[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE STATE OF THE
VETERANS BENEFITS ADMINISTRATION
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON DISABILITY ASSISTANCE AND MEMORIAL AFFAIRS
of the
COMMITTEE ON VETERANS' AFFAIRS
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 15, 2010
__________
Serial No. 111-85
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON VETERANS' AFFAIRS
BOB FILNER, California, Chairman
CORRINE BROWN, Florida STEVE BUYER, Indiana, Ranking
VIC SNYDER, Arkansas CLIFF STEARNS, Florida
MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine JERRY MORAN, Kansas
STEPHANIE HERSETH SANDLIN, South HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South
Dakota Carolina
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona JEFF MILLER, Florida
JOHN J. HALL, New York JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
DEBORAH L. HALVORSON, Illinois BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
THOMAS S.P. PERRIELLO, Virginia DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado
HARRY TEAGUE, New Mexico GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida
CIRO D. RODRIGUEZ, Texas VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
JOE DONNELLY, Indiana DAVID P. ROE, Tennessee
JERRY McNERNEY, California
ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio
TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota
JOHN H. ADLER, New Jersey
ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona
GLENN C. NYE, Virginia
Malcom A. Shorter, Staff Director
______
SUBCOMMITTEE ON DISABILITY ASSISTANCE AND MEMORIAL AFFAIRS
JOHN J. HALL, New York, Chairman
DEBORAH L. HALVORSON, Illinois DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado, Ranking
JOE DONNELLY, Indiana JEFF MILLER, Florida
CIRO D. RODRIGUEZ, Texas BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona
Pursuant to clause 2(e)(4) of Rule XI of the Rules of the House, public
hearing records of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs are also
published in electronic form. The printed hearing record remains the
official version. Because electronic submissions are used to prepare
both printed and electronic versions of the hearing record, the process
of converting between various electronic formats may introduce
unintentional errors or omissions. Such occurrences are inherent in the
current publication process and should diminish as the process is
further refined.
C O N T E N T S
__________
June 15, 2010
Page
The State of the Veterans Benefits Administration................ 1
OPENING STATEMENTS
Chairman John J. Hall............................................ 1
Prepared statement of Chairman Hall.......................... 39
Hon. Doug Lamborn, Ranking Republican Member..................... 3
Prepared statement of Congressman Lamborn.................... 40
Hon. Deborah L. Halvorson........................................ 3
WITNESSES
Advisory Committee on Disability Compensation, Lieutenant General
Ronald R. Blanck, USA (Ret.), D.O., Member..................... 4
Prepared statement of General Blanck......................... 40
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Michael Walcoff, Acting
Under Secretary for Benefits, Veterans Benefits Administration. 26
Prepared statement of Mr. Walcoff............................ 66
______
American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO, and AFGE
Veterans Affairs Council, Molly M. Ames, Rating Veterans
Service Representative, Veterans Benefits Administration
Regional Office, San Diego, CA................................. 18
Prepared statement of Ms. Ames............................... 59
American Legion, Ian C. de Planque, Deputy Director, Veterans
Affairs and Rehabilitation Commission.......................... 9
Prepared statement of Mr. de Planque......................... 50
Disabled American Veterans, Joseph A. Violante, National
Legislative Director........................................... 7
Prepared statement of Mr. Violante........................... 46
Federal Bar Association, Carol Wild Scott, Chairman, Veterans Law
Section........................................................ 5
Prepared statement of Ms. Scott.............................. 42
National Organization of Veterans' Advocates, Inc., Richard Paul
Cohen, Executive Director...................................... 16
Prepared statement of Mr. Cohen.............................. 56
Veterans for Common Sense, Paul Sullivan, Executive Director..... 19
Prepared statement of Mr. Sullivan........................... 62
MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs report entitled, ``Electronic
Work Measurement Application Final Work Rate Standards,''
Prepared for the Compensation and Pension Service, Veterans
Benefits Administration, by SRA International, Inc., dated July
15, 2004....................................................... 72
THE STATE OF THE
VETERANS BENEFITS ADMINISTRATION
----------
TUESDAY, JUNE 15, 2010
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Veterans' Affairs,
Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and
Memorial Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:05 p.m., in
Room 340, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. John J. Hall
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Hall, Halvorson, Donnelly,
Lamborn, and Bilbray.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN HALL
Mr. Hall. Good afternoon. Would everybody, to begin our
meeting, please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.
[Pledge of Allegiance.]
Thank you. And welcome to the House Committee on Veterans'
Affairs, the Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial
Affairs.
Our hearing today is on the state of the Veterans Benefits
Administration (VBA). I welcome everybody and look forward to
hearing from our panels. This hearing represents the seventh
hearing that we have held this year, and the 15th for the 111th
Congress, which we have conducted relating to problems plaguing
the disability claims processing system. So oversight has been
vigorous with significant activity on this front from
stakeholders across the board.
The system is still, however, in dire need of continuing
reform. Today, there are over 546,000 compensation and pension
(C&P) claims awaiting final processing, with a total inventory
or backlog of over 1 million claims and appeals within the VBA
pending a decision. VBA employs over 13,000 personnel in its
compensation and pension operation, and this figure represents
a staffing increase of 32 percent since Democrats became the
majority party in 2007 in Congress.
However, as we stated in the past, the problems plaguing
VBA are not just workforce issues; they are leadership
methodology, cultural and technology issues. That is why we
passed the Veterans Benefits Modernization Act, H.R. 5892,
which was included almost in its totality in Public Law 110-
389. As many of you in this room recall, with your help P.L.
110-389 established a guided roadmap for VA to get us to where
we are today--encouraged by the reform efforts that VA is
making, but cautious to make sure that we are doing everything
we can to help VA make those meaningful reformations of its
claims processing system.
There has been major progress since the passage of Public
Law 110-389. For instance, very recently, today the VA adopted
a shortened claims filing form as well as other easy forms like
the fully developed claims forms for both compensation and
pension claims. The inclusion of a checklist will increase
compensation requests. You, the VA, have heeded the call of
Congress as outlined in Public Law 110-389, and I applaud you,
as I am sure other Members of this Subcommittee do, for your
efforts to bring this to fruition.
VA also has a number of claims processing related pilots
underway, and I applaud your activity and proactivity in this
area. I would like to caution, however, that we want to avoid
action for the sake of action. We are committed to ensuring
that the 30-plus ongoing pilots translate to real change for
our veterans and for our survivors who are still languishing in
the backlog.
I think most stakeholders believe that a comprehensive
overhaul is still in order, and I am encouraged that we seem to
be on the right path to get there. We seem to have the right
leader for this monumental task in Secretary Shinseki, who has
both the vision and commitment, in my opinion, to get us to a
more veteran-centered 21st Century system claims processing
system.
We all know about the myriad of problems plaguing the VBA's
current system; the lack of adequate training; a 30- to 40-
percent error rate; a paper-based system; still an overemphasis
on quality and underemphasis on quantity--or, I am sorry, an
overemphasis on quantity over quality without putting enough
emphasis on accountability, consistency, or accuracy.
As I have said many times, and I know that many of you
agree, as does Secretary Shinseki, we want a system that gets
it right the first time, one that renders decisions in which
our veterans and stakeholders can have 100 percent confidence.
Currently we are not there, but as they say in the self-
help world, we are looking for progress, not perfection. None
of us expect to get to perfection instantly, but we are,
however, seeking progress. We are not here to blame anyone for
where we are today. The claims backlog has been a decades-old
problem that is coming to a head mostly because we are engaged
currently in two wars, for which there was little planning for
the veterans of those wars at the same time that our older
veterans are aging and need more care.
We want to focus on solutions. I expect to get a
comprehensive update on where the VA is today, what it plans to
do to meet its 2015 claims transformation target with its new
Veterans Benefits Management and Veterans Relationship Manager
Systems. We also want to know if and how these two systems
interface with the Virtual Lifetime Electronic Records (VLER)
Initiative announced by the President.
Lastly, we look forward to hearing about the state of the
VA's efforts to bring aboard a permanent Under Secretary for
Benefits.
I think we all have the same goal, which is to ensure that
we have a world-class 21st Century claims processing system
that helps our veterans, their families, and their survivors
secure the benefits they deserve and that they have earned,
without delay.
With that, I look forward to the insightful testimony of
our witnesses. I now will recognize Ranking Member Lamborn for
his opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Hall appears on p. 39.]
OPENING STATEMENT OF CONGRESSMAN LAMBORN
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It has been about a
year since we first convened as a Subcommittee to discuss VA's
ongoing struggle to overcome the backlog of disability claims.
Multiple hearings have been devoted to this topic and to the
underlying need for VA to improve the timeliness and accuracy
of its adjudication process.
Now, anyone who has followed this Subcommittee's hearings
over the past several years knows that I have long advocated
for better use of information technology as a partial remedy to
VA's problems. I am pleased that the virtual regional office
(RO) concept I introduced in 2007 to modernize the claims
process is being included in the Veterans Benefits Management
System (VBMS). I hope that it and other integral parts of the
VBMS will establish the framework needed to transform VA into a
21st-Century benefits system.
I look forward to hearing from our VA panel this afternoon
for an update on the status of the pilot programs that are
underway. And I would like to know how long will it be before
they are implemented and how soon will they have a positive
impact.
While I understand that diligence is required when a
foundation's pillars are being set, it is imperative that VA
continues its progress with the utmost sense of urgency.
Veterans are suffering as a result of the ever-increasing
inventory of claims, and this is simply unacceptable. There was
no hesitation on their part when it came to serving our Nation
in a time of need, and they should not have to wait months and
years to receive compensation for the injuries they incurred
during service.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Congressman Lamborn appears on
p. 40.]
Mr. Hall. Thank you Mr. Lamborn.
I would remind all panelists that your complete written
statements have been made a part of the hearing record.
Please--oh, I am sorry, Mrs. Halvorson, would you like to make
a statement?
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DEBORAH L. HALVORSON
Mrs. Halvorson. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to just thank and congratulate you on the
intense meetings that we have had over the backlog. This is the
number one complaint I get every time I go back home. I have a
Veterans Advisory Committee that we get together, and once we
get on the backlog issue we never get off of it. I think that
it is true that this is a part of a bigger problem, and we need
to continue to focus on it. We have to remember that it is not
about activity, it is about results. We don't want to confuse
the two. So just throwing more people after a broken system is
not what we want to do. I am looking forward to continuing the
effort. This is our mission and we have to see it through.
Mr. Hall. Thank you, Mrs. Halvorson.
Panelists, please remember that your written statements
have been made a part of the hearing record so you can limit
your remarks so that we may have sufficient time to follow up
with questions.
Will today's first panel please come and join us at the
witness table. Dr. Ronald Blanck, a Member of the Advisory
Committee on Disability Compensation at the U.S. Department of
Veterans Affairs; Carol Wild Scott, Veterans Law Section (VLSL)
of the Federal Bar Association; Joseph Violante, National
Legislative Director of Disabled American Veterans (DAV); and
Ian de Planque, Assistant Director, Veterans Affairs
Rehabilitation Commission, the American Legion. Thank you all
for joining us again, and welcome.
Mr. Blanck, you are now recognized.
STATEMENTS OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL RONALD R. BLANCK, USA (RET.),
D.O., MEMBER, ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON DISABILITY COMPENSATION;
CAROL WILD SCOTT, CHAIRMAN, VETERANS LAW SECTION, FEDERAL BAR
ASSOCIATION; JOSEPH A. VIOLANTE, NATIONAL LEGISLATIVE DIRECTOR,
DISABLED AMERICAN VETERANS; AND IAN C. DE PLANQUE, DEPUTY
DIRECTOR, VETERANS AFFAIRS AND REHABILITATION COMMISSION,
AMERICAN LEGION
STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL RONALD R. BLANCK, USA (RET.),
D.O.
Dr. Blanck. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would just
like to summarize a few points from my witness statement.
First of all, to note that I am here representing our
Chairman, General Scott, who is farming in Texas and could not
leave, and so he asked if I would represent him and the
Committee. And it is a pleasure.
You know what our Committee does. Our charter is in the
statement. We have now met 19 times over a close to 2-year
period, and forwarded an interim report with recommendations to
the Secretary that addressed our efforts in July of 2009. We
received a response from the Secretary in February of 2010, and
if those copies aren't available, I do have them for you. The
first you were provided; the second you may not have seen. And
we are in the process of preparing a draft report for the
Secretary and for Congress, as required, which will be
available in October of this year, that will summarize the work
that we have done, the recommendations we have, and the
progress the VA has made.
Our focus of course is in three areas. It is methodology
for reviewing and updating the Veterans Administration Schedule
for Rating Disabilities (VASRD); that is, the VA schedule for
rating disabilities, because that is central to everything. And
that if it is done properly, it will in and of itself reduce
the backlog, reduce the appeals that add to the backlog and all
of that.
We are also looking at the transitioning of the
servicemember from military to the VA.
And finally, disability compensation for noneconomic loss,
often referred to though not in any legislation that I have
seen, as quality of life, which is now not very much a part of
compensation.
Where we are in the VASRD, of course, is that we have seen
progress. The VA is taking this very, very seriously. And I
have to acknowledge that standards for the diagnosis and
evaluation of traumatic brain injury (TBI) have been
established. There has been progress in reviewing the entire
mental disability category, because the mental health
disability seems to be the most problematic, given the
difficulty of measuring it, and it matches least well with
other disability of other body systems.
Preliminary steps are also underway to review the
musculoskeletal and the endocrine systems. Again, we are
convinced that reviewing these body systems and updating the
VASRD will pay great dividends.
We have proposed a level of permanent staffing for both the
VBA--the Veterans Benefit Administration--and the VHA--the
Veterans Health Administration--to ensure that all 15 body
systems are reviewed and updated as necessary in a timely way,
a minimum of three per year so that all 15 would be reviewed in
a 5-year period on a recurring basis.
We have also proposed a priority among body systems that
takes into account which are at greatest risk of inappropriate
evaluations; problem prone, relative number of veterans and
veterans' payments associated.
The Secretary's response to all of our recommendations has
been timely. The Secretary and his staff concur in general with
most of our recommendations at least; however, he does not
commit the--the agency has not committed to specific management
procedures, staffing, or timeline for review and update. And in
our full report in October, we will comment on this and see if
we can work more closely and get some of the detail we feel is
necessary. Now, the VA is working on these; we just don't have
some of those details.
We have also proposed a detailed procedure for review and
updating the VASRD, which I have available. We believe that
there will be two studies necessary as the rating, schedule for
rating disabilities is reviewed. One is to validate the
horizontal and vertical equity in the tables of disability, and
the second is looking at the vocational rehabilitation program.
We continue to review the quality-of-life issue using
special monthly compensation (SMC) as a model. We are looking
at transition issues, and I believe we are progressing on a
broad front. The Committee has had excellent access to the
Secretary, to the staff. We are very pleased with our working
relationships with the VA and other organizations.
That concludes my report, and I stand ready to take
questions. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Blanck appears on p. 40.]
Mr. Hall. Thank you, sir.
And, Ms. Scott, you are now recognized.
STATEMENT OF CAROL WILD SCOTT
Ms. Scott. Thank you. Good afternoon Chairman Hall, Ranking
Member Lamborn and Members of the Subcommittee.
I am pleased to provide this testimony on behalf of the
Veterans Law Section of the Federal Bar Association. Indeed,
the backlog is more symptomatic of a process out of control.
For too many decades it has operated as if only the subordinate
persons were in charge, each with an individual regional
command operating day to day as the individual circumstances
may dictate. This Secretary, more than any of his immediate
predecessors, has the leadership skills to meet the challenge
and at the same time gain the trust he must have from at least
the two communities of the veterans and the VA itself.
We continue to urge very serious consideration of the pod
process of processing claims. Dividing the processors into
discrete teams that incorporate all of the individual skills
provides an opportunity for mentoring, on-the-job training, and
provides also opportunity to develop specific areas.
This is something that we would suggest they look at; that
some teams within this process specialize in the things that
seem to provide the greatest problems in training and
continuing education--herbicide exposure, post-traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD) and mental disabilities and neurological
issues, TBIs. These are complex, involving many body systems,
and people who are attuned and trained specifically in those
areas would facilitate those claims.
We also continue to encourage VBA to enhance the position
of decision review officer as an immediate supervisory
personnel over the claims processing teams within the pod
structure, tested and certified, at least to pass the agent's
exam; in this position would exercise quality review over the
decisions for adequacy of development, as well as accuracy of
decision making.
We also recommend that this modality include a full-time
training coordinator in each regional office monitoring on-site
training needs and requirements, setting curricula consistent
with those universal to the agency and ensuring that
instruction and questions and answers are available to every
employee.
We also renew our encouragement of a treating physician
rule. Regardless of whether treatment has been by VHA or
private providers, nexus opinion and questions of the level of
disability or the extent of impairment should be addressed to
those providers. The traditional concept that a VHA physician
is incompetent to provide a nexus opinion because the treating
physician is inherently biased is inherently absurd.
VLS continues to urge legislative amendment of 38 U.S.C.
section 5904(c) to expand the availability of fee-based
representation to veterans filing the initial claim with the
VA. The regulations governing fee-based practice before the
agency are the most restrictive of any Federal agency.
Regardless of extensive self-regulation in State and Federal
Court rules of ethic and conduct, the VA continues to regard
attorneys with an unwarranted mistrust. The demographic has
changed. Today's veteran has fought a highly technological war.
This is the best-educated army in history. Men and women who
have fought and survived significant horrors of today's
battlefield deserve the dignity of determining for themselves
whether they wish to represent themselves, be represented by an
organizational veterans service organization (VSO), or retain
professional counsel. This generation of veterans, like Vietnam
veterans before them, has founded their own veterans
organizations to address the issues inherent and the conflicts
they experience. Just as the Vietnam veterans, they support
fee-based representation before the agency, beginning at the
point at which the claim is filed.
The Veterans Law Section does not support other provisions
of the Secretary's proposed legislation, including the
imposition in sections 202 and 203 of jurisdictional time
limits appeal within the agency. This is a somewhat cynical
effort to eradicate the backlog by making it extremely
difficult for a generation of veterans to perfect their claims
and meet shortened filing deadlines, when over half of them are
diagnosed with TBI, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or
other mental disorders, all of which impair their ability to
organize and respond to those deadlines.
Neither do we support the proposal in section 206 that the
board no longer be required to render decisions in which
factual determinations are supported by adequate reasons and
bases, but only that they be plausible. In conclusion, the
Veterans Law Section thanks the Subcommittee for the
opportunity and urges that it is the responsibility of all of
us to ensure that the quality of life is met as humanly, as
much as humanly possible.
