It seems that one of the many questionable policies applied to the handling of FECA cases over the last few years is to reassign many cases that have not recently had activity to non claims examiner staff.
While these people are very nice and try to help, they are not claims examiners and most interactions with them are a waste of time as whomever is managing them tells them to provide answers that typically have little to do with the addressing the task at hand and are instead calculated to push off the work.
If you are calling about your ongoing case and the person who takes your call or returns your call seems to not be familiar with the process, politely verify whether the person is a claims examiner or not. If not, thank them for the information and the only thing you can do is to contact one of your Senators or your House member through their constituent liaison, and complain that OWCP does not have a claims examiner assigned to your case.