In 2010, the BPHC Helpline was created to provide additional support to health centers submitting required information and reports to BPHC through the Bureau of Health Center Management and Information System (BHCMIS) and refers to the specific portions of the EHBs used only by BPHC and health centers. In 2014, BPHC moved from an internal tracking system to Salesforce to better manage, route, and respond to incoming inquiries from both internal staff and external stakeholders. In 2015, the BPHC Helpline received over 7000 inquiries from both internal staff (1334 inquiries) and grantees and other partners (5836 inquiries).

In 2016, BPHC Answers was created to assist program staff and management to respond to inquiries from the public about the Health Center Program. BPHC Answers will allow staff to track trends via location, topic, etc. to ensure that all responses are consistent. It will also route a response or working document through the necessary channels until a final response has been generated and approved by the appropriate management official.

Both the BPHC Helpline and BPHC Answers were created to provide assistance and respond to inquiries from both internal staff and external stakeholders. The purpose of the BPHC Customer Service Survey is to solicit the level of satisfaction on the quality of service provided by BPHC. The information obtained from the BPHC Customer Service Survey will be used to measure customer service performance and identify areas for program improvement.

3. Use of Improved Information Technology

The surveys will be administered through Survey Monkey, a web-based survey tool, allowing for 100% of the surveys to be collected through the use of electronic collection techniques.

The surveys will be distributed via an automated email that respondents receive informing them that the status of their inquiry has changed to closed or resolved. By adding the survey (as a link) to the automated email, we reduce the burden for both administering and receiving the surveys. Specifically, for administering the survey, we will update the system once to include a specific survey URL for all future notifications. In addition, it is one less email received by the respondent.

4. Efforts to Avoid Duplication

The timely information that will be received from the BPHC Customer Service Survey is not available from another source.

5. Involvement of Small Entities

These surveys will not have a significant impact on small businesses or small entities.

6. Consequences if Information Collected Less Frequently

The information that will be received from the BPHC Customer Service Survey is needed for program improvement purposes.

For each resolved inquiry respondents will have the opportunity to voluntarily provide feedback on that specific interaction. In 2015, individuals contacted the BPHC Helpline on average twice a year.

There are no legal obstacles to reduce the burden.

7. Consistency With the Guidelines in 5 CFR 1320.5(d)(2)

These surveys will be implemented in a manner fully consistent with 5 CFR 1320.5(d)(2).

8. Consultation Outside the Agency

The notice required in 5 CFR 1320.8(d) was published in the Federal Register on December 17, 2014, (Vol. 79, No. 242, pages 75164). No public comments were received.

9. Remuneration of Respondents

Not Applicable

10. Assurance of Confidentiality

The survey does not request any personally identifiable information, such as name, organization, etc. In addition, the survey tool (Survey Monkey) has the option for keeping responses anonymous by masking the IP address of the respondent.

11. Questions of a Sensitive Nature

The surveys do not contain questions of a sensitive nature.

12. Estimates of Annualized Hour Burden

Respondents:

All individuals that have an inquiry marked closed or resolved in Salesforce will have the opportunity to provide feedback on how well BPHC Helpline or staff have responded to their inquiry. The survey will target individuals that fall under the following categories:

• Submitted inquiry about HRSA’s grant management system through the BPHC Helpline

• Submitted inquiry about the Health Center Program through BPHC Answers.

We estimate that 15% percent of individuals will respond to the customer service survey.

Annual burden estimates:

The total respondent burden for the BPCH Helpline and BPHC Answers customer surveys is estimated at approximately 19 hours. We expect approximately 2315 respondents to participate in the BPHC customer service surveys - 1315 respondents for BPHC Helpline inquires and 1000 respondents for BPHC Answer inquiries.

Type of Collection	Number of Respondents	Responses per Respondent		Total Responses	Hours per Respondent	Total Burden Hours	Wage Rate	Total Hour Cost
BPHC Helpline Customer Service Survey *	1315		1	1315	.008	10.52	30.54***	$321.28
BPHC Answers Customer Service Survey**	1000		1	1000	.008	8	30.54***	$244.32
Total	2315			2315		18.52		$565.60

*BPHC Customer Service Survey-Helpline numbers are estimated by using historic data (2015) and projecting based on year over year increases for the first 6 months of 2016.

**BPHC Customer Service Survey-Answers is a new program and historic data are not available. The estimated numbers are based on BPHC Helpline historic data for 2015.

***Wages for Social and Community Service Managers are based on Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, http://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/social-and-community-service-managers.htm

Planned frequency of information collection:

An opportunity to complete the survey will accompany each inquiry to the BPHC Helpline or BPHC Answers. A link to the voluntary customer service survey will be included in an email to potential respondents indicating the inquiry is marked resolved and closed.

13. Estimates of Annualized Cost Burden to Respondents

The only associated cost to respondents is their time to provide the requested information.

14. Estimates of Annualized Cost to the Government

The associated annualized cost to the government is the time spent on data review and reporting by BPHC staff. The estimated annualized cost to the government is $2,375.15 (2-GS 14, 1 GS-1 – using 2% FTE) which includes the following:

• Staff time for review and reporting purposes at various times throughout the year ($2,270.80 in 2016).

• 2 hours to create/update the surveys in Survey Monkey ($104.35 in 2016).

We will not incur any costs for the survey tool, Survey Monkey. Costs listed here are based on hourly wage rate for federal employees.

15. Change in Burden

Not Applicable. This is a new activity under HRSA’s generic clearance and will be included in the total burden currently approved by OMB under OMB Control No. 0915-0212.

16. Plans for Analysis and Timetable of Key Activities

Survey Monkey allows for real-time data analysis. The tool automatically analyzes the data, making it easy for staff to review and pull the data at any time during the year without having to manipulate or reanalyze the data. Once the surveys are created and administered, the BPHC staff responsible for reviewing customer service feedback will review the data at fixed intervals or as necessary throughout the year.

17. Exemption for Display of Expiration Date

No exemption is being requested. The expiration date will be displayed.

18. Certifications

This information collection activity will comply with the requirements in 5 CFR 1320.9.

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