DHECC - Response to the last post

I received a more detailed response yesterday from the DHECC Claims Administration Office in respect to the article I posted regarding expedited claims:

In response to your recent inquiry, we thought that you should be made aware of the actual facts. In the fall of 2012 the DHECC Program was fast approaching the fairness hearing and the opt-out deadline.  To avoid confusion as to who should opt-out versus who should stay in the class, it was important for the class as a whole to have a representative sample of paid claims across all of the claim types in order for them to assess which was the better path forward for them.  This could not be accomplished in the time required using the first-in/first-out (FIFO) method outlined in the Settlement Agreement, which method had been used for the summer of 2012, because many of the claims were incomplete and therefore not ready for processing.

After discussion with the Court, BP and the PSC, it was determined that a larger number of claims should be examined before the fairness hearing so that the Court, the parties, objectors and claimants could see how the settlement program was working.  As noted above, since the program had encountered problems with a lot of the claims not having complete documentation it was difficult to come up with claims that could be analyzed and determined, so a sample of sufficiently documented claims was needed.

The Claims Administrator, with the knowledge and input of the PSC and BP, asked the PSC to provide a listing of such cases and a sampling was taken of those cases.  This action had nothing to do with trying to expedite a claim for any particular attorney or party. Pursuant to that request, claims were submitted, a sampling taken and determinations were made, and those results were made available to the Court and the parties at the time of the fairness hearing.  During this same time frame some of the objectors were taking the position that in order to be able to determine whether or not to opt out, they needed to see at the time of the fairness hearing a determination on the type of claims they were handling.  We therefore took samples of claims from the several of the objectors and made determinations which were also available at the time of the fairness hearing.  It is interesting to note that over 60% of the claims that were considered were not represented by the PSC. 

The issues as they stood at that time and the above outline of facts are supported by the e-mails recently made public which were subject to confidentiality. 

I have reviewed the Fairness Hearing transcript as well as the Claims Administrator's reports.  I have yet to see any mention of the sampling program.  Upon receiving this response, I replied with the following request:

Thank you and Mr. Juneau for the response.  

This reply states that Mr. Juneau had a discussion with the Court, BP and the PSC regarding the sampling process.  Could you please provide me with the minute entry for this discussion?  It's my understanding that any conference with the Court is supposed to generate a minute entry in the record.  I would like to review this minute entry.

I didn't receive a reply today but I hope to get a reply on Monday.