With now over 1 million pending claims, it matters not who
represents whom or on whose shoulders the blame properly lies.
The job must be done, and rather than ensure that each
recommendation for revision or reform is nibbled into oblivion
by the ducks of turf protection, it is time to recognize, as
the cartoon strip character Pogo once did, we have met the
enemy and he is us.
Thank you for the opportunity to present these views on
behalf of the Veterans Law Section of the Federal Bar
Association. I will be happy to respond to any questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Scott appears on p. 42.]
Mr. Hall. Thank you, Ms. Scott. You have given us the quote
of the day so far, ``the ducks of turf protection.''
Mr. Violante.
STATEMENT OF JOSEPH A. VIOLANTE
Mr. Violante. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee,
thank you for holding today's important hearing on the state of
the Veterans Benefits Administration. DAV has comprehensive
recommendations on all their programs in our annual legislative
agenda as well as in The Independent Budget, and we recommend
those publications to the Subcommittee.
Mr. Chairman, as you know, thousands of disabled veterans
today face unacceptable delays and unjustified denials of their
applications for VA benefits. As of June 5th, there were about
550,000 pending claims for compensation and pension awaiting
rating decisions. Almost 200,000 of these claims were waiting
over 125 days. Worst, by VBA's own measurement, the accuracy of
disability compensation rating decisions for the past year was
just 83 percent, continuing a downward trend.
However, despite these problems there are some reasons to
be optimistic about VBA's prospects for improvement. Recently
both VA and VBA leadership have acknowledged longstanding
problems and looked for new solutions. VBA has over three-dozen
new initiatives underway that may help transform the archaic
paper-based claims processing system to a modern information
technology (IT) centrist process. We believe VBA is headed down
the right path; however, they will not succeed without
effective leadership internally and strong oversight
externally.
Mr. Chairman, VBA must remain focused on getting claims
decided right the first time, not just on reducing the backlog.
After all, the backlog is not the problem, nor is it the cause
of the problem, it is a symptom. Lowering the backlog does not
guarantee that veterans will get all the benefits they have
earned in a timely manner.
To be successful, VBA must engage in a true partnership
with VSOs. Last year, DAV alone helped a quarter of a million
veterans and their families free of charge in their claims for
VA benefits.
DAV and other VSOs are not just interested observers in
this process, we are active and essential components of the
system itself. VBA must solicit and incorporate our input at
the beginning of their transformation efforts, not just update
us during implementation.
VBA has launched dozens of new pilot programs at regional
offices, almost entirely without input from VSOs, either
nationally or locally. We believe this is a mistake for a
number of reasons. Not only do VSOs bring vast experience and
expertise about claims processing, but we hold power of
attorney for hundreds of thousands of veterans and their
families. When we help veterans prepare and submit claims, VBA
spends less time and resources developing and adjudicating
them. We urge VBA to integrate us into their planning for new
initiatives from the beginning.
Mr. Chairman, as VBA pilot programs have been rolled out,
we have found some areas of concern in their implementation.
For example, VBA recently rolled out the Fully Developed Claim,
FDC, Program. And while we support this program, it requires
changes to fully protect veterans rights. Unlike the normal
claim process, under the FDC Program a veteran cannot file an
informal claim. As a result, veterans have to choose between a
quicker decision under FDC or an earlier effective date under
the regular process. We have discussed this issue with VBA, and
Congressman Joe Donnelley is prepared to introduce the
legislation. We urge this Subcommittee to work with him to fix
the problem.
Most important to VBA's reform and modernization is the
ongoing development of a new IT system, particularly the
Veterans Benefits Management System, or VBMS. The final VBMS
must have comprehensive and realtime quality control and must
utilize intelligence of modern IT systems, which must include
rule-based decision support. We are concerned that in a rush to
meet self-imposed deadlines for rolling out VBMS, programmers
may be under pressure to cut corners. We urge this Subcommittee
to continue its aggressive oversight of VBA's IT projects.
Mr. Chairman, in assessing the state of VBA, we do want to
recognize the important steps that have been taken by VA,
however, we firmly believe that VBA cannot be completely
successful unless they truly seek a mutually beneficial
partnership with the VSOs.
Mr. Chairman, I want to commend you and this Subcommittee
for all that you have done to help reform VBA in the claims
processing system. I would be pleased to answer any questions.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Violante appears on p. 46.]
Mrs. Halvorson [presiding.] Mr. de Planque, you are next.
You are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF IAN C. DE PLANQUE
Mr. de Planque. Thank you. Good afternoon, Members of the
Subcommittee. On behalf of the American Legion I would like to
thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony today.
The VA is obviously in a very difficult position, but they
have come forward and spoken of their problems. And the first
step towards the solution is to admit that you have a problem.
The recent aggressive stance taken by Secretary Shinseki of
breaking the back of the backlog in this year and reducing the
claims to a 98 percent claims rate and no claim over 125 days
is admirable and aggressive and will be incredibly difficult to
implement. It is an encouraging sign, but we cannot fully
credit that sign as a movement forward without seeing the
results as they come forward.
One of the key components that has been a problem for VA is
assessing the quality figure. The 98 percent is an admirable
target; however, as was recently noted, 83 percent was the rate
that VA is assessing themselves for last year, which is down 4
percent from the previous year, 87 percent. The Office of the
Inspector General (OIG) even stated that that was 10 percent
higher than their internal figures. And when the American
Legion had done claims visits and quality review visits to
regional offices, we found that the number is actually closer
to 60 to 70 percent accuracy rate.
Why is this important? Because when you are processing 1
million claims, 1 percent of error is 10,000 veterans. It is
completely unacceptable. And VA must take steps to ensure that
the quality is the driving force towards driving down their
backlog. Approximately 50 percent of the cases that go before
the Board of Veterans' Appeals (BVA) are remanded back, sent
back into the system because they weren't done right the first
time. This is a recursive loop that only keeps these claims in
the system and will not reduce the backlog. Getting the claim
done right the first time removes it from the backlog.
VA has instituted a number of pilots which are very
promising and are very helpful; however, without proper
involvement from the ground floor with the service
organizations, we have questions about the success of those
pilots. Some of them, they have been very generous with the
access, and we have been out to see their pilots in Little Rock
and Providence and Pittsburgh recently, and have seen some very
good signs.
In Baltimore, where they were piloting a very important
virtual regional office, despite mentioning in the Roundtable
of this committee the importance of that program, they still
were not able to get the VSOs or Congress involved in seeing
these programs. We need to be involved while they are
happening.
With the recent programs in Pittsburgh, they are
experimenting with things that have long been mentioned by the
service committees creating templates for private physicians to
alleviate some of the load on VA physicians and help get those
exams done faster, providing public contact with the veterans
to call and follow up to the notoriously confusing Veterans
Claims Assistance Act (VCAA) letters.
These are great steps forward and the initial indications
are that the interaction with the veterans are leading to a
better understanding of the claims process. The veteran service
organizations have stepped forward and asked to be involved and
asked to help with the contact with the veterans and facilitate
this communication. And VA is slow to include us in the
process.
We are very heartened by the steps they are taking and that
they are reaching out. We are having more meetings with VA to
discuss the situation, to discuss the problems from an earlier
stage in the development. But without full inclusion, the end
users of the system, both VA and the VSOs and the veterans who
use the system, won't have the full share of development in
that system, and it will lead to a faulty system.
It is difficult to give the VA a grade on the state of the
VA at this point, other than incomplete at this time, because
there are so many pilots that are in a state of flux that are
going forward.
The VBMS system shows tremendous promise. It is the first
time that we are beginning to see where these pilots are
leading into, and that it will be a truly integrated IT system
that will actually capitalize on those electronic developments
and use it to move the claims process forward to be more
accurate, to be more timely, and to be more helpful. However,
until we have seen these things implemented, it is difficult to
see what the end result would be.
We are optimistic, and we commend the Secretary and the
Administration for the hard work that they are doing and for
the open hands that they are putting out to the service
organizations, but we are also mindful and cognizant of the
fact that we have heard promises from VA in the past and they
have not always followed through. And the promise to the
American veterans is what is important.
We thank you for the opportunity to comment, and we will be
happy to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. de Planque appears on p.
50.]
Mrs. Halvorson. Thank you, Mr. de Planque.
Before we ask questions I have a few of my own. So you are
encouraged by the fact that you have heard that the VA wants to
listen, they are including some new practices, and that they
are going to reach out to work with you. Because you say that
you want to get this done right the first time, which I think
we all agree with, what do you do when the doctor doesn't
provide what they need to, because we agree, we want this done
right the first time, but we are worried that the doctor
doesn't reply in a timely manner and they only have so many
days to do it. We are trying to figure out how to get the
doctor to reply more promptly. What would you suggest?
Mr. de Planque. Are you speaking of putting some kind of
restriction or pressures on the private doctors? Because the
plus side of the templates that they are working on developing
for private physicians is that they are very explicit about the
information that is needed. VA examinations, compensation
pension examinations, are different than what a normal
practicing physician might do to treat a veteran, and
therefore, they sometimes require different information.
And so from a template standpoint, it is specifically
asking for the information, so you are not going to have an
inadequate exam returned that they don't have the information
they need. As far as the timeliness factor of how you can
pressure private physicians to respond to them on time, if it
is a private physician, that would be an issue between the
veteran and their physician.
Mrs. Halvorson. Thank you. Mr. Lamborn, do you have any
questions?
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Just briefly. Dr. Blanck, can you tell us a little bit more
about the Advisory Committee's work on the quality of life, and
when can we expect the full extent of the findings to be made
public?
Mr. Blanck. We will have a report on that issue in our
October full report. We are still in the throes of a lot of
discussion. We are using the special compensation program as
kind of a model, which takes the most severely injured
servicemember, and even if because of whatever disability they
have or whatever wound or injury they have, it only reaches a
certain level of disability, they get additional compensation
because of what that injury is. Bilateral amputations, for
example, is one of the things. We think there is a place for
this, but we think it will be relatively limited to those very
severely injured. But anyway, that will be covered in our
October report.
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you. I yield back.
Mrs. Halvorson. Thank you. Mr. Bilbray?
Mr. Bilbray. Thank you, Madam Chair. I apologize for
missing the first part of your testimony. I just had a death in
the family, I am the executor of the will, and you know how
that is. I think the oldest in the family should always do it.
One of the things that I see inherent to our challenges
here is the response time. And in the private sector one of the
things that they have been able to do in 20 years is to really
use technology. And I know we keep bringing this up as if it is
the silver bullet, but if I can remind you of the success that
we see almost in every community--some people may not like it--
of Sam Walton figuring out how to use data processing, bar
coding, using smart technology to not only get a job done, but
do it very cost effectively and build an empire--he built an
empire basically off of knowing what inventory he had or didn't
have, and knew where it was and how to manage it.
I see that in a lot of ways as being essential if we are
actually going to keep our promise to our veterans. Where are
they, who are they, what do they need? And if you see the
parallel, if Sam Walton could tell us where, you know, a
commodity--and I won't even say the commodity because somebody
will say I am comparing this to a veteran--but could tell you
where the toothbrush was anywhere in his empire, doggone it, we
should be able to tell the veteran where they are in the
process and we should know where they are in the process.
And so I think that in all fairness, we haven't been
aggressive enough at looking at what do we need as tools to do
the job that we are promising the veterans we will do down the
line. And I think there is a lot of this base technology that
is not being done. And I have seen it again and again. And I
will just say we have been working a decade, trying to work out
medical records, electronic medical records, and it seems like
people look at this in isolation. But the fact is that
technology, just as much as Sam Walton could know that you
bought a toothbrush in Cleveland, he knows that he has to get a
new replacement toothbrush shipped at the moment the purchase
was made. As soon as somebody swiped that bar code, that
information was out there and everybody knew it.
The challenge that we have, Mr. Chairman, can we be as
responsive to our veterans as Sam Walton was to his clientele?
And that is--I would just ask you right there, that
technology--let me just add into it. The bar code I see for our
veterans is not just a number or a name; it may be biometrics,
it may be that technology of going that far. But let me just
open that up, just throw that one in the middle of the court,
and in the spirit of the World Cup you can kick that ball
around.
Mr. Blanck. Well, I will take a shot at it first, if I may.
I have been heavily involved in health IT. I was the Army
Surgeon General, retired in 2000, and of course worked on those
issues then, did it at a university, and now in this committee.
And kudos to the VA for the work they have done, particularly
in VHA, on their electronic medical record. I think it stands
as a model in the integration that is going on with that of the
military, gets at what you are trying to say. But the whole
organization needs to have that automation put in place.
My little piece is on the Advisory Board for Disability
Compensation, so we are looking at the rating schedule for
disabilities. And I spoke of the need to revise, update, and
all of that. And the whole point of all of that is not to keep
up with everything, it is also to standardize. How do you
standardize so that the private mission, the VA physician, the
military physician, all use the same automated form for the
disability evaluation? And that has been a specific
recommendation of ours that I know the VA is taking seriously,
the VBA specifically, and it needs to be linked in then with
that military and VHA health record; all of this centered
around not records, but around the veteran. And the bar coding,
and whatever measures you use there, is part of what will allow
all of that to happen in a very standardized and efficient way
as information is transported, as opposed to the old medical
records you carry around in a wagon because they are so
voluminous.
Mr. Bilbray. To give you an example, let's say we talked
about this. You can imagine the fact that although when someone
files a claim or thinks they qualify, we should be able to have
the capability, just as much as Sam Walton, to be able to go
back and say on this date he received this and this, bam, bam,
bam, we know exactly who it is. We are not asking the veteran
to go back and find his file, have somebody dig it up. It
should be able to be retrieved and should be able to be
reviewed very quickly.
I have seen the extraordinary difference that the Internal
Revenue Service (IRS) has done by going to electronic filing,
the effectiveness, the efficiency, the cost effectiveness, and
how much more user-friendly it was than shoveling papers
around. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Hall [presiding.] Thank you, Mr. Bilbray. Mrs.
Halvorson?
Mrs. Halvorson. No.
Mr. Hall. Dr. Blanck, you mentioned in your remarks that
the Secretary agreed with the Commission's recommendations, and
in some areas differed. Can you remember, account for us, some
of the various differences?
Mr. Blanck. Well, some of the areas in which, it wasn't so
much that he differed but had to have legal review, had to look
at the practicality of the recommendations. I do have a copy of
his response with me, which I would be pleased to share with
you.
[The information was supplied to Mr. Hall and will be
retained in the Committee files.]
Mr. Hall. Thank you. The Advisory Committee researched that
a new rating schedule should address the inconsistencies in
mental versus physical disabilities, and also differences in
age in onset of the disabilities. How would this change assist
the VA in assessing and processing TBI, military sexual trauma
(MST), PTSD and other complex injury claims?
Mr. Blanck. Well, the problem with the VA we all have is in
both being able to adequately and accurately assess and measure
the TBI or psychological disorder to begin with, and then to
assess its effect, because it changes day to day on earnings
over a lifetime in which the disability might be based. The VA
is coming up with some very innovative ways of trying to do
that, using biomarkers, for example, magnetic resonance
imaging, or computed tomography scans of the brain, volume
studies of the brain, that kind of thing, to try to measure
that.
A lot of these things still have to be validated, but that
is part of the process of putting this into place. I was able
to attend a conference sponsored by the VBA on mental health,
that whole area, but specifically looking at psychological
injuries--PTSD, for example, post-traumatic stress disorder,
and traumatic brain injury--where a lot of these injuries were
discussed. I think progress was made, and the VA, I believe,
has been very, very aggressive in trying to measure as best
they can and come up with ways to accurately and reproducibly
assess a veteran and come up with the disabilities.
Mr. Hall. Thank you, Doctor.
Ms. Scott, some stakeholders have suggested that veterans
benefits administration claims processors have been over-
relying on the appeals process as ways of catching and cleaning
up their errors. What are your thoughts on this? Do you think
that happens? Is that an accurate assessment?
Ms. Scott. I think that when it happens, at least according
to most of the audits and the studies that have come out in the
last couple of years, that to a great extent part of it is the
way they measure the work product, work credits. And another is
that they would rather pass along a difficult issue and let
somebody else up the line worry about it.
And I also think that a great deal has to do with training.
There doesn't seem to be, from the reports on training, that
there is any kind of standardization. The academy should be the
focal point of the training for the entire agency. It should be
the one thing with a director of training agencywide so that
you have centralized--again, we emphasize vertical
accountability for the training from the bottom up. That is why
we recommended that you put--that they put training directors
or coordinators in every regional office. That would provide a
mechanism for ensuring that we don't have repeats of one office
having one level of training and within that office the one-
size-fits-all, so that some people are bored silly and the
other ones simply aren't getting what they need.
Mr. Hall. I realize the treatment with the idea of a full-
time trainer in each RO and regularly scheduled instruction and
question-and-answer opportunities for all the employees at that
RO--I mean, especially as new rules come down, as they did
today, or new paper applications come out, as they did today.
Ms. Scott. Well, part of that is the medical issues with
which we are now involved are so complex and they affect the
quality of life to such an extent that evaluating these issues
needs to have the kind of training that is basically what a
paramedic gets. They need to know what those body systems are,
how they work, and why they work the way they do. Because we
are not just dealing with muscles and bones, we are dealing
with complex issues; and having those training coordinators
there that are themselves properly trained so that the error is
not instructed and becomes cocooned in the agency is vitally
important, which is why we said that.
Mr. Bilbray. It sounds like another project for our medics.
Mr. Hall. That is good. We don't have enough of them to
worry about.
Mr. Violante, if I may ask you, the American Legion and
some other stakeholders suggest transferring the job of quality
control assurance from within the VBA to an independent third
party. It has been suggested such a move would ensure
partiality and follow-up to ensure compliance. What is VBA's
position on this proposal?
Mr. Violante. Well, we certainly believe in quality
control, and we don't believe there is any. Whether it is
internal or external, we don't have a position but it needs to
be there at each step of the process.
In answer to your other question to Ms. Scott, I mean there
is no incentive to do these cases right the first time. There
is no accountability. And the incentive is to continue to put
these cases out, whether they are right or wrong. And so the
importance of quality review is essential to getting this done
right the first time. And again, whether it is internal or
external, we would just like to see some type of quality review
at every step of the phase.
Mr. Hall. Thank you.
And Mr. de Planque, your testimony mentioned the
Secretary's goal of transforming the VBA by 2015 to the point
where the claims backlog can essentially be eliminated, and
claims can be processed within 125 days at a 98 percent
accuracy rate.
Do you think these are realistic goals, and what resources
would be needed to help the Secretary achieve those goals if
they can be had?
Mr. de Planque. In terms of whether or not they are
realistic goals, that is a very, very difficult question. Is it
achievable? America put a man on the Moon in a decade. If we
are going to devote the resources and set something out as a
mission, there is nothing that we can't accomplish.
Now, whether or not those goals are possible, that is going
to take--it is going to take a paradigm shift within VA. It is
going to take a complete culture shift.
To mention the idea of passing along the errors, we talked
to people in the regional offices, and we do education for our
service officers on recent court decisions and how those affect
VA adjudication of cases. And our service officers very often
will take these court cases to the VA and say, But in this
court case they found that this applies, and so you can apply
it there. And they are told by VA employees in regional
offices, ``We don't deal with court cases, that is what the
Board deals with.''
Well, no, that is not what it deals with, it gets dealt
with at the ground level. Now, VA's central offices put out the
message that that is something that they want to change, but
until that changes on the ground level they are not going to be
able to achieve that level. And what they need to do is they
need to transform the mind-set. And that is a top-down
leadership and that is leadership all the way through. And
whether or not they are saying that is the case, it needs to
get through to the employees.
This was mentioned by people in the employees' union,
regardless of what they are saying, what is the perception
among the employees? What do they believe is where the pressure
from their job is coming from? As long as the employees believe
that moving the cases is the most important thing to them, then
they are not going to work towards the accuracy. When the
employees believe that the accuracy is equally important, then
they will be working on that and they can achieve a goal where
they are at 98 percent accuracy and where they are getting the
cases done on time. But that takes a culture shift and that
takes deep-rooted traditions to be shifted.
Mr. Bilbray. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Hall. Mr. Bilbray.
Mr. Bilbray. There was a statement just made, and I think
we really need to jump on this, is the perception by any
Federal employee; but the perception that the court's rulings
don't determine how we operate, is that the way? We are
basically saying we are not--that isn't going to determine our
procedure. If the courts rule this way, we don't----
Mr. de Planque. Well, and that is, to be clear, that is the
kind of reaction that you can get from an employee. It is not
what VA is directing from their central office. They are not
telling people the courts don't matter, but that is the reality
of a day-to-day interaction in many cases.
Mr. Bilbray. I think our attitude ought to be if the
President and the Congress have to live by these court rulings,
doggone it, all of us in government, even the Executive Branch,
have to recognize this is part of the separation of powers. And
it just concerns me if that is an attitude of our Federal
employees, of any Federal employee, that what the courts rule
doesn't--you know, I am not going to recognize or I am not
going to let it affect my operations. I think maybe there is a
measure of concern here we have that people think they are
above the law, because that is what the courts are; they are
defining what the law is, and I think it is a serious concern.
Mr. Hall. Thank you, Mr. Bilbray. You are absolutely
correct. And Mr. de Planque, thank you for bringing it up and
voicing that observation, because we will make a note to ask
the undersecretary about it when we get to our third panel.
We just had a series of three votes called and, I am sorry,
we always seem to get interrupted like this. But I want to
thank the members of this panel for their testimony, and if we
have any further questions we will send them to you in writing.
And I will now excuse you for the rest of the day, ask for
patience on the part of Panels 2 and 3. We will be back as
quickly as we can from this series of votes, and the
Subcommittee stands in recess.
[Recess.]
Mr. Hall. The Subcommittee will return to order.
I would now ask our second panel of speakers to join us at
the witness table, including Richard Paul Cohen, Executive
Director of the National Organization for Veterans' Advocates
(NOVA); Molly M. Ames, Rating Veterans Service Representative
(RVSR), San Diego, California, Office 377, on behalf of the
American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE); and Paul
Sullivan, Executive Director for Veterans for Common Sense
(VCS).
Welcome.
Mr. Sullivan will be with us shortly.
Mr. Cohen, you are recognized. And, of course, your full
statement has been entered into the record, so feel free to
give a 5-minute summary.
STATEMENTS OF RICHARD PAUL COHEN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL
ORGANIZATION OF VETERANS' ADVOCATES, INC.; MOLLY M. AMES,
RATING VETERANS SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE, VETERANS BENEFITS
ADMINISTRATION REGIONAL OFFICE, SAN DIEGO, CA, ON BEHALF OF
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES, AFL-CIO, AND AFGE
VETERANS AFFAIRS COUNCIL; AND PAUL SULLIVAN, EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR, VETERANS FOR COMMON SENSE
STATEMENT OF RICHARD PAUL COHEN
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Chairman Hall, and thank you to the
Subcommittee for the opportunity for the National Organization
of Veterans' Advocates to participate in this hearing.
We have testified previously, on many occasions, about all
the problems that the Veterans Benefits Administration has in
adjudicating claims, all of which have been previously stated
by this Committee and by the participants here.
The biggest problem, however, has always been the culture
of the VA and the perception among veterans and among those who
work in the VA that the primary responsibility of the VA is to
rout out fraudulent claims, move claims along, and generally to
not be veteran-friendly, even though the Secretary of the VA,
Secretary Shinseki, has for almost 6 months been going around
the country talking about not only pilot projects but his
vision for changing the culture of the VA.
And we were very optimistic after hearing about the pilot
projects and about the attempt to change the culture. But, very
recently, we became aware of a memo and proposed legislation
sent out by the Secretary on May 26, 2010. I hold it in my hand
here.
When you read through this proposal, and if you are someone
who works in the veterans adjudication system, it is very
apparent that the VA has now concluded that it cannot
effectively decide the vast number of appeals that are out
there. So the VA has decided to take itself out of the
appellate system.
And the way VA proposes to do this at the front end, it is
to cut in half--or it wishes to have legislation to cut in half
the time for a veteran to appeal--cut it from a year to 6
months, even though the VA knows we are dealing with veterans
now who have traumatic brain injury and PTSD who can't comply
with time limits. They want to cut that time limit.
They want to, for the first time, make the time to appeal
to the Board of Veterans' Appeals jurisdictional. It has never
been jurisdictional. It has always been subject to equitable
tolling where a veteran misses the time limit. The VA says,
this is not a problem because claims are simple. They say this
in the request for legislation. Yet, when the VA complains
about its inability to get it right the first time, the VA says
claims are so complex.
At the same time that the VA says that appeals are so
simple that it will not hurt veterans to cut the appeal time
and make the time to file jurisdictional, what they are
attempting to do in this legislation is to make the appeal
process more restrictive. They want to require a specific type
of appeal to the VBA, a certain type of form, and, when it is
not complied with, they want the appeal to be dismissed.
At the back end of the appeals, the VA has realized that it
is having trouble making good decisions. We know this because,
of the decisions that the court makes, 70 percent of the merits
decisions conclude that the BVA's decision was not
substantially justified, which results in a court award of
Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) fees at 70 percent of the
merits decisions conclude that the BVA's decision was not
substantially justified, which results in a court award of EAJA
fees.
The VA says, ``That has cost us $13 million. We need to do
something about that.'' What the VA proposes is to change the
rules for EAJA fees only with respect to veterans second-class
citizens when compared with other groups of people who can get
EAJA fees under title 38. The VA wants to make veterans
different and say that a veteran can only get EAJA fees if he
wins in the court.
The other trouble is that the VA has been making decisions,
which are supported by adequate reasons and bases so the VA
wants eliminated the requirement of giving adequate reasons and
bases to be. Then it would be sufficient if a decision has
adequate justifications.
The bottom line here is that we need Congress to hold the
VA's feet to the fire and require them to be engaged in the
administration of claims, and in the appeals process. This type
of legislation, which is proposed by the VA, sends the wrong
message to veterans and to those people who represent them. It
is just wrong for the VA to abdicate and to essentially say
that the VA is no longer going to be involved in doing appeals.
And that is why NOVA does not feel optimistic about the
pilot projects that are recommended by the VA. Because, unless
the culture changes, unless the VA truly says they want to
partner with veterans and their representatives and do it right
the first time, then this whole thing is just an exercise in
talking and will not accomplish anything.
This type of legislation shows the true intent of the VA--
namely, to cook the books and make it look like they are doing
the right thing, instead of doing the right thing for veterans.
Thank you. I am willing to answer any questions you have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cohen appears on p. 56.]
Mr. Hall. Thank you, Mr. Cohen.
Ms. Ames, you are now recognized.
STATEMENT OF MOLLY M. AMES
Ms. Ames. Chairman Hall, Members of the Subcommittee, thank
you for the opportunity to testify today on behalf of the
American Federation of Government Employees and our VA Council.
I started in the San Diego Regional Office 13 years ago as a
claims assistant, worked up to the Veterans Service
Representative (VSR) position, and, since 2008, I have worked
as a Rating Specialist on the appeals team.
I am a disabled American veteran. I served 11 years in the
Navy. And I take to heart what we are told every day in VBA:
that it is not a claim, it is a veteran. Therefore, it is very
frustrating for me to watch VBA go from one quick fix to
another without listening to the employees who are processing
the claims.
I strongly believe that once all the new hires get another
2 years of training and experience, that we will see a
significant reduction in the backlog. I have a number of
suggestions to ensure that VBA makes the most of its expanded
workforce to improve both productivity and accuracy.
First and foremost, we have to fix our production
standards. Our members are panicking over the new VSR
standards. It is like trying to match apples with oranges.
Under the new VSR standards, VSRs have to make their points
even though they get no credit for any follow-up work. At the
same time, the VSRs have to meet new timeliness standards, and
they also have to run the workload management reports to show
which cases are due for action, a very time-consuming task that
management used to perform.
To give you some perspective, one of the VSRs on my team
now has to track 250 to 300 cases at one time for timeliness.
If she misses three cases in a month, she will fail her
standard and get put on a performance improvement plan, risking
demotion or termination down the road.
I am worried about the new RVSR performance standards that
are in development. I already have to complete many tasks
without credit. For example, I get no credit for writing
medical opinions or for reviewing files that are not ready to
rate, that have to be returned to the VSR. Right now, I use
every minute of my work day to meet my 3.5 standard. I simply
won't be able to manage if the new RVSR standards take away
credit for even more of the functions I perform on a daily
basis.
Speaking of unrealistic standards, it is arbitrary and
unfair to require employees working from home to produce more
work than their colleagues based at the RO. In our office, only
RVSRs are allowed to work from home, but at a very heavy cost.
They have to complete 4.5 points a day, as compared to 3.5 in-
house. This makes no sense. I thought the Federal Government
was promoting, not discouraging, flexiplace. I can tell you
personally that I have always exceeded my current production
standards, yet there is no way I would work from home under
these higher standards.
Isn't flexiplace the perfect solution to the space shortage
at many ROs? Every seat in the San Diego Regional Office right
now is full. We don't have space for employee training or
testing of veterans for vocational rehabilitation. With all the
new hires, veterans coming to our RO can't even find parking
spaces. I hope the VA will reconsider its position on the RO
flexiplace standards, just like they did for the Board of
Veterans' Appeals 2 years ago.
I am also very concerned about the training being given to
new employees. When I became a VSR, it was standard practice to
rotate employees to all different teams. Now, new employees at
many ROs are rarely rotated. None of the temporary hires went
to centralized training, and most of them were assigned to the
education project for a year. Once they return to Compensation
and Pension as permanent employees, they will need additional
training to be able to adjudicate disability claims.
Many of the coaches that run the teams also lack experience
and subject-matter expertise. As a result, the work of new
employees on many of these teams is being supervised by coaches
with less than 3 years of experience.
I would like to close by talking about the pilot projects
and innovative initiatives. I have real concerns about the 3-
I's pilot in my office. Cases with three or fewer issues are
being diverted to a special team to be rated, which means that
the rest of the RVSRs have to maintain the same production as
before, with more intense mixes of cases, all of which have at
least four issues.
I think the SMC calculator innovative initiative was very
positive. It has really helped rating specialists to calculate
special multi-compensation cases, which are very difficult.
And although I don't have direct experience with the pod
pilot, I believe it will help. On the appeals team that I work
on, we have always worked as a pod, where claims assistants,
VSRs, RVSRs, and ROs work closely together on a daily basis and
quickly communicate the needs of the claim to each other.
Thank you. I would be happy to answer any questions you
have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Ames appears on p. 59.]
Mr. Hall. Thank you.
Mr. Sullivan.
STATEMENT OF PAUL SULLIVAN
Mr. Sullivan. Thank you, Chairman Hall, Ranking Member
Lamborn, and Members of the Subcommittee, for inviting Veterans
for Common Sense to present our comments about the state of the
Veterans Benefits Administration.
With me today is Thomas Bandzul, our Associate Counsel. And
also with me is my daughter Erin from high school, learning
about how government works.
Overall, Veterans for Common Sense describes the current
status of VBA as ``mired in crisis.'' However, there are rays
of hope on the horizon. I would like to add that we concur with
the comments from NOVA. And I am disappointed to learn about
some of the things that AFGE is raising, and I hope they will
be followed up on.
VBA's two major crises are worsening. The first crisis is
the unacceptably high rate of claims processing decision
errors, about 25 percent. We presented this chart to the
Subcommittee staff, Mr. Chairman, and it is our review of eight
recent VA Inspector General reports. And summarized, it came
out to a 28 percent error rate. We were concerned that, in some
offices, there were high error rates on some subjects and low
error rates in others, and in a different office it would be
reversed.
The second crisis is the unreasonably long delays in
processing new claims, now about 5 months. The two current wars
have made the situation even worse.
In August 2003, the Wall Street Journal reported on this,
and they warned about the plight of Iraq and Afghanistan war
veterans by highlighting veteran Jason Stiffler. According to
the 2003 news article, the long-term estimate of Iraq and
Afghanistan veterans' claims was only about 50,000. The reality
is devastating. VBA has received 500,000 claims from Iraq and
Afghanistan war veterans. Veterans for Common Sense estimates
another 500,000 new claims from these veterans in the next 5
years.
Progress in reforming VBA begins by listening carefully and
acting upon suggestions made by Congress, veterans, advocates,
and staff. VBA is starting to do that, and we applaud that, yet
much more needs to be done.
I want to put this in perspective. Fixing VBA is often
vital so our veterans can obtain health care benefits. Except
for Iraq and Afghanistan, veterans who receive 5 years of free
health care after discharge, an approved VBA claim is usually
required before a veteran receives medical care.
VBA's two crises remain in critical condition, we believe,
because VBA remains leaderless. VBA has no permanent Under
Secretary and no permanent Deputy Under Secretary. This is
unacceptable for our veterans and VBA's hardworking staff.
During a time of crisis, leadership and vision are essential to
chart a responsible course and to be held accountable for
meeting the agency's objectives. VCS urges VA Secretary
Shinseki to fill VBA's vacant positions as quickly as possible
with qualified veteran advocates who will continue his efforts
to transform VBA.
We strongly encourage VBA's soon-to-be-selected leaders to
bring on board a team of dozens of subject-matter experts
focused on two strategic goals. The first goal of the new VBA
leaders should be to improve both the quality and timeliness of
current claim decisions. The pilot programs are a good start.
The second goal should be to develop and implement a long-range
plan to overhaul VBA's information technology, training,
regulations, and leadership, because, as Dr. Levin at VA said,
the VBA's current system is unsustainable. I am paraphrasing
his comment.
VCS also wants Congress to review VBA's efforts to improve
processing goals for veterans claims and to publish final PTSD
claim processing regulations.
A bright ray of hope on the horizon comes from Secretary
Shinseki's promise to fix VA this year. The ray brightened when
VA's Peter Levin confirmed VBA is broken and in need of urgent
repair. Hope increased further when VA received approval for a
six-page claim form. Congress is also pushing in the right
direction to reform VBA.
From our point of view, veterans will know VBA is improving
when VBA has new leaders, VA's error rate is reduced, when
claims are processed faster and more fairly, when Gulf War
rules are improved, and when final PTSD regulations are
published.
In order to reach the long-term goal and transform VBA for
the 21st Century, VCS asks Congress to pass a new law mandating
the creation of an entirely new VBA system from the ground up.
This would fulfill promises made to veterans by Shinseki and
Levin. Any new law must set tough requirements for quality and
timely decisions so our veterans don't wait for health care and
benefits.
Thank you. And I will be glad to answer any of your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sullivan appears on p. 62.]
Mr. Hall. Thank you, Mr. Sullivan.
I would start by asking Mr. Sullivan and our other
panelists also for their comments, if you care to offer your
comments, on the announcement of the shortened form. We did not
get the one-page that you were asking for, but we got it down
to 10 pages, you know, from 23 pages to 10 pages, and then the
EZ form for those veterans who believe they have the full
documentation of their claim and don't need further
development.
Can you comment on that?
Mr. Sullivan. Mr. Chairman, Veterans for Common Sense is
very pleased that VA is listening to Congress and the
legislation you all pushed through and the concerns of veterans
groups for a shorter claim form. This is very good news.
And it is especially good news for veterans with traumatic
brain injury, other mental impairment, psychological problems,
who often abandon a claim when they are presented with the
longer form. I have seen it myself in person at VA facilities,
and it is very disappointing to see veterans walk away when
they are handed the stack of paper.
I hope that this small step will send a message to
veterans, VA staff, and the public that VA is listening and
they are doing the right thing.
Mr. Hall. Ms. Ames?
Ms. Ames. It looks like a wonderful idea.
Mr. Hall. Mr. Cohen?
Mr. Cohen. Well, the problem I have in answering the
question is, of course, lawyers are excluded from the initial
part of the claim filing. Veterans are not permitted to hire
lawyers until they file their first appeal.
But NOVA has consistently compared the claim form that
veterans are required to file in the VA with the claim form
that most injured workers file in their States for workers'
compensation benefits. The workers' compensation form is a one-
page form, which has a provision at the bottom for a treating
doctor to say the condition is related to work.
VA hasn't gotten to that point, but presumably this would
be the first step, what they have done now is the first step in
a process to get a form where the treating doctor can just say,
``I have diagnosed the condition. It is connected to service.
Let's go on to the extent of disability.''
Mr. Hall. Thank you.
Mr. Cohen, you suggest several points of decentralization
of the VA and overhaul of its procedure for processing claims,
a more user-friendly system, addressing the labor intensity of
the current assembly-line approach.
Can you weigh for us the balance of your concern with the
convenience of the system and the efficiency of the process?
Mr. Cohen. Well, it seems that the convenience and
efficiency are tied together. Because if veterans would have a
system where they could go into a local VA office to file their
claim and actually speak to someone face-to-face and be
interviewed in a meaningful interview, the claim process would
start more efficiently, and the material that is gathered would
be more efficient and more effective, and probably the decision
making would be better.
This, I understand, is one of the things that is being
attempted in the pilot in Pittsburgh, to actually sit across
the table from a veteran and get the information face-to-face.
If it is done properly, the end product would necessarily have
to be better.
Mr. Hall. Thank you.
