The flowchart is extremely important and demonstrates the general overall approach to recovery of overpayment (it relates to the 'rule' rather than the 'exception').
Percentages have been attached to each part of the process to clearly show the steps in the process, from most to least common.
The flowchart indicates, of all overpayments:
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about 80% are for employers:
-of these, approximately 99.9% are recovered through offsetting against the next cheque remittance (the 0.1% covers marginal cases where the customer or provider issues their own cheque in payment);
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about 20% of debtors are direct payees:
-of these cases, there must be 100% negotiation with the debtor on an agreed recovery process;
-approximately 98% of cases opt for offsetting of the overpayment against a future, or a number of future, compensation payments (usually incapacity);
-of the roughly remaining 2%, who clearly demonstrate that either extenuating or extreme circumstances preclude recovery of the overpayment:
>approximately 1.8% of cases meet the limited criteria for write off (or temporary delay of part or all of the overpayment); and
>approximately 0.2% of cases meet the limited criteria for waiver (or complete deletion of the debt).
Needless to say, the situations of write off, then waiver, are remote and are clearly a last resort measure in the2 recovery process.