A memo made it’s way to me through the grapevine from the CMS (center for Medicare services) overlords today. Not surprisingly, the memo was not interesting. It did reference the Paperwork Reduction Act, or PRA as I will refer to it here. I don’t know anything about the PRA except its name, and I’m assuming that it was passed by congress.
I’m curios if its intent was to limit actual paperwork required of government employees, saving time and money (theoretically), or if it was to reduce the amount of paper used to save the environment. Either way, I’m also curious about the amount of paperwork done to get the PRA passed, and furthermore, how much paperwork needed to be done by government agencies like CMS to deal with the PRA.
If the intent was environmental, and most of this work was done on computers, the PRA might be a success (lets not think about the power consumed by those computers). If the intent was less work, as the name implies, I can’t imagine it was a success.
This is all conjecture on my part and I would love to hear from someone more knowledgeable on the subject.
For now, I’m going to print out the memo, copy it in triplicate, fill out a TPS report acknowledging its receipt, and then tip back a cold one in honor of the Paperwork Reduction Act.