And, Ms. Ames, you mentioned in your testimony the
unwillingness of the VBA to proceed with regional and local
labor management forums mandated by the White House Executive
Order on labor management relationships.
Please, could you explain to us the details of this
Executive Order and how the VBA has failed to execute it.
Ms. Ames. AFGE will have to get back with you.
[The AFGE subsequently provided the following:]
AFGE RESPONSE TO POST-HEARING REQUEST BY
CHAIRMAN HALL FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT VBA'S PROGRESS IN
IMPLEMENTING E.O. 13522
Thank you for the opportunity to elaborate on Executive Order
(E.O.) 13522 to implement Labor-Management Forums, and our
concerns about VBA's lack of progress in implementing forums.
I. What E.O. 13522 Requires:
The goal of E.O. 13522, issued by President Obama on December
9, 2009, is to ``establish a cooperative and productive form of
labor-management relations throughout the executive branch''.
The nonadversarial forums established by the E.O. are designed
to improve labor relations, productivity and effectiveness of
the Federal Government. More specifically:
Predecisional Involvement: These forums, to be
established at the national, regional and local levels, are the
vehicles for ``predecisional involvement'' (PDI), i.e.
management and labor are supposed to jointly develop solutions
to workplace problems rather than management advising the union
of predetermined solutions and then bargaining over the impact
and implementation of these solutions.
Pilot Projects for Bargaining over Permissive
Subjects: The E.O. requires that some pilot projects be
established in executive departments or agencies to evaluate
the impact of bargaining over permissive subjects set forth in
5 USC 7106(b) (1), i.e. numbers, types and grades of employees
or positions assigned to any organizational subdivision, work
project, or tour of duty or the technology, methods and means
of performing work.
II. Status of VBA's efforts to implement E.O. 13522:
Overall, VBA is making progress toward implementing the E.O.,
including an agency-sponsored joint labor-management training
program and the pilot project discussed below. However as also
noted below, progress among different ROs is inconsistent. (We
note that VBA is making significantly more progress than the
Veterans Health Administration on implementation of the E.O.)
Predecisional Involvement: Even in those ROs where
forums are in place, most managers are merely ``going through
the motions,'' and are not making a meaningful effort to
involve the union early to jointly develop solutions to agency
problems. For example:
Our members in Winston-Salem, NC report that
the labor-management forum being established at their
RO will lack decision making authority and its only
role will be to provide recommendations to the
Director. At the same time, management continues to
stonewall any real progress toward predecisional
involvement. Instead of jointly collaborating on needed
changes, management claims that providing information
about their intentions constitutes predecisional
involvement.
Similarly, members from the Reno, NV RO
report a virtual failure on management's part to
recognize the essence of predecisional involvement.
Rather, to their Director, predecisional involvement
``seems to mean that he wants something, he mentions it
to the AFGE president and then he goes forward.''
Management at this RO is not sharing information or
offering to discuss issues jointly, leaving no
opportunity for joint problem solving.
Members from the Little Rock RO have had a
more positive experience to date. They report that the
basic Forum was established pursuant to E.O. 13522 and
is meeting on issues that involve all employees. Labor
and management are working together to discuss all pros
and cons of the issues that come before them, and they
are making joint recommendations to the RO director. If
there are questions, the Director addresses those
issues directly with the Forum for clarification. In
the event issues arise to involve specific divisions,
i.e. Support Services and Vocational Rehabilitation,
union members serve as subject matter experts and
participate in the basic Forum until the problem is
resolved.
Pilot on (b) (1) bargaining on permissive subjects:
We are pleased to report that VBA has agreed to implement a
pilot project to address the means, methods, and technology
used for certification of skill level by VR&E Counselors and
Counseling Psychologists. Several of our members will be
participating in a planning group to design this pilot. This
effort is in the very early stages. We will keep you apprised
of the status of this (b) (1) pilot.
Please contact AFGE National VA Council Lobbyist Marilyn Park
at (202) 639-6456 if you have any additional questions. Thank
you.
Mr. Hall. You briefly touched upon the telework policies--
``flexiplace'' you called it--across regional offices. Could
you please elaborate on your point about how the policies are
discriminatory?
How do you think the decision was reached? What is the
logic, in your opinion, behind requiring a higher productivity
number if you work from home? And who exactly is hindered by
this?
Ms. Ames. The report that I read said that they came up
with it because you have less distractions if you are working
from home so that you should be able to produce more.
Mr. Hall. They must have a different kind of home than I
do.
Ms. Ames. I am thinking the same thing.
From 3.5, the points that I have to make now, to 4.5, that
is making me produce at least five one- to seven-issue claims a
day. That is a lot. Just for working from home.
When working from home, you know, it alleviates a lot of
the problems that we have. Our office is packed. There are no
seats available, we have hired so many employees. The parking
situation--just, you know, to keep people--at this point,
people retire because they just get tired of being there. And
if you would give them the option of working from home, you
know, that might keep more of the people that have been there
for a while that have the knowledge just to stay.
Mr. Hall. Thank you.
Mr. Sullivan, VCS points to the tidal wave of compensation
claims, which is estimated to reach over 1 million, by some
estimates is already over a million, counting appeals, as a
significant challenge that further burdens the VBA's system,
including new claims for Agent Orange (AO) and other herbicides
used during the Vietnam War.
Based on VBA's initiatives to address the backlog, do you
believe that it could be on track to reach the 2015 goal in
light of this increase in claims? Or do we need to take some
further radical action to get there?
Mr. Sullivan. Mr. Chairman, we want VBA to make the goal.
But, at this time, I don't think the pilots and the scalability
of the pilots are there for VBA to make that goal.
We want to see them do it. We truly do. We want to work
with them to make sure that they can fix this soon. But right
now the pilot projects are just those, Mr. Chairman. They are
one office. And we are not sure, because we don't have all the
information available to us--and we would like it--to be able
to say that VBA can quickly increase the size of the pilot
programs so that they could be nationwide immediately.
At this point, it looks like, as Mr. Cohen said, lots of
action and we have been here before, but where is the progress?
And I want to say that they can do it, but I just don't see it
there yet, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Hall. And maybe you could answer, and Ms. Ames and Mr.
Cohen also, just leave us with one--if you had to pick one
recommendation for what VA should be doing for handling the
claims processing, what would your top pick be?
Ms. Ames. The performance standards, if they were fixed we
would be able to more accurately count the amount of work that
is done and get people so that they are not trying to make an
unrealistic goal, and make it realistic and count the work that
they are actually doing so that they can process claims and
process them in a timely manner, process the oldest claims and
if you are just asking for a number to be produced, people are
going to make that number, no matter if they are using the
oldest claims or the newest claims. And you want it to where
they work all the claims in the order they come in. And I think
if you had a more realistic work performance standard, that
would happen.
Mr. Hall. Mr. Cohen?
Mr. Cohen. What is required is a paradigm shift. Instead of
looking at the present culture and the present way that the VA
looks at veterans, the VA needs to adopt the standard that is
used in the criminal justice system. That is, there should be a
presumption of entitlement.
VA should regard a veteran with benevolence which is at
least equal to that provided by the criminal justice system to
an accused. VA should say, ``This person has filed a claim.
This is a veteran.'' There should be a presumption that the
veteran is entitled to the benefits, absent clear and
convincing evidence to the contrary.
That would move a vast number of claims that are being
delayed by an inappropriate standard, the standard of the
burden of proof being on the veteran to prove by a
preponderance of evidence that the veteran is entitled to the
benefits. A presumption of entitlement would change everything.
Mr. Hall. Thank you.
Mr. Sullivan.
Mr. Sullivan. Mr. Chairman, if there was to be one
priority, it would be forming a task force at the Secretary and
Under Secretary level at VA to build a new VBA from the ground
up.
While all these pilot projects are going on, someone needs
to set aside a team--veterans experts, VA experts,
Congressional staff, private-sector experts, and, yes, some
veterans--sit them in a room, and let's build a system that
puts quality and veterans issues first. And I think we can do
that at the same time while we are trying to repair the
existing system so it can at least function.
But the current system is unsustainable in the long term.
And there are some very bright, hardworking new leaders at VA
and VBA, and there is VBA staff here that would jump at the
opportunity to do that. I say Congress should give them the
room to build the system that they want that will do the right
thing.
Mr. Hall. Thank you, Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Ames and Mr.
Cohen. Thank you for your service to our Nation and its
veterans, and thanks for your patience while we were voting
across the street.
And this second panel is now excused. If we have any
further questions, we will send them in writing to you.
And we will now ask our third panel to join us: Michael
Walcoff, Acting Under Secretary for Benefits, VBA, U.S.
Department of Veterans Affairs; accompanied by Tom Pamperin,
Associate Deputy Under Secretary for Policy and Programs; Diana
Rubens, Associate Deputy Under Secretary for Field Operations;
Mark A. Bologna, Director, Veterans Benefit Management System;
and Peter L. Levin, Senior Advisor to the Secretary and Chief
Technology Officer (CTO).
Thank you so much for joining us. And your written
statement is in the record.
If you would bear with me for a moment, we will recess the
Subcommittee for about 1 minute while I recognize the incoming
Superintendent of West Point.
[Recess.]
Mr. Hall. The Subcommittee will come back to order.
Secretary Walcoff, welcome. And you are now recognized for
as much time as you need, sir.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL WALCOFF, ACTING UNDER SECRETARY FOR
BENEFITS, VETERANS BENEFITS ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
VETERANS AFFAIRS; ACCOMPANIED BY TOM PAMPERIN, ASSOCIATE DEPUTY
UNDER SECRETARY FOR POLICY AND PROGRAM MANAGEMENT, VETERANS
BENEFITS ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS;
DIANA M. RUBENS, ASSOCIATE DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY FOR FIELD
OPERATIONS, VETERANS BENEFITS ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT
OF VETERANS AFFAIRS; MARK A. BOLOGNA, DIRECTOR, VETERANS
BENEFITS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM, VETERANS BENEFITS ADMINISTRATION,
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS; AND PETER L. LEVIN, SENIOR
ADVISOR TO THE SECRETARY AND CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS
Mr. Walcoff. Thank you, sir.
Chairman Hall, thank you for the opportunity to appear
before you today to discuss the Department of Veterans Affairs
disability compensation and pension programs.
Accompanying me today are Diana Rubens, Associate Deputy
Under Secretary for Field Operations; Tom Pamperin, Associate
Deputy Under Secretary for Policy and Program Management; Mark
Bologna, Director of the Veterans Benefits Management System
Initiative; and Dr. Peter Levin, Senior Advisor to the
Secretary and Chief Technology Officer.
I want to point out that, to express VA's commitment to the
``One VA'' effort to meet Secretary Shinseki's goals, we also
have with us Philip Matkovsky, Deputy Chief Business Officer of
the VHA; Martha Orr, who is the Executive Director of Quality
Performance and Oversight in the Office of Information and
Technology; and Donnie Hachey, who is the Chief Counsel for
Operations at the Board of Veterans' Appeals.
My testimony today will focus on the Secretary's goals to
eliminate the claims backlog by 2015 with a 98 percent quality
rate so as to ensure timely and accurate delivery of benefits
and services to our veterans and their families.
The entire VA leadership fully shares the concerns of the
Subcommittee, Congress as a whole, the veterans service
organizations, the larger veteran community, and the American
public regarding the timeliness and accuracy of disability
benefit claims processing. As you know, Secretary Shinseki set
the critical goals of eliminating the disability claims backlog
by 2015 so that no veteran has to wait more than 125 days for a
quality decision.
We are attacking the backlog through a focused, multi-
pronged approach. At its core, our approach relies on a
changing culture, re-engineering current business processes,
and developing our infrastructure with technology that supports
a paperless claims environment.
Our aggressive efforts are at the heart of our requirements
for a large increase in our 2011 budget request for VBA. We
greatly appreciate this Subcommittee's consideration and
support of our fiscal year 2011 budget request as we continue
this important work for our veterans.
We understand the frustration of many veterans with the
time it takes to reach a decision on their disability claims.
Throughout VBA, we have rededicated ourselves to the mission of
being veterans' advocates. This is a commitment which flows
from the Secretary down to the VBA leadership and to our
dedicated employees in the field.
Before going further, let me provide you with an update on
the current disability claims workload. Our pending claims
inventory is rising due to the unprecedented volume of
disability claims being filed. VBA experienced a 14.1 percent
increase in annual claims received in 2009, while we project an
increase of 13.1 percent and 11.3 percent in 2010 and 2011,
respectively.
This substantial growth is driven by a number of factors,
including our successful outreach efforts, improved access to
benefits, and the impact of a difficult economy. As a result,
we now average over 97,000 new disability claims added to the
inventory each month, and we project to receive nearly 1.2
million disability claims this year.
The projections I just mentioned do not take into account
approximately 200,000 additional claims based on Secretary
Shinseki's decision to establish presumptions for service
connection for veterans exposed in service to certain
herbicides, including Agent Orange, for three particular
illnesses based on the latest evidence presented by the
Institute of Medicine of an association between those illnesses
and exposure to herbicides.
We have a plan to re-adjudicate these decisions, as
required under the court order in the U.S. District Court for
the Northern District of California, case of Nehmer v. U.S.
Department of Veterans Affairs.
VA is also soliciting private-sector input to design and
develop an automated system for faster processing of new Agent
Orange presumptive claims. We already have over 40,000 new
claims and are receiving about 8,000 more per month.
The need to better serve our veterans requires bold and
comprehensive business changes to transform VBA into a high-
performing 21st-Century organization that provides the best
services available to our Nation's veterans and their families.
VA's transformation strategy for the claims process
leverages the power of 21st-Century technologies applied to
redesigned business processes. We are examining our current
processes to be more streamlined and veteran-focused. We are
also applying technology improvements to the new streamlined
processes so that the overall service we provide is more
efficient, timely, and accurate.
We are harvesting the knowledge, energy, and expertise of
our employees, VSOs, and the private and public sectors to
bring to bear ideas to accomplish this claims process
transformation. Our end goal is a smart, paperless, IT-driven
system which empowers our VA employees and engages our
veterans.
While we work to develop this system, we are making
immediate changes to improve our business process and
simultaneously incorporating the best of those changes into our
larger effort, our signature program, the Veterans Benefits
Management System, VBMS. I will not go into details here, but I
have outlined a specific plan in my written testimony of the
many different improvement initiatives that are going on here
at the VA.
VA is also working closely with our stakeholders. We
recently partnered with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to
create the eBenefits portal. The portal provides
servicemembers, veterans, families, and care providers with a
secure, single-sign-on process to online benefits information
and related services, such as military personal records and the
status of VA claims.
Additionally, VA continues to meet with stakeholder groups
to improve communication and to promote innovation, and has
recently met separately with veterans service organizations,
the American Federation of Government Employees, and various
out-of-the-box thinkers to partner on ideas to meet Secretary
Shinseki's challenge to eliminate the backlog and increase
quality. We will continue to examine every new idea from our
employees and stakeholders that may assist us in our mission.
Secretary Shinseki's goal is to transform VA into an
organization that is veterans-centric, results-driven, and
forward-looking. At the same time, VA must deliver first-rate,
timely health care benefits and other services to our Nation's
veterans, families, and survivors. We are looking forward to
working with Congress, VSOs, and other partners to meet our
critical goals and the needs of the 21st-Century veterans and
their families.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony. I would be happy
to respond to any questions that you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Walcoff appears on p. 66.]
Mr. Hall. Thank you, Mr. Walcoff.
So, how would you feel about having a taskforce to rebuild
the VBA from the top down or bottom up, either way, and still
processing all of those claims at the same time?
Mr. Walcoff. Mr. Chairman, I believe that if you look at
what we are doing under Secretary Shinseki's leadership, I
believe it really is building a new VBA.
It starts with the culture. There were a lot of things that
I didn't agree with that were said on the previous panels, but
that was one thing that I have some agreement with. I think we
have to look at the culture of the organization and we have to
start there. And a lot of the initiatives that we have in place
right now are really aimed at changing the culture of our
organization so that we are always veteran advocates.
An example of that is our phone development initiative
where, instead of just sending a veteran a letter and hoping
that he understands it, we are following it up with a phone
call where we can talk to him, go over the letter, and discuss
with him what he needs to do to pursue his claim, and then
offer any assistance that we can to help him with that claim.
The advantage of that is that the veteran can begin
immediately to put together whatever evidence he needs to
process the claim or he can say to us, ``I don't have any more
evidence,'' in which case we can waive the VCAA days that are
required and immediately decide the claim. So I think that is
an example of trying to change the culture of the organization.
The second thing we are trying to do is change our business
process, which is, to me, building a different organization,
changing the way we actually process claims. It is very, very
important that we do that as we go into, you know, some of the
new technology that is going to be coming.
There are many examples of how we are changing the actual
process, and I will mention just one as an example. And I think
this is one that you are familiar with. And that is that we are
looking for claims that we can begin paying an interim payment
while we are processing claims. That is something that I know
we have had conversations about. And we have piloted that in
our St. Petersburg office, and we believe that is something
that we are going to be able to expand nationwide. That is
changing our business process, and that is the kind of thing
that we are doing under Secretary Shinseki's leadership.
And then let me just finish with the technology, because I
think that is what is going to make the biggest difference in
our organization. We have talked a lot about it; the other
panels have talked about it. But, to me, when you put culture,
business process together with technology, you have a changed
organization.
Mr. Hall. Thank you.
I know Mr. Bilbray wanted to ask you and he wanted me to
ask you his question, which I think had to do with the court's
decisions being either followed or adhered to or not by VBA
staff at various levels.
Mr. Walcoff. Yes, and I appreciate the opportunity to
comment on that.
The representative from the American Legion had pointed out
that, in their visits to our offices, they often find that
there are court decisions that our employees at the actual
working level are not aware of and, therefore, have not
implemented. And I will say that that is an ongoing challenge,
to, as decisions are made, to get that information out from our
headquarters to our 57 offices, through all the layers that we
have.
But Congressman Bilbray made the jump that our employees
were intentionally not carrying out court orders. And I wanted
to very vehemently deny that that happens. Our employees know
that they are required to follow court decisions, and they do
not put themselves above the law, and do follow them. We have
to make sure that they are aware of those court decisions, but
that is on management to get that information through. Our
employees follow court decisions.
Mr. Hall. Thank you.
And could you quickly address the question that Ms. Ames
raised about working from home, people having different work
productivity standards?
Mr. Walcoff. Sure. And we have had a lot of discussion
about that. And we actually have a good number of employees,
mostly rating specialists, who work at home. I don't remember
the exact number, but I believe it is over 200 that actually
work at home.
And when they do work at home, they do have an additional
case required in their performance standard. She was right
about that. Now, the question is, why is that?
Well, first of all, we believe that our organization works
better best when we have our employees, our rating specialists
and our VSRs who are responsible for developing the evidence,
talking with each other and working together so that the VSR
who is developing a claim can be communicating with the rating
specialist to say, ``Is this what I need? Do I need to be
getting anything else? Is this sufficient?'' That type of
thing. So that on-site communication is extremely important. We
lose that when the rating specialist is not in the office and
working at home. So there is a real negative, in that sense.
And I believe that is a significant negative.
The other side of it is that, when they are at the office,
there are disturbances. I mean, there is mentoring that has to
be done by rating specialists. There are the interruptions that
come from a VSR asking questions about--you know, the same
questions that I just talked about. That interrupts the day of
the rating specialists, making it more difficult to produce a
certain number of cases.
So our feeling is that, when the rating specialist is
working at home, they don't have those disruptions. And I know
that people say, ``Well, you haven't been to my house,'' but
the truth is, if they are working at home, they shouldn't be
working where there is a lot of noise and disturbance, because
that is going to affect their ability to concentrate on the
claim.
So, assuming they are in a situation where they don't have
those disturbances, and also considering the fact that we lose
something by not having them in the office with that
communication with the rating specialist, we believe the offset
is to ask for that additional case. And we have many, many
employees working at home who are meeting that standard.
Mr. Hall. Some of that standard is intended to incentivize
them to come into the office and work from the office rather
than working from home?
Mr. Walcoff. Well, I wouldn't say ``incentivize'' it that
way. I think that we recognize that there is some value to
having the program. The fact is that she was right, we do have
real space issues as we have been hiring all the people that we
have hired.
But what we find is that we have a lot of employees who are
willing to work at home and willing to take on the
responsibility of the extra case because they feel that, when
they are there undisturbed, they can easily produce that extra
case.
Mr. Hall. I worked from home this Friday, and I know that
the guy will probably come to clean the gutters while I am
there, the dogs will need to be let in and out, you know,
various things will happen, but then I will try to get my work
done.
Mrs. Halvorson.
Mrs. Halvorson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, all of you, for being here today.
You know, I have been saying this since the day I was sworn
in, since the day I came to the Veterans' Committee, that, you
know, one size does not fit all. These are our heroes. These
are people that have served our country. We have to start
treating our heroes like people, not as numbers.
And, you know, with some of the changes that I hear today,
I feel a little better. And I really believe that we have to do
a better job of reaching out to them and not sending out
legalese that they can't understand, and then they have a
letter that sits there because somehow they think maybe it is
going to be easier to understand on the last day that they have
to get you their information and it doesn't.
Many of my constituents who fought in Vietnam and were
exposed to Agent Orange and other herbicides have subsequently
been diagnosed with the presumptive illnesses associated with
that exposure. Now, unfortunately, many of these same veterans
have not been aware that their illness was now presumptive and
have gone without the care or compensation for quite some time.
I personally have been working on a case of a veteran in my
district who has suffered for 6 years with cancer before
learning that his type of cancer is on the list of a
presumptive disease.
So what are we doing to make sure--and this is a two-part
question--what are we doing, first of all, to make sure that
veterans are aware of the illnesses that are now listed as
presumptive? And, in this gentleman's case, he is upset that
why isn't compensation now retroactive to the date that the
veteran was diagnosed with this presumptive illness instead of
the date that the claim was filed?
So if we can answer those two, one being what are we doing
to make sure the veteran knows now and doing outreach about
these presumptive illnesses, and about his individual case,
about the diagnosis versus the claim being filed.
Mr. Walcoff. Let me take the first part of it, which is the
outreach part.
You know, we can have the greatest benefits in the world,
but they are of no value if nobody knows about them. And I
totally agree with you that it is our responsibility to do
everything we can to make sure that veterans understand what it
is that they are entitled to.
And I will tell you that I think that we have been doing a
lot of outreach. I think that part of the reason that our
claims receipts have gone up as much as they have is because we
have really focused on the importance of getting out there and
getting the information out so that veterans know what they are
entitled to.
What I will do is--I don't have with me the numbers, but,
we have back at the office information about how many briefings
we do every year, how many veterans we actually talk with, how
many service people that we talk with right before they get out
under our Transition Assistance Program briefings.
We do a lot of outreach. And I can't agree with you enough
that that is the key. We absolutely have to--as much as we are
doing, I think we have to do even more, because we have to make
sure that that veteran, in your case, would have found out 6
years ago or whatever that he could have applied for that
benefit and been entitled.
Unfortunately, as you said, the way the regulatory system
works, he is not going to be entitled. And I am going to ask
Tom to talk a little bit about the way that works.
Mr. Pamperin. Yes, ma'am. The fundamental, foundational
reason why it does not go back is because the statute says, the
benefits will be payable from the date of receipt of a claim
prescribed by the Secretary.
Now, having said that, with presumptive disabilities, it is
an established construct of both legislative and regulatory
process that benefits are prospective. They are available from
the date that the final regulation--particularly, for example,
the Agent Orange presumption. The Agent Orange Act specifies
that the benefits are payable as of the date of the final
regulation.
Now, if the veteran had previously applied, if we restrict
this to Agent Orange-specific disabilities, under the Nehmer
settlement we are obligated to identify, both from our VBA
systems and we look in VHA systems, to identify people who may
have been previously denied. And we review those on the
Secretary's own initiative. And for those particular cases, we
do go back to the date of the original claim.
Any other presumptive disability outside of the Agent
Orange arena, if the veteran had the disability on the date
that the regulation becomes effective and they file a claim
within a year of that regulation, we can go back to that year.
If they file more than a year after, we can go back 1 year from
the date of the claim.
But, at its basis, the statute requires that a veteran file
a claim for the benefit.
Mrs. Halvorson. Thank you.
Mr. Walcoff. Can I just add one thing? Yeah, back on the
outreach thing again, one of the things we have done very
recently, as a matter of fact since I have been acting, is we
have established a new service, a new program in Central Office
called the Benefits Assistance Service. And their primary
function is outreach.
Whereas previously outreach was done as part of the C&P
program, as part of the Compensation and Pension Service, along
with all of the other things that we have been talking about
today, we created this separate organization because we wanted
to give more focus to outreach. And I can tell you that I spoke
with the Director of that service, Rob Reynolds, yesterday
about having a study done to look at our outreach program to
see how we can improve it.
I just can't agree with you enough as to the basic question
that you asked about making sure we get the word out as to what
we have available for veterans. It is extremely important.
Mrs. Halvorson. Because I have a caseworker in my office
that does nothing but veterans cases. She goes to all the
veterans organizations; she talks about what there is out
there. And it is amazing that people call her and don't really
know what is out there until she goes out there and talks about
it. So, you know, to me, why have benefits if you don't tell
people what is out there for them?
And the other suggestion I can make, and I talked about
this in my opening remarks, is it is very important that we
keep morale up and that people love what they do or else they
need to find another job. Because these are important people
that we are taking care of.
And I really want to express that we should not confuse
activity with results. I know everybody is working hard. But
let's get down to the bottom of actually getting things done,
and not just confuse the fact that people are busy all the day.
Thank you.
Mr. Hall. Thank you, Mrs. Halvorson.
Secretary Walcoff, what is the VA's timeline for rolling
out its business transformation efforts?
In light of your projections for how many cases are
expected, the number that you have seen in the last year and
the number that are currently awaiting processing, it seems to
me that in order to break the back of the backlog, as we heard
it referred to during our claims summit in March by Mr. Levin,
we need to know what it's going to take to also get to the new
bridge, to the new process.
So I guess it is a multi-part question. What is the
timeline? What is the plan for the old bridge--the current
claims that are awaiting processing? And how will these changes
be translated into greater accountability and accuracy and
consistency?
I am guessing that the IT piece has to be a huge part of
it, because with the numbers you are dealing with, as you have
said before and as Secretary Shinseki has said before, you
can't catch up with this influx of new claims just by hiring
more people. It is just not going to happen fast enough.
So, as the Ranking Member has been saying for years and we
have all been saying, I think we really need to move into the
21st Century and the IT world in order to be able to really
break the backlog.
Would you like to answer that?
Mr. Walcoff. Sure. Let me preface it by saying that I agree
that just hiring more people is not the answer. Now, the
additional people we are going to be able to hire are certainly
going to help.
But the real key, the actually breaking of the back, I
believe, is going to be when we have that marriage of a change
in our culture, the business process, and the technology.
And, as much as VBMS--the date we have been using is 2012--
there are some other things that we are doing involving
technology that I think are going to have a more immediate
effect, and particularly with the influx of cases coming in for
Agent Orange.
Let me ask Mark and Peter to talk about that. Because I
think that is something that is going to be happening
relatively quickly that will absolutely have an effect on
bringing the backlog down.
Mark?
Mr. Bologna. Thanks, Mike.
Mr. Chairman, as Mike mentioned, the Under Secretary
mentioned, the Agent Orange project--so we have solicited bids
for proposal on that contract. We expect to award the contract
to an outside vendor.
I believe the date is July 2nd. That is to build an
automated, an automated system to do development on the Agent
Orange presumptive conditions, as well as the decision
recommendation. We expect to have a preproduction version of
that system in August, ready to roll out in the fall. That has
a direct tie-in to the VBMS, to the Veterans Benefits
Management System. We believe that it will come directly and
tie into the platform that we are building. That is part of the
methodology that we are using in fact, in developing the
Veterans Benefits Management System, is a platform that is
consistent with industry, is Web-based, is paperless, and is
supported by technology so that when things like this, or other
opportunities in the future come up, that they can put--fairly
quickly lash into or supplant pieces of the system.
So the Agent Orange is well underway. As I said, we expect
to have an award shortly. I think you got to see a brief
demonstration of the virtual regional office. That is complete.
And so the result of that is a nearly 200-page document of
business requirements that we are now working towards. That is
essentially--that provided what you saw was the graphical user
interface, if you will, that will become the front end of the
VBMS system that the user will see. We have worked with
stakeholders, including staffers of this Committee, as well as
veteran service organizations and others to continue to get
input on that as we move towards building the VBMS system.
The first pilot of that will be in November of this year.
The pilot of the VBMS--I don't want to confuse it with some of
the other pilots--will have a wire frame of that at the end of
July, which is a more fleshed-out version of what you saw,
followed by a preproduction later in the fiscal year.
Mr. Hall. Mr. Levin, would you like to elaborate further?
While you are at it, would you elaborate on how much help it
will be, given the incoming--the new claims for Operation Iraqi
Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom veterans, how much would it
help you to have an immediate transfer of medical records from
DoD?
Mr. Levin. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to
speak with you today and to answer your questions. Let me
provide a little bit of context to the answers that you have
already heard from the Under Secretary and from my friend and
colleague, Mark Bologna.
And let me start a very, very brief version of the story,
already back last fall, where we initiated this Web-enabled
innovation initiative, this knowledge management system, that
reached out to our employees, some 7,000 of them who
participated in this effort, followed earlier this year,
subsequent to the innovation initiative, with the so-called
Louisville conference where we reached out to the RO
leadership.
So we have collected, between these two initiatives,
thousands of ideas. Is that interesting in terms of breaking
the backlog in a way that we can measure? No, not really. Is it
profoundly important in this cultural transformation which you
have heard about all afternoon? Absolutely, yes.
So what we are trying to convey to our employees, to our
stakeholders, to the VSOs, to the veterans, is this ability to
outreach, this ability to listen, and frankly to pull in some
of these ideas that are going to go all the way into the VBMS
system.
I want to say what Mark said in a slightly different way,
and ask you to hold us accountable to the following
deliverables. First of all, you know about the innovation
initiatives. They are in the process of being implemented right
now. You have heard about the VRO, probably ad nauseam. You
don't need to hear about that anymore, you have seen it.
So this coming July, in just 6 weeks or so, you will be
able to see the true design of the paperless pilot, the so-
called wire-frame production--I am sorry, wire-frame design. In
August we are going to have the Agent Orange preproduction. In
September we are going to have the preproduction of the
paperless pilot. In October we are going to have the AO
production. In November we are going to have the paperless
project end to end.
I said it fast, but I wanted you to hear July, August,
September, October and November. We are doing this in a very
very systematic, very methodical way, and we are doing it in a
way that we can measure, pull the data out, and make sure we
are achieving our performance metric.
To your question, sir, about our ability to--or the benefit
that we would get from pulling some of the medical records out
of DoD. Sir, you know the answer to this question already. It
would be great, it would help us a lot. I don't want to, by any
means, convey that this is an impediment to us right now.
Mark and I and our colleagues have a lot to do. The VLER
project is proceeding simultaneously. I have the extraordinary
privilege and pleasure of being the CTO to VBA and also the CTO
to the VLER project, so there is automatically a connection
there. We are working very hard on making that dream a reality.
And there will be good news on that front as well. Absolutely
it will help cut down the backlog, absolutely it will make
things go faster. But please, sir, we are focused on the Agent
Orange and the wire-frame design at the moment, and that isn't
necessarily being impeded by the VLER project.
Mr. Hall. I just wanted to ask, first of all, Mr.
Secretary, for your comments on how close you are or how doable
it is to have a full-time trainer at each RO, as one of our
earlier witnesses suggested, with regular instruction and
question-and-answer opportunities, or is such a thing already
happening in some of the ROs?
Mr. Walcoff. We have a full-time, I believe--let me ask
Diana to answer, Ms. Rubens to answer, because I was going to
answer off the top of my head and she actually works with it
every day, so let me ask her to do that.
Ms. Rubens. Thanks, Mr. Walcoff.
Mr. Chairman, thank you so much. In fact, we do have
training coordinators in all of our regional offices, fully
engaged in implementing the training plans as they have been,
one, developed in an overarching way with the coordination with
the C&P Service, but also at the local level identifying what
training needs to be addressed. Just earlier this year, just
last month actually, we had all of them together in Baltimore
to work together on making sure they understood their role,
their responsibilities, and working to strengthen that training
program at the local level.
Mr. Hall. Thank you. It is our understanding that the fast-
track contract has been contested. Is this the case? And if so,
how would this affect the process?
Mr. Walcoff. Dr. Levin will address that.
Mr. Levin. Mr. Chairman, I by no means want to--don't want
to prejudice any outcomes that you may be hearing about
shortly. We have carefully reviewed that protest and have
conveyed a very clear recommendation to the GAO about why we
think we should be allowed to proceed forward. I expect to be
hearing a more formal decision that we can convey to Congress
very, very shortly.
Mr. Hall. Mr. Secretary, could you tell us some of the
specifics that you have learned from your pilots, particularly
the telephone claims development medical questionnaires and
interim ratings. And if VA already has the authority to issue
interim ratings, should there be a pilot engaged to give
veterans this benefit? Shouldn't it already be more widely
used, or is it being more widely used than what we are hearing?
Mr. Walcoff. Let me start with the interim ratings. In the
context that we are talking about, we are talking about a
situation, using as an example, an ischemic heart disease
claim. Where a claim comes in, we know--we can determine
eligibility very simply, because all you need to be eligible is
proof that you have in-country service in Vietnam, and a
diagnosis that you have the illness. So if you have those two
things, then the only other issue left is to determine how
serious is the disability, what rate should we pay?
So that is a good example of a situation where in this
context we would pay the compensable minimum to the veteran
while we were doing the exam or whatever is involved with
determining what the actual permanent rating would be. But the
reason why that is a good example is because in that situation,
you have everything you need to determine that the person is
going to be getting at least something for that benefit. Okay.
Now, not every situation fits that, and we have to go through
and determine which conditions would be such that we would be
able to make that determination.
Now, another way that interim rating is often thought of,
and I want to clarify that, is you file for five conditions,
and we get the information back and we have two conditions
that--all the evidence is back and we can rate the case and we
can pay the full benefit. We want to make sure--and this is
something that we should be doing nationally anyway--but we
have reinforced it recently, and that is that instead of
waiting for there to be all the evidence in on all five issues,
and then rate the case and then pay the benefit, we are making
sure that rating specialists will rate and pay for the two
issues that they can while they are continuing to develop the
other three. That, sir, is something that can be and should be
done across the country.
Mr. Hall. Thank you. And has the VA performed a time and
motion study to ascertain how much time is actually required to
perform tasks of different parts of the adjudicating claims? If
so, when and would you provide any information that you have on
that to the Subcommittee?
Mr. Walcoff. I would have to go back and check when the
last one that we did. It hasn't been recently, but I will go
back and check when the last one happened.
[The VA subsequently provided the following information:]
The VA provided the 2004 Work Measurement Study entitled,
``Electronic Work Measurement Application Final Work Rate
Standards,'' dated July 15, 2004, which generated the results
currently used by VBA. The report appears on p. 72. Some of the
tables are being retained in the Committee files.
Mr. Hall. Do you think the VA should expand its Systematic
Technical Accuracy Review (STAR) review? Are there any efforts
underway to do that, or is an independent third-party review
necessary?
Mr. Walcoff. Mr. Chairman, I share with you and all of the
witnesses here the recognition of how important quality is.
When we talk about eliminating the backlog, we have to be
talking about that at the same time that we talk about the 98-
percent quality goal, which is an extremely difficult and
challenging goal the Secretary has set for us.
We have expanded our quality assurance program, our STAR
unit in Nashville. There was a recent study done by the OIG
which said, ``You broker a lot of work to other stations and
yet you don't do separate quality reviews for that. You know,
you need to expand your quality assurance to look at brokered
work.'' We did that. We also added people to the STAR unit so
that they could review a larger number of cases, so we
recognize the importance of the quality assurance program.
I do not believe that we need an independent organization
to do review. The people that are doing the reviews in
Nashville are not affiliated in any way with the regional
offices that the cases are coming from. They don't work in that
same organization, they work for a headquarters organization,
which is very different from the field organizations. So I do
believe that you get that neutral, objective review.
And I want to add one other thing, and that is that, as I
said, the Secretary set a goal for us of 98 percent quality. I
believe we have great employees, and I believe our employees,
as they get more experience, the quality will improve. We are
currently at 83 percent. But I will tell you that it is going
to be extremely difficult, using the current systems, for us to
get to 98 percent quality. And that is why to me the real
answer to the backlog and to the 98 percent quality is the
technology.
And that is when I turn to Mark and to Peter and say, get
me a system, build me a system that will help our employees,
that will guide them through when they are working a claim, so
if they go to make an error it stops them and says, no, that is
not the right answer. I believe we need a system like that to
reach the 98 percent quality, and they are building it for me.
Mr. Hall. I would tend to agree. And I would also agree
with Mr. Cohen and with Chairman Filner of the full Committee
that--and Secretary Shinseki--that presumption needs to be
built into the system and repeated to personnel that the
veteran is presumed to have a legitimate claim unless it is
proven otherwise, since it is in our civil criminal justice
system that you are innocent until proven guilty. Do you want
to comment?
Mr. Walcoff. I just wanted to mention that there is one
thing that Mr. Cohen said that I don't agree with. And that is
that we look at every case as if the veteran is trying to
commit fraud on us. That is absolutely not true, absolutely not
true.
I believe that when veterans file a claim for a benefit,
they honestly believe they are entitled to the benefit. It is
not a question of trying to pull one over on us or anything
like that. You know, they don't know what is included in the
rating schedule, they don't know exactly what is required
necessarily to be able to prove their condition. So that is the
one thing I want to say.
The second thing I want to say is that while I don't
necessarily agree with some of the ideas in terms of just pay
everybody and do an IRS audit-type of thing, I will tell you
that we are very interested in talking to anybody who has any
kinds of ideas. And we met very recently with Professor Bilmes,
who is the one who first put that idea forward. We spent about
8 hours with her last week, with the idea of listening, talking
with her, and trying to get some ideas from her of things that
we could do to try to improve the system. We are not going to
agree on everything, but I thought it was very fruitful and we
got a lot out of the meeting.
Mr. Hall. I am glad to hear you had that meeting. That is
certainly one of the ways of breaking the backlog. Could you
please give us an update on outstanding efforts today for
Public Law 110-389, such as substitution regulation and
certification requirements for claims processing personnel and
management?
Mr. Walcoff. Tom, do you want to take that?
Mr. Pamperin. Yes, sir. The substitution regulation, we
have been working closely with General Counsel and the Board of
Veterans' Appeals. We have provided some guidance to the field,
limited guidance, in the absence of regulation that we think we
can go forward based upon the statute itself. But it is a very
complex situation with a lot of nuances in it, and people are
working on that as one of the primary things. I realize it has
been a while, but they are working on that one. We can get you
more information.
[The VA subsequently provided the following information:]
Thirty-eight U.S.C. Sec. 5121A was created by Section 212
of the Veterans' Benefits Improvement Act of 2008, Public Law
110-389. This statute provides, in pertinent part, that where a
claimant dies after October 10, 2008, an eligible survivor may,
within a year of the original claimant's death, request to be
substituted as the claimant for the purposes of processing a
claim to its completion.
To implement this statute, VBA has drafted a proposed
rulemaking that allows eligible survivors to substitute for
deceased original claimants. Under the proposed rulemaking, if
the original claimant dies while his or her claim or appeal is
pending, then a survivor eligible for accrued benefits, may,
within 1 year after the death of the original claimant, request
substitution. Where VA determines that substitution is
appropriate, VA will notify the substitute claimant and
continue to process the claim or appeal as if the original
claimant had not died. After the proposed rulemaking goes
through concurrence, VA will publish the proposed rulemaking in
the Federal Register.
In the interim, VA has taken actions to allow potential
substitute claimants to preserve their substitution rights. In
June of 2009, VA published VA Form 21-0847, Request for
Substitution of Claimant Upon Death of Claimant. On August 10,
2010, VA published Fast Letter 10-30 on the subject of
Substitution of Party in Case of Claimant's Death (FL 10-30).
FL 10-30 instructs regional offices that VA will accept
requests for substitution and that the date for the request for
substitution will be the date that the written request for
substitution is received by VA.
Mr. Hall. I thank you. I want to ask one final question.
There is a vote that is almost down to zero across the street,
so any further questions we will have to send you in writing. I
know you will be glad to receive them.
But I wanted to ask for an update, if you could, on the
search for a permanent Under Secretary, and when he or she is
appointed, if you could, to quote from one of our first
panelists, ensure that recommendations for reform are not
nibbled into oblivion by the ``ducks of turf protection,''
unquote.
You don't have to answer that, sir. Thank you. At least not
verbally. You can answer in writing if you wish. I thought I
was a creative writer. We have to have some levity or this work
would be too serious for all of us.
I thank you for the work you are doing, thank other
panelists as well, all of our panelists, for the sacrifices you
made for our country and for our veterans, and thank you again
for your testimony today. Give all Members 5 legislative days
to revise and extend their testimony, and this hearing is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
Prepared Statement of Hon. John J. Hall, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Would everyone please rise for
the Pledge of Allegiance? Flags are located at the front and back of
the room.
I welcome everyone here for today's hearing entitled, ``The State
of the Veterans Benefits Administration.'' This hearing represents the
7th hearing this year and the 15th for the 111th Congress that this
Committee has conducted relating to problems plaguing the disability
claims processing system. While oversight has been vigorous with
significant activity on this front from stakeholders across the Board,
the system is still in need of comprehensive repair.
Today, there are over 546,000 compensation and pension claims
awaiting final processing and a complete inventory or backlog of over 1
million total claims and appeals within the VBA pending a decision. VBA
workforce of over 13,000 employed in its compensation and pension
operation, this figure represents a staffing increase of 32 percent
since Democrats assumed control of Congress in 2007. However, as we
have stated in the past the problems plaguing VBA are not just
workforce issues, they are leadership methodology, culture, &
technology issue. That is why we passed the Veterans Benefits
Modernization Act, H.R. 5892, which was included almost in its totality
in Public Law 110-389. As many of you in this room recall, with your
help, P.L. 110-389 established a guided roadmap for VA to get us to
where we are today--encouraged by all of the reform efforts that VA is
making but cautious to make sure we're doing everything we can to help
VA make meaningful reformation of its claims processing system.
However, we want to avoid action for the sake of action and make
certain that the 30-plus pilots that the VBA has going, translate into
real change for our veterans and survivors languishing in the backlog.
I think that most stakeholders believe that a comprehensive overhaul
still is in order and I am encouraged that we seem to be on the right
path to get there. I think we have the right leader for this monumental
task in Secretary Shinseki, who seems to have both the vision and the
commitment to get us to a more Veteran-centered, 21st Century system
claims processing system.
We all know about the myriad of problems plaguing the VBA's current
claims processing system--lack of adequate training, a 30-40 percent
error rate, a paper-based system, outdated IT architecture, and work
credit and management systems that overemphasizes quality over
quantity, with not enough emphasis on, accountability, consistency or
accuracy. As I have said many times and I know that many of you agree
as does Secretary Shinseki, we want a system that gets it right the
first time--one that renders decisions in which our veterans and
stakeholders have 100 percent confidence. Currently that is not the
case.
However, we are not here to blame anyone for where we are today,
because the claims backlog is a decades old problem that is coming to a
head mostly because we are currently engaged in two wars for which
there was little planning, at the same time that our older vets are
aging and need more care. We want to focus on solutions. I expect to
get a comprehensive update on where VA is today and what it plans to do
to meet its 2015 claims transformation target with its new Veterans
Benefits Management and Veterans Relationship Manager Systems. We also
seek to learn if and how these two new systems interface with the
Virtual Lifetime Electronic Records Initiative announced by Secretary
Shinseki. Further, while recognizing the good work of VA's acting under
secretary for Benefits, we look forward to learning about the status of
VA's effort to bring aboard a permanent Under Secretary.
I think we all have the same goal, which is to ensure that we have
a world-class and modern claims processing system that helps our
veterans, their families and survivors to secure the benefits they
deserve and have earned without delay.
With that, I look forward to the insightful testimony of our
witnesses and to comments and questions from my colleagues on the
Subcommittee. I now recognize Ranking Member Lamborn for his opening
statement.
Prepared Statement of Hon. Doug Lamborn, Ranking Republican Member,
Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs
Thank you Mr. Chairman,
It's been nearly 1 year to the day since this Subcommittee convened
to discuss VA's ongoing struggle to overcome the backlog of disability
claims.
Multiple hearings have been devoted to this topic and the
underlying need for VA to improve the timeliness and accuracy of its
adjudication process.
Anyone who has followed this Subcommittee's hearings over the past
several years knows that I have long advocated for better use of
information technology as a partial remedy to VA's problems.
I am pleased that the ``Virtual RO'' concept I introduced in 2007
to modernize the claims process is being included in the Veterans
Benefit Management System, and I hope that it and the other integral
parts of the VBMS will establish the framework needed to transform VA
into a 21st century benefits system.
I look forward to hearing from our VA panel this afternoon, an
update on the status of the pilot programs that are underway--how long
will it be before they are implemented, and how soon will they have a
positive impact?
While I understand that diligence is required when a foundation's
pillars are being set, it is imperative that VA continues its progress
with the utmost sense of urgency.
Veterans are suffering as a result of the ever increasing inventory
of claims, and this is simply inexcusable.
There was no hesitation on their part when it came to serving our
Nation in a time of need, and they should not have to wait months and
years to receive compensation for the injuries they incurred during
service.
Thank you Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Prepared Statement of Lieutenant General Ronald R. Blanck, USA (Ret.),
D.O., Member, Advisory Committee on Disability Compensation
Chairman Hall, Ranking Member Lamborn, and Members of the
Subcommittee: It is my pleasure to appear before you today representing
the Advisory Committee on Disability Compensation. The Committee is
chartered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs under the provisions of
38 U.S.C. & 546 in compliance with P.L. 110-389 to advise the Secretary
with respect to the maintenance and periodic readjustment of the VA
Schedule for Rating Disabilities. Our charter is to ``(A)ssemble and
review relevant information relating to the needs of veterans with
disabilities; provide information relating to the character of
disabilities arising from service in the Armed Forces; provide and on-
going assessment of the effectiveness of the VA's Schedule for Rating
Disabilities; and provide on-going advice on the most appropriate means
of responding to the needs of veterans relating to disability
compensation in the future''.
The Committee has met nineteen times and has forwarded an interim
report to the Secretary that addressed our efforts as of July 7, 2009to
date. (Copies of this interim report were furnished to majority and
minority staff in both Houses of Congress.) The Secretary of Veterans
Affairs responded to the interim report on February 23, 2010. (Copy
provided for the Record). The Committee has prepared a draft report to
fulfill the statutory requirement to submit a report by October 31,
2010. (Copy provided for the Record.)
Our focus is in three areas of disability compensation:
Requirements and methodology for reviewing and updating the VASRD;
adequacy and sequencing of transition compensation and procedures for
servicemembers transitioning to veteran status with special emphasis on
seriously ill or wounded servicemembers; and disability compensation
for non-economic loss (often referred to as quality of life).
Your letter of invitation asked me to present the Committee's views
on the current Veterans Benefits Administration. I will focus on the
current status of review and update of the VASRD.
I begin by acknowledging the progress that has been made in
reviewing and updating the VASRD. Standards for the diagnosis and
evaluation of TBI have been established. There has been progress to
date in reviewing the entire mental disability category with emphasis
on PTSD. Preliminary steps are underway to review the musculoskeletal
body system and the endocrine system
The Committee remains convinced that an updated and clarified
Rating Schedule is key to enabling examining, rating and reviewing
officials to make a more accurate and timely assessment of a veteran's
disability and its effect on his or her average earnings loss and that
an updated and clarified Rating Schedule should improve first time
accuracy and reduce the number of appeals and the backlog that appeals
create. The updated Rating Schedule should address the recognized
inconsistencies in mental versus physical disabilities and in
differences in age at entry into the disability system.
Recent studies by the Veterans Disability Benefits Commission, the
Institute of Medicine, the General Accounting Office and others have
consistently recommended a systematic review and update process for the
VASRD. The Congress has repeatedly demanded the same. I believe that
the case for such a review is made and that sufficient data currently
exists to proceed with a review and update. The Committee recommended
to the Secretary that the Deputy Secretary be tasked with oversight of
the VASRD systematic review and update process to insure that the VBA,
VHA and General Counsel are fully integrated into the process. We
proposed a level of permanent staffing in both VBA and VHA to insure
that all 15 body systems are reviewed and updated, as necessary, in a
timely way. We believe that a minimum of three body systems can and
should be reviewed and updated each year on a recurring basis. We
proposed a priority among the body systems that takes into account the
following: body systems that are at greatest risk of inappropriate
evaluations; body systems are considered problem prone, and relative
number of veterans and veterans' payments associated with each body
system.
The Secretary's response to the recommendations in our interim
report concurs in general with most of our recommendations but does not
commit to specific management procedures, staffing, or timeline for
review and update.
The Committee has proposed a detailed procedure for review and
updating the VASRD. This procedure is an addendum to the report we are
submitting in accordance with our statutory requirement. It may be
overly prescriptive in nature, but it offers a standing procedure for
reviewing and updating all body systems.
The Committee foresees requirements for two studies. The first is
to validate horizontal and vertical equity in the tables of disability.
For example, prior studies have shown a disparity in earnings capacity
between mental and physical disabilities at most levels. VA should
conduct this study every three to 5 years. It can be done internally or
by contract. The second study is an in depth study of the Vocational
Rehabilitation Program. A contract study was begun last year but
cancelled. Low participation rates and completion rates indicate need
for a study to assess all programs and make recommendations for change.
This study can also be done internally or by contract.
Regarding disability compensation for non-economic loss, also
referred to as quality of life, we are reviewing the Special Monthly
Compensation program as a potential model for quality of life system
and we are analyzing options for forms of compensation beyond a
monetary stipend. One of our concerns is to avoid a compensation system
for non-economic loss that encourages seeking increasingly higher
levels of compensation. Our current view is that quality of life
compensation should be limited to clearly defined and very serious
disability.
Regarding disability compensation related to transition from
servicemember to veteran status, we are reviewing the many recent
changes and improvements to the transition programs such as the recent
caregiver legislation to determine if and where gaps in coverage and
assistance may remain for veterans and families. We are also reviewing
the Vocational Rehabilitation and Education program as it relates to
transition for disabled veterans.
In summary, our Committee's work is progressing on a broad front.
The parameters of our charter offer us the opportunity to look at all
aspects of disability compensation and we are doing so. The Committee
has excellent access to the Secretary and his staff. The VA staff is
responsive and helpful to the Committee's requests for information. It
is our intent to offer interim reports to the Secretary semi-annually
and to provide copies to the Veterans Committees of both Houses of
Congress.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I welcome any comments
or questions.
Prepared Statement of Carol Wild Scott, Chairman,
Veterans Law Section, Federal Bar Association
Good Afternoon Chairman Hall, Ranking Member Lamborn and Members of
the Subcommittee.
Thank you for holding this important hearing on the state of
Veterans Benefits Administration. I am pleased to provide this
testimony on behalf of the Veterans Law Section of the Federal Bar
Association. The FBA is the foremost national association of private
and government lawyers engaged in the practice of law before the
Federal courts and federal agencies. Sixteen thousand members belong to
the Federal Bar Association. The Veterans Law Section of the Federal
Bar Association is one of a dozen sections within the Association,
organized by substantive areas of practice. The comments herein are
exclusively those of the Veterans Law Section and do not necessarily
reflect the views or official position of the entire Association.
Numerous written submissions and hours of testimony have sought to
find a solution to the state into which the Department of Veterans
Affairs has fallen. The Claims Summit 12 weeks ago and the Hearing
before this Committee five weeks ago all addressed the same issues--
what has gone wrong and how do we fix it? There are several facts which
are inescapable. The mounting backlog is out of control. The backlog is
symptomatic of a process out of control. The operative term is
``control.'' The Veterans Law Section (VLA) and NOVA met with the
Transition Team before Secretary Shinseki agreed to assume the
monumental task of bringing the VA under control. Our two organizations
stressed that the most important challenge of the Administration was
gaining control through implementation of vertical accountability.
Vertical Accountability
Since that time Secretary Shinseki has come on board and vowed to
break the backlog and to turn the VA into a Veteran-friendly agency.
There have been numerous studies and audits since that time. Not a
single one of them has found in a single RO the seeds of perfection.
Nor have any of them found strong internal lines of accountability that
run from the Regional Office management level to the Secretary's desk.
The VBA is the size of a small army. For too many decades it has
operated as if the colonels were all in charge--each with an individual
regional command that operates day-to-day as the individual
circumstances may dictate.
The regions between the 57 individual offices and that of the
Secretary seem to be a bureaucratic no-man's land, with numerous
intermediate positions that at the end of the day are wholly
accountable to no one but themselves. This clearly must end. Report
after report documents the fact that individual offices are extremely
inventive in devising methods for making the figures look good when in
reality they are not. They also uniformly note the need for greater
oversight. Oversight begins at the Secretary's desk with the re-
arrangement of the bureaucracy of VA into an organization with a
strong, vertically accountable chain of command. This, we firmly
believe, is the greatest challenge. This Secretary, more than any of
his immediate predecessors, has the leadership skills to meet the
challenge and at the same time gain the trust he must have from at
least two communities--the veterans and the VA itself.
Technology Challenges_When will we see a paperless VA?
Technology and the challenge of transforming the paper-laden
process of claim adjudication into a smoothly operating system in which
all information is readily available seem insurmountable. We all heard
during the Claims Summit and subsequently that while a great many prior
attempts had been discarded as unworkable, there was great hope for a
new effort in Baltimore. At the same time a plethora of working
programs seem to exist for the purpose of tracking cases and quality
oversight. Apparently they lack the capacity to talk to each other.
Other organizations and agencies have managed to accomplish the
transition. The CAVC initiated electronic filing by just doing it by a
date certain. There were glitches at the beginning, but they were
worked out. The IRS and Social Security have, in the last few years,
accomplished this task with systems nearly as vast, but more vertically
manageable. The Veterans Law Section of the Federal Bar Association
believes that inasmuch as the VA must begin somewhere, that a pilot
system should be set up in one office, preferably a smaller office, and
begin to scan into an expandable, web-based system all claims filed in
that office and follow through with the development of those claims in
the same manner. As the information comes in on those claims it would
be scanned into the system. As the problems are recognized and solved,
the system can be integrated into another office. The point is, the
only way to solve the problems posed by the current structure is
through technology.
Process Management
The Veterans Law Section continues to urge VBA to change the basic
way in which the individual offices process claims. The POD project, a
pilot program at the Little Rock Regional Office and described in the
Booz Allen Hamilton Report, has not yet been audited for effectiveness
and improvement. However, in terms of potential for processing the
numerous complex claims with which the system is now significantly
over-loaded, it shows the most promise. It is also, because of the
internal structure, the best candidate for a starting point for digital
claim processing.
The POD process should integrate into discrete teams, each with
representatives from five of the six currently identified ``teams'':
Pre-determination, Rating, Post-determination, Public contact and
Appeals. The number of team members from each ``specialty'' should be
weighted according to workload--number of files with seven or less
issues as the demarcation point and the relative experience of the team
members in those specialties. As the individual office acquires added
personnel, utilizing the team structure would provide opportunity for
more concentrated OJT and mentoring. The most important aspect of this
modality is the inculcation of ``ownership'' of the individual claim.
There is less opportunity for inadequate records requests and medical
VAEs. When questions arise, communication with the individual veteran,
attorney or representative is encouraged. Interaction among team
members should also improve employee morale, and ``humanize'' the
veteran by providing him/her with an identity.
VLS suggests as another variable the assignment claim development
by issue areas specific to some identifiable types of claims. VAOIG
inspections of several Regional Offices, reported from November 2009--
March 2010, identified multiple challenges in providing timely,
accurate rating decisions, among which were consistent difficulties
with PTSD, herbicide exposure and TBI. Establishing medically
specialized teams to process claims related to these issues within the
POD modality, rather than turning them into brokered files, makes
sense. These are disabilities that usually involve several body
systems. The medicine is complex and daunting, with distinct training
issues. Providing concentrated instruction in areas in which there are
inherently complex medical issues would decrease processing time by
training triage members of each team to recognize the issue and hand
the file off immediately to the specialty team, and thus putting it
quickly into the proper queues.
Similarly, the knowledge level in the medical specialty triage and
pre-development team members would enhance the probability of
recognizing those claims in which the reports and medical history
submitted with the claim render it ready to rate or nearly so. To this
end, VLS renews the encouragement of a treating physician rule.
Regardless of whether treatment has been by VHA or private providers,
nexus opinions and questions of the level of disability/extent of
impairment should be addressed to those providers. The concept that a
VHA physician is incompetent to provide a nexus opinion because the
treating physician is inherently biased is inherently absurd. There is
eminently more reliable information to be gained from the provider who
has spent considerable time treating the veteran and to whom a digital
copy of the c-file has been made available than from a contractor or
VHA personnel who may or may not have actually seen the file and who
spends at best 30 minutes (and usually only 10-15 minutes) with the
veteran.
Medical VAE requests would be properly generated with the
appropriate questions sent to the provider, including designation of
the professional level of knowledge required for an adequate exam. This
would require improved communication between VBA and VHA managers to
provide for the appropriate expertise as well as timeliness of the
exams. (The DVA-OIG Audit of VA's Efforts To Provide Timely
Compensation and Pension Medical Examinations, March 17, 2010,
determined that ``VA has not established procedures to identify and
monitor resources needed to conduct C&P medical exams and to ensure
resources are appropriately planned for, allocated and strategically
placed to meet the demand.'') Concurrently with improved coordination
should be the elimination of such practices as assigning complex
neurology or oncology issues to nurse practitioners.
VLS continues to encourage VBA to enhance the position of Decision
Review Officer as immediate supervisory personnel over the Claim
Processing Teams within the POD structure. The DRO program was
initially designed to limit the number of appeals to the Board by
resolving the issues at the RO appeals level. Built into the program
was the opportunity for hearing, paper review and/or dialogue with the
veteran or representative. The process is susceptible to an expanded
role. Each DRO, tested and certified to the position would then
exercise quality review over the decisions rendered by the teams
assigned to him for adequacy of development, as well as accuracy of the
decisions. The DRO would provide mentoring for the RSVRs as part of the
quality review. A cogent, intelligible rating decision should issue
that clearly and straightforwardly sets out the issue, the reason for
the decision and the options available to the veteran. Should the
decision result in an NOD, the right to DRO review and a hearing should
be clearly stated, as well as the instructions for filing a Form 9 and
Substantive Appeal. (VLS continues to urge that the SOC be eliminated).
Training Issues
The statistics from the Board and the CAVC give a strong indication
that there are and will continue to be serious training issues in both
the rating and appeals process. CAVC routinely remands 70-80 percent of
the cases coming before it. Another 5 percent are reversed and then
remanded. The Court agrees with the Board only 20-25 percent of the
time, according to Judge Kasold's testimony of May 2009. In a system in
which the Board has claimed an accuracy rate of in excess of 90
percent, there is clearly a disconnect. Similarly, the Board, in FY
2009 either remanded or allowed 61 percent of the 48,800 appeals in
which they made decisions, thus finding that the Regional Office
decision was correct in only 39 percent of the cases. This level of
error is strongly suggestive of serious training deficiencies from the
Benefits Academy to the continuing education which every rating
employee is required to receive annually.
VLS encourages VBA to re-examine the curriculum and the
qualifications of the instructors at the Academy, with the result that
specific protocols be in place for appointment as an instructor. We
also urge that advances in adult education methodology and recruitment
of experts and consultants external to VA be utilized. The statistics
indicate that the instructional and training entities have become
cocooned, such that too often errors are repeated through instruction.
The Academy should be the focal point and resource for all instruction
agency-wide with a Director directly accountable to VBA management.
A complex array of disabilities affect the veteran population
residual from Vietnam, the Gulf War, and OIF/OEF. Rating employees have
expressed the need for instruction in TBIs, and a significant error
rate has been found with PTSD and herbicide exposure. VBA must ensure
that the medical instruction blocs meet the needs of the demographics
of the veteran population. The medical issues of exposure to toxins
from the Gulf War to the burn pits in Iraq must be included as these
affect multiple body systems.
VLS also recommends that the POD modality also include a full-time
training coordinator in each Regional Office who monitors on site the
training needs and requirements, sets a curriculum consistent with
those universal to the agency, and ensures that instruction and Q&A are
available to the individual employee. Additionally, on-site proficiency
testing is then available for VSRs ready for promotion to RVSRs and
RVSRs aspiring to the position of DRO. (The exam certifying the DRO
should equate with the Agent's exam and re-certification should be
required bi-annually to ensure currency with case law and regulatory
changes.) On-site training should also include training in medical
issues.
Attorney Representation
VLS continues to urge legislative amendment of 38 U.S.C. Sect.
5904(c) to expand the availability of fee based representation to
veterans filing the initial claim with VA. We must remember that when
the original fee limitation was imposed, the veteran was in nearly all
instances marginally educated and lawyers were generally looked upon
with disfavor. There was little licensing and few restrictions on
practice or ethics. Even with WWII the average veteran was part of an
agrarian demographic. The issue of attorney representation was not
addressed The regulations governing fee-based practice before the
agency are the most restrictive of any federal agency. Regardless of
extensive self regulation and state and federal court rules of ethics
and conduct, VA continues to regard attorneys with unwarranted
mistrust.
The demographic has changed. Today's veteran has fought a highly
technological war. This is the best educated army in history. Men and
women who have fought and survived the significant horrors of today's
battlefield deserve the dignity of determining for themselves whether
they wish to represent themselves, be represented by an organizational
VSO or retain professional counsel. This generation of veterans, like
the Vietnam veterans before them, has founded their own veterans'
organizations to address the issues inherent in the conflicts they
experienced. Just as the Vietnam veterans, they support fee-based
representation before the Agency beginning at the point at which the
claim is filed.
The most recent annual report of the Chairman of the Board of
Veterans' Appeals demonstrates the value of attorney representation to
veterans, their families and survivors. The enactment of the Veterans
Benefits, Health Care, and Information Technology Act of 2006, P.L.
109-461, for the first time imparted to veterans the right to retain
counsel should they wish to do so. In FY 2009, those claimants who had
attorney representation at the BVA received a larger percentage of
favorable results than did those without attorney representation and a
larger percentage of favorable results than did those who were
represented by VSOs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FY 2009
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Allowed Remanded Positive Outcome
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Representation No. % No. % No. %
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VSO's Overall 7,688 24.8 11,714 37.8 19,402 62.6
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
American Legion 2,100 23.5 3,469 38.8 5,569 62.3
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Amvets 65 25.6 91 35.8 156 61.4
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DAV 3,853 25.5 5,607 37.1 9,460 62.6
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MOPH 179 31.7 191 33.8 370 65.4
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PVA 118 28.7 156 38.0 274 66.6
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VFW 1,138 24.2 1,746 37.2 2,884 61.3
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VVA 235 23.8 454 46.0 689 69.8
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
State Svs. Org 1,975 24.1 2,802 34.2 4,777 58.3
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Attorney 853 22.7 1,743 46.4 2,596 69.0
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Agents 21 23.1 32 35.2 53 58.2
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other Rep 304 28.1 357 33.1 661 61.2
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No Rep 886 18.7 1,554 32.9 2,440 51.6
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total 11,727 24.0 18,202 37.3 29,929 61.3
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Veterans Law Section strongly supports the repeal of the
restriction on attorney representation. We further support the
rejection by this Committee of the proposed legislation which the VA
drafted and titled the ``Veterans Benefits Programs Improvement Act of
2010.'' The proposed legislation is antithetical not only to according
veterans the right to attorney representation in filing their claims
for compensation, but also to any meaningful review of Agency decisions
regarding those claims. Section 207 of the proposed legislation
significantly limits the application of the Equal Access to Justice Act
(``EAJA'') fees by limiting the veteran's payment of EAJA fees. Upon
issuance of a CAVC decision remanding the case back to the Agency, and
determination of the appellant to be the prevailing party with a
substantially justified legal position, the appellant under this
provision, would not receive the awarded fee. Only if the remand
results, either before the Board or the RO in an ultimate award of
monetary or other benefits would the EAJA fees ultimately be
forthcoming. The Veterans Law Section submits that this provision will
substantially limit attorney representation before the Court.
Consequently this provision requires the closest scrutiny by both
Congressional chambers.
VLS does not support other provisions of the Secretary's proposed
legislation, including the imposition in Sections 202 and 203 of
jurisdictional time limits on appeals within the Agency. This is a
somewhat cynical effort to eradicate the backlog by making it extremely
difficult for a generation of veterans to perfect their claims and meet
shortened filing deadlines--when over half of them are diagnosed with
TBIs, PTSD or other mental disorder, all of which impair the ability to
organize and respond to deadlines. Neither does VLS support the
proposal in Section 206 that the Board no longer be required to render
decisions in which factual determinations are supported by adequate
reasons and bases, but such determination must only be ``plausible.''
In conclusion, the Veterans Law Section thanks the Committee for
the opportunity to share our views on some of the issues facing the VA
and our veterans. We must take whatever measures are necessary to make
whole the men and women who have put their lives on the line in order
that we may have the luxury of this discussion. We owe them not only
treatment of wounds seen and unseen but as much restoration of their
quality of life as is humanly possible. With now over a million pending
claims, it matters not who represents whom, or on whose shoulders the
blame properly lies. The job must be done, and rather than ensure that
each recommendation for revision or reform is nibbled into oblivion by
the ducks of turf protection, it is time to recognize, as the cartoon
strip character Pogo once did, that we have met the enemy and he is us.
Thank you for the opportunity to present these views on behalf of
the Veterans Law Section of the Federal Bar Association. I will be
happy to respond to any questions you may have.
Prepared Statement of Joseph A. Violante, National Legislative
Director, Disabled American Veterans
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
Thank you for holding today's important hearing on the State of the
Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) and for inviting me to provide
testimony to the Subcommittee on behalf of the Disabled American
Veterans (DAV). VBA provides an array of benefits to veterans,
particularly disabled veterans, including disability compensation and
pensions, vocational rehabilitation, education assistance, home loans,
and insurance programs. DAV has comprehensive recommendations on how to
improve all of these programs that can be found in our legislative
agenda as well as in The Independent Budget, and we commend both of
those publications to the Subcommittee.
Our legislative priorities for the 111th Congress include the full
phase-in of concurrent receipt, elimination of the SBP/DIC offset, and
increases in the home and auto adaptive grant programs. We also believe
that Congress and VBA must address the inequity that exists for
disabled veterans receiving vocational rehabilitation benefits under
Chapter 31 compared to the new education benefits created by the Post-
9/11 GI Bill under Chapter 33. We recommend that Congress authorize
Vocational Rehabilitation (Chapter 31) participants to have dual
eligibility so that they can receive the higher subsistence allowance
offered under the Post-9/11 GI Bill (Chapter 33). This would prevent
veterans from having to choose between a program that provides a
greater financial benefit and one that focuses on their rehabilitation
as they seek to support themselves and their families.
However, for today's hearing focused on the State of the VBA, I
would like to focus on their largest and most significant program:
veterans disability compensation. For disabled veterans, receiving a
timely and proper disability rating is the gateway to all of the VBA
benefits to which they are entitled. As such, the problems that have
plagued and continue to plague VBA in efficiently administering this
program have correctly received the most attention from Congress and
VSOs in recent years. In fact, this is the sixth Subcommittee hearing
this year examining VBA's claims processing system and I want to
applaud you for your continued vigilance on behalf of American's 3
million disabled veterans, their families and survivors.
A core mission of VBA is the provision of benefits to relieve the
economic effects of injury, disease, or disability upon veterans and
their families. For those benefits to effectively fulfill their
intended purpose, VBA must promptly deliver them to veterans. The
ability of disabled veterans to provide for themselves and their
families often depends on these benefits. The need for benefits among
disabled veterans and their dependents is usually urgent. While
awaiting action by VBA, they and their families suffer hardships;
protracted delays can lead to deprivation, bankruptcies, and
homelessness. Disability benefits are critical, and providing for
disabled veterans should always be a top priority of the government.
VBA can promptly deliver benefits to entitled veterans only if it
can process and adjudicate claims in a timely and accurate fashion.
However, VBA has been unable to meet its claims workload or correct
systemic deficiencies.
Mr. Chairman, as you are acutely aware, thousands of disabled
veterans today face unacceptable delays and unjustified denials of
their applications for VA benefits, particularly disability
compensation. As of June 5, 2010, there were 546,387 pending claims for
disability compensation and pensions awaiting rating decisions by the
VBA; 198,891 (35.9 percent) of the claims exceeded VBA's 125-day
strategic goal.
Worse, by VBA's own measurement the accuracy of disability
compensation rating decisions for the 12-month period ending in March
2010 was just 83 percent, continuing a downward trend for the past
several years. What these statistics confirm is what DAV and others
have known for some time: the process for approving veterans claims for
disability compensation is broken. As a result, too many disabled
veterans today are waiting too long for rating decisions that are too
often wrong.
However, despite the current problems at VBA, there are reasons to
be optimistic about its chances for improvement. Over the past 6
months, with mounting pressure from DAV and other veterans service
organizations, there has been a welcome increase in attention from
Congress and the Administration to these problems. Both VA and VBA
leadership have been refreshingly forthcoming in acknowledging
longstanding problems, and have provided candid assessments to this
Subcommittee as well as the full Committee in other forums.
These new attitudes by VBA, as well as a recent flurry of
activities aimed at transforming the claims processing system are
encouraging signs. We are pleased that Secretary Shinseki has made
reform of the claims processing system a top priority, as evidenced by
his oft-repeated goal of ``breaking the back of the backlog this
year.'' We would, however, provide a caution and a caveat to this
seemingly laudable goal.
Mr. Chairman, like you, DAV remains frustrated by the large and
growing backlog, or claims inventory as VBA calls it, and especially by
their inability to bring it under control. However, it is essential to
remember that the backlog is not the problem, nor is it the cause of
the problem; rather it is a symptom, albeit a very serious one. It is
analogous to a person with a very high fever; they may take aspirin to
reduce the fever, but unless the underlying cause for the fever is
addressed, the fever can return, increase and the patient's condition
may worsen.
For VBA, if leadership, management and employee incentives remain
focused first and foremost on reducing the backlog, they may well
achieve a smaller backlog, but that does not necessarily translate into
veterans being better served. After all, adjudicating more benefit
claims more quickly does not guarantee that veterans get the benefits
they have earned through their service and sacrifice. More bad rating
decisions done more quickly may lower the backlog--at least for a
time--but that is certainly not reform or progress.
To truly reform and transform the system, VBA must remain focused
on the underlying problems causing the backlog: a lack of quality,
accuracy and consistency in how VBA develops and adjudicates claims for
benefits. So, whenever we hear the word ``backlog,'' or talk about
``reducing the backlog,'' we want to first hear the words quality,
accuracy and consistency.
For these reasons, DAV has been working with a growing coalition of
veterans and military organizations to build consensus on how best to
reform the claims processing system, not just reduce the backlog. One
of our first goals is redefining success from ``Reducing the Backlog''
to ``Getting It Done Right the First Time.'' We are confident that a
system focused on quality, accuracy and consistency first, if properly
built upon a modern IT infrastructure with optimized business
processes, will lead to faster processing times and a lasting reduction
and elimination of the backlog as a result.
With that as our goal, we want to recognize the efforts that VBA
has underway this year which include over three dozen initiatives
designed to transform the claims processing system from today's archaic
paper-based system to a modern, IT-centric process. As I said earlier,
we are pleased that VBA has recognized the seriousness of the problems
and reached out to the VSO community to inform us of their efforts and
seek our input and support. We believe that VBA is headed down the
right path; however, we remain concerned about whether they will get to
the end without effective leadership and proper oversight by Congress.
Unfortunately, today- nearly 1\1/2\ years into this
Administration--there is still no Under Secretary for Benefits in
place, or even nominated. No large organization can be expected to
operate at peak efficiency, much less dramatically transform itself,
without a chief executive in place to lead that change. The time is
long overdue for a new Under Secretary to be named and we call on the
Administration to swiftly do just that. VBA must also complete other
pending management changes so that they have a permanent leadership
team to provide stability as they modernize and optimize the claims
processing system.
Mr. Chairman, with 1.2 million members, all of whom are wartime
disabled veterans, DAV is deeply invested in helping VBA succeed in
reforming their system for evaluating and approving claims for
disability compensation and other veterans benefits. Last year, our 240
National Service Officers and 34 Transition Service Officers
represented 250,000 veterans and their families--free of charge--in
their claims for VA benefits, helping them receive $4.5 billion in new
and retroactive benefits to which they were entitled under the law.
Other VSOs provide similar services to hundreds of thousands more
veterans, their families and survivors.
I say all this so that the Subcommittee understands that VSOs are
more than just knowledgeable and interested observers in the benefit
claims process, we are an active and integral component of the system
itself. So while we applaud VBA for their new openness and outreach to
the VSO community, we are becoming increasingly concerned that they are
not fully integrating us into their reform efforts from the beginning.
Over the past year, VBA has launched dozens of new pilot programs
at regional offices around the country. In most cases, the pilots were
developed without any input from VSOs, either nationally or locally.
This is a mistake for a number of reasons: not only do we bring vast
experience and expertise about claims processing, but our local and
national VSO service officers hold power of attorney (POA) for hundreds
of thousands of veterans and their families. Moreover, we make VBA's
job easier by helping veterans prepare and submit better claims,
thereby requiring less time for VBA employees to develop and adjudicate
the claims. We would urge VBA to integrate us into their planning for
new initiatives and pilots from the beginning so that we can work
together to reform this system for the benefit of all veterans.
VBA currently has three dozen initiatives underway to help them
modernize the claims approval process. Several of them, such as the
pilots in Little Rock and Providence, as well as the Fully Developed
Claim and Individual Claimant Checklist were Congressionally mandated
in Public Law 110-389. Others, such as the Quick Pay Disabilities pilot
in St. Petersburg, the Rapid Evaluation of Veterans' Claims pilot in
Atlanta and the Case Management pilot in Pittsburgh were initiated by
VBA regional offices with central office approval. VBA's Innovation
Initiative also produced 10 winners developed and submitted from
regional offices, eight of which are actively being implemented. There
are also eight ``quick hit'' ideas that were developed at a Regional
Directors Workshop this spring, including pilots testing phone
development and a walk-in claims rating program. Many other ideas that
DAV and others have been promoting, including the increased use of
private medical evidence and interim ratings, are also currently being
tested in the field.
Although we believe that VBA is moving in the right direction, we
do have concerns about how all of this experimentation will come
together to optimize VBA's claims processing system. It is not enough
just to test ideas through pilot programs or studies; there must be a
coherent and coordinated plan to evaluate and integrate the results of
all this experimentation. We urge this Subcommittee to maintain the
aggressive oversight demonstrated throughout this Congress, and would
offer a few comments on a couple of these programs.
In the past month, VBA rolled out the Fully Developed Claim (FDC)
program nationally. DAV has long advocated for exactly this type of
program to eliminate time and resource-wasting over development.
However, the recent directives implementing this program nationally
require a couple of modifications to fully protect the rights of
veterans. Under the normal claim processing system, a veteran can file
an informal claim in order to protect the effective date for which they
may be entitled to disability compensation; they are then provided up
to 12 months to complete the application. However, if a veteran chooses
to submit a claim under the FDC program, there is no mechanism to allow
them to submit such an informal claim. As such, veterans would
effectively lose the compensation due to them during the time they
spent assembling their claim, forcing them to choose between a quicker
decision under FDC or an earlier effective date under the regular
process. This in turn would likely create a disincentive for filing
claims under the FDC program, increasing VBA's workload. We have
discussed this issue with VBA and Congressman Joe Donnelly and urge the
Subcommittee to work with them to allow veterans to file informal
claims protecting their effective dates in the FDC program.
Another issue of concern in the FDC program relates to the waiver
veterans must sign to allow VBA to move forward in processing their
claim without having to send VCAA (``Veterans Claims Assistance Act'')
notification letters. If VBA later determines that the claim filed as
``fully developed'' no longer meets that criteria, they can exclude it
from the FDC program and move it back into the regular claims
processing queue. However, under the rules sent out by VBA, they would
not then have a duty to then notify veterans of that change, nor inform
them of their VCAA rights. While it make sense for veterans to waive
VBA's requirement to perform some VCAA duties in exchange for quicker
decisions under the FDC program, if the veteran no longer benefits from
participation in that program, it is only logical that their full VCAA
rights be restored.
I would also like to share a concern about the implementation of
the pilot program creating standardized templates for private medical
evidence underway at the Pittsburgh RO. DAV strongly supports this
initiative and believes it can play a significant role in helping to
eliminate unnecessary and duplicative VHA exams, which result in the
loss of time and resources for both VBA and veterans. VBA has
historically taken a dim view of private medical evidence due to the
possibility of fraud. While no one can provide a 100 percent guarantee
against the possibility that some doctors, or even some veterans, may
seek to submit falsified private medical evidence, that must not result
in unnecessary obstacles to the receipt and use of private medical
evidence in making rating decisions. Just as in any other application
or submission to VA, or to any government agency, there exist methods
to detect and punish such fraud. As they implement the private medical
template pilot program in Pittsburgh, we encourage VBA to take a
reasonable approach for receiving, accepting and evaluating private
medical evidence without creating restrictive rules to unrealistically
eliminate any possibility of fraud.
In another new initiative, VBA is seeking to expand and encourage
the use of its existing authority to assign interim ratings when there
is sufficient evidence to establish a compensable service-connected
condition for one or more contentions. The expanded use of interim
ratings will more quickly provide many service-disabled veterans with
financial support and access to VA health care and other benefits,
while allowing further development of any remaining contentions in the
normal development and adjudication process. DAV and other VSOs fully
support this initiative and urge the Subcommittee to do all it can to
encourage VBA to move in this direction.
Perhaps most important to VBA's reform and modernization is the
ongoing development of several new IT systems--particularly the
Veterans Benefits Management System (VBMS) and the Veterans
Relationship Manager (VRM) to manage work flow and provide greater
access to veterans and VSOs. Over the past 6 months, VBA has
accelerated the development of the VBMS, and just completed prototype
development of what was called the Virtual Regional Office (VRO)
located in Baltimore.
While VBA provided several briefings to DAV and other VSOs on these
IT programs, we are concerned that they have not sufficiently sought
our input nor considered the role of our service officers during the
development of the VBMS system. When they first unveiled their plans
for the VBMS, we were assured that service organizations and service
officers would be involved in helping to develop this system.
Regrettably, despite these assurances and public invitations to observe
and participate in the VRO phase of the VBMS development, the VRO in
Baltimore was completed without any VSO observation, participation or
input.
VBA has since reached out to DAV and several other VSOs to report
on their progress and solicit out comments and we appreciate this
opportunity. However, it is imperative that input from VSOs is
regularly and comprehensively integrated into the further development
of the VBMS, as well as the VRM. As stated earlier, we not only have
relevant expertise and perspectives that will benefit the development
of these IT systems, we are also direct participants in the claims
processing system and must be integrated into their planning. We would
encourage VBA to develop regular and ongoing roles for VSO
participation and input into future VBMS development.
DAV is also concerned that in the rush to meet self-imposed,
aggressive deadlines for piloting and rolling out the VBMS, VBA could
end up with an insufficiently robust IT infrastructure. Despite the
fact that a modern, paperless claims processing system is at least a
decade overdue at VBA, it remains just as imperative today that they
``get this done right the first time.'' For example, in recent
discussions with VBA officials, we were told that rules-based decision
support will not be a core component in developing the VBMS system, but
that it will be a component to be added-on later, perhaps years later
after the full national rollout. It has long been assumed by DAV and
many others that the VBMS would be designed to take maximum advantage
of the artificial intelligence offered by modern IT in order to provide
decision support to VBA's claims adjudicators. We would urge this
Subcommittee to further and fully explore this issue with VBA and
suggest that it might be helpful to have an independent, outside,
expert review of the VBMS system while it is still early in the
development phase.
We are also concerned about how VBA intends to handle legacy paper
claims within the new VBMS environment. While VBA is committed to going
all-paperless for every new claim submitted once the VBMS is up and
running, it is not yet clear whether they also intend to convert all
re-opened claims to paperless, digital files. DAV would be concerned if
VBA were to develop a separate legacy system, and thus create two
claims processing systems: one that is paperless for new claims and one
using paper C-files for legacy claims. Given the volume of re-opened
and appealed claims each year, VBA can expect legacy files to be re-
opened for decades to come. Would VBA employees have to learn and
master two claims processing systems: one that is paperless and the
other at least partially paper-based? Wouldn't this be detrimental to
quality, accuracy and consistency? We would urge this Subcommittee to
ensure that VBA builds the VBMS as an all-paperless program. The VBMS
system must include as a core capacity the ability to convert all
legacy claims to the new digital environment at its rollout.
Finally, we remain concerned about whether the VBMS development is
being driven primarily to speed processing or to ensure quality and
accurate decisions. As we mentioned above, rules-based decision support
is a key component of quality control. In addition, the VBMS must have
comprehensive quality control built in, as well as sufficient business
practices established, to ensure that there is real-time, in-process
quality control, robust data collection and analysis and continuous
process improvements. We urge this Subcommittee and Congress to
continue providing VBA with sufficient resources as well as sufficient
time to get this job done right, not just quickly.
Mr. Chairman, in assessing the ``State of the VBA,'' we want to
properly recognize the important steps they have been taken over the
past year. VBA's new openness is encouraging; their candid assessment
of the problems they face is refreshing; and their commitment to
exploring new solutions is commendable. However, even with this
promising start, much work remains to turn this promise into results.
VBA has established an aggressive strategy and schedule for
reforming the benefits claims processing system. In order to achieve
lasting success, VA must first and foremost focus on quality and
accuracy ahead of simply reducing the backlog. VBA must modernize their
IT infrastructure and optimize business processes, which will require
strong and effective leadership, something they cannot fully realize
until there is a new Under Secretary in place. Finally, we firmly
believe that VBA cannot be completely successful unless they truly seek
and realize a mutually beneficial partnership with the VSO community.
Mr. Chairman, we want to commend you and this Subcommittee for all
that you have done to help reform VBA and the claims processing system.
It will take your continued leadership over the next several years to
ensure that the many promising initiatives underway finally result in a
modern, transparent and effective system for delivering benefits to
veterans in a timely manner.
Thank you again for the opportunity to present DAV's testimony
today and I would be pleased to answer any questions that the
Subcommittee may have.
Prepared Statement of Ian C. de Planque, Deputy Director,
Veterans Affairs and Rehabilitation Commission, American Legion
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
I appreciate this opportunity to express the views of the nearly 3
million members of The American Legion on the current state of the
Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) of the Department of Veterans
Affairs (VA). VBA stands at a crossroads in the transition from the
20th century paper system of benefits and the 21st century electronic
environment. This transformation occurs in the midst of a difficult
environment, yet VA must maintain operations through this period
without letting veterans slip through the cracks. The country is
presently engaged in wartime operations in the Middle East and South-
Central Asia, and the after effects of these wars, as well as previous
wars, are still being felt by great numbers of veterans. VBA has, to be
fair, made many strides forward in recent history, but there are still
many areas that must be addressed. Simply changing the tools without
correction of longstanding institutional issues cannot be construed as
effective. VA must continue to work to erase the errors of the past if
a new model more beneficial to the men and women who have served this
Nation is to be achieved.
It is easy to note the areas in which VBA has been deficient not
merely over the last few years, but as an institution for long periods
of their operation. Many of these complaints are not new, but have been
the focus of those devoted to advancing the cause of veterans' benefits
for decades. VBA struggles with the quality of work and timeliness, not
only in the adjudication of claims but also in the implementation of
internal regulatory changes and those directed by Congress.
Additionally, accuracy of the work produced suffers under the pressure
to move the high volume of claims. Criticism has been justly leveled at
VBA, and they have struggled to produce satisfactory answers. There are
clearly areas for improvement.
Secretary Shinseki has stated an admirable yet challenging goal for
VA to achieve timeliness of no more than 125 days for any initial claim
as well as an accuracy rating of 98 percent for those claims processed.
This is no easy task, and VA must be mindful of the challenges faced in
achieving such a task. VBA must address these factors if they are truly
going to be able to meet these goals by the stated deadline of 2015.
QUALITY OF WORK
On March 12, 2009 the VA's Office of the Inspector General (VAOIG)
issued a report (Report No. 08-02073-96) entitled ``Audit of Veterans
Benefits Administration Compensation Rating Accuracy and Consistency
Reviews''. This report detailed numerous flaws in the current
implementation of VA's internal STAR system of quality review and
offered some key criticisms.
Some of the more troubling findings included:
VBA's STAR process did not effectively identify and report
errors in compensation claim rating decisions. VBA identified a
national compensation claim rating accuracy of 87 percent for
the 12-month period ending February 2008. We projected that VBA
officials understated the error rate by about 10 percent, which
equates to approximately 88,000 additional claims where
veterans' monthly benefits may be incorrect. In total, we
projected about 77 percent (approximately 679,000) of the
almost 882,000 claims completed were accurate for the 12-month
period ending February 2008. The 87 percent rate is not
comparable to the accuracy rate VBA reports in the Performance
and Accountability Report because that rate includes pension
claims. Further, this accuracy rate only included errors that
affected a veteran's benefits. STAR identifies, but does not
report, other errors related to the rating decision's
documentation, notification, and administration.
To reiterate American Legion testimony on these findings, 203,000
potentially incorrect claims is a troubling number. Further troubling
is the inaccuracy of VA's system at reporting its own errors. Without
external observation, such as this audit by VAOIG, such errors may
never have come to light, and an accurate picture of the overall flaws
in the disability system may never have been recorded.
Furthermore:
VBA officials planned to conduct 22 reviews in FY 2008
consisting of 20 grant/denial rate and 2 evaluation reviews.
However, they only initiated two grant/denial rate reviews and
these were not completed until December 2008. Furthermore, VBA
officials did not initiate either of the two planned evaluation
reviews to analyze and improve the consistency of disability
compensation ratings and to reduce the variances between
states.
Even where problem areas or the potential for problem areas to
develop are identified, VA is not following up on their own projected
plans for analysis. Regardless of the potential of STAR, if it is not
implemented as intended, it cannot hope to be an effective tool for
correction. The exertion of outside pressure would seem essential to
enforcing the application of the procedures in place.
VAOIG concluded:
Without an effective and reliable quality assurance program,
VBA leadership cannot adequately monitor performance to make
necessary program improvements and ensure veterans receive
accurate ratings. Further, without implementing an effective
rating consistency program, VBA officials cannot successfully
assess or prioritize the improvements needed for claim rating
consistency.
In order to rectify the problems existing within STAR, The American
Legion proposed that VA could make improvements by implementing a three
step process for change.
1. Develop a system to compile the results nationwide of the
errors found in STAR evaluations. When an error is discovered a record
must be kept of that error. However, currently, there appears to be no
systematic method to track these errors. This data could be critical to
finding patterns, whether on an individual, on a Regional Office (RO)
level, or nationally across the scope of VA operations. If this
information is indeed gathered, it does not appear to be used in any
fashion for analysis to detect trends which could indicate larger,
systemic problems within VA. If this is coupled with data gathered on
errors at the lower levels from the Board of Veterans Appeals (BVA) and
the Appeals Management Center (AMC), VA would be in possession of an
excellent tool to assess their quality overall with real details that
would indicate the greatest problem areas.
It is not enough to know what VA's accuracy rate is across
the system. VA must also know where their greatest areas of concern are
in order to determine the areas that could be addressed to provide the
most efficient and effective use of resources to correct those
problems.
2. Utilize the data and patterns gathered from the compilation
system mentioned above to plan and implement a program of training.
Adequate and effective training has been a key concern noted often in
the system of VA adjudication of claims. This data would give the VA
the tool they need to see where their employees need training most, and
to craft an effective training schedule to maximize the training
resources they have. Future training would not be generalized and rote
as is currently the case, but would instead be targeted to fix the
greatest problems. This would be a method to ensure that what training
resources VA has would be used to the greatest possible effect.
3. Augment the STAR system for accuracy with outside oversight to
ensure the effectiveness of the program. As mentioned above, one of the
complaints about the current implementation of the system is a lack of
means to determine if the errors highlighted have been followed up.
Third party oversight offers the opportunity to provide impartial and
critical follow up to ensure compliance. External oversight has long
been an important component that The American Legion has advocated.
The American Legion continues to advocate for the compilation of
common errors from BVA and AMC remands and grants in the past. If
errors are consistently made in the Regional Offices only to be
corrected by VA later in the benefits process without feedback to the
Regional Office, they will continue at the regional level where the
initial errors are being made. This concept also applies to the
systemic review nationwide of claims by STAR. If the error reporting of
all three entities is combined, it would constitute an even more
effective pool of data on deficient areas to enhance VA's understanding
of their own inadequacies.
If VBA is to achieve the secondary goal of Secretary Shinseki's
bold vision for VA, that of 98 percent accuracy, it must start with
dedicated oversight and diligent analysis of existing patterns of
error.
TIMELINESS OF VA
VBA struggles not only with reaching timeliness goals on their
claims, but also with achieving timeliness on tasks such as mandated
progress reports and the implementation of new regulations.
The stated goal of 125 days for the completion of claims is an
onerous task. The current average for the completion of new claims
within VA stands at over 160 days. It is important to be mindful that
this is not the top end of claims completion, but strictly an average
time for processing. While improving their timeliness, VBA must ensure
that in their haste to process these claims, they are not missing
necessary details that contribute to an overall error rate estimated by
VAOIG at nearly one quarter of all claims processed. The error rate on
American Legion represented claims in Regional Offices is even higher.
During Quality Review visits conducted by The American Legion which
encompass a weeklong review of operations in Regional Offices, VBA's
error rate often reaches a third of all claims evaluated.
In short, VBA must aim to not only speed up their work, but make
that work more accurate and more efficient. Currently, electronic tools
in development to share records and move claims through processing will
help with this task. It will be important to ensure that the developed
electronic tools do not merely repeat the current system of processing
claims, but take full advantage of the enhancements offered by
processing in an electronic environment.
Recent legislation passed by Congress directed VBA to increase the
usage of measures already present to expedite claims such as the
ability to grant interim ratings and to grant individual issues as the
data supports it while deferring issues requiring more necessary
development to later decisions. This addresses one of the problems
inherent in the speed of processing. By granting partial amounts of a
claim, VBA enables veterans to gain immediate access to the excellent
health care available to treat their service connected disabilities and
gives them at least partial access to funds to supplement their earning
power diminished by these disabilities. VBA however, has been slow in
implementing these types of ratings. It is hoped that the tools
provided by new electronic measures will make the separation of these
issues easier on VA and enable these ratings to go forward.
All of the good intentions of VA and of Congress to improve the
system for veterans are for naught if the measures are not implemented.
In testimony regarding the implementation of Public Law 110-389, the
Veterans' Benefits Improvement Act of 2008, VA acknowledged the many
areas in which they were behind schedule in addressing needed studies
and publishing final regulations to implement the changes in laws and
procedures. Needed details on analysis of the work credit system, and a
lack of implementation of a regulatory change meant to assist family
members of a deceased veteran in prosecuting their claim are far behind
the established deadlines.
This does not address two glaring areas in which veterans are still
experiencing substantial delays in the processing of their claims:
changes to VA policy regarding the confirmation of Posttraumatic Stress
Disorder (PTSD) stressors; and, the establishment of three new
presumptive conditions related to the herbicide Agent Orange in
Vietnam.
Veterans' groups rightly praised VA for moving forward with a
regulatory change in the confirmation of stressors for PTSD for
veterans serving in combat zones. Notwithstanding that The American
Legion expressed concerns with the proposed regulation's reliance
solely on VA diagnoses of PTSD as opposed to private physicians because
diagnoses by private physicians are acceptable for any other disorder
on the rating schedule. Nevertheless, the overall anticipated impact of
this regulatory change was lauded as a great step forward in helping
veterans in need.
Often one of the most difficult burdens in PTSD cases, on VA and
veterans alike, is the confirmation of stressor incidents in combat
zones, where record keeping is spotty at best and clear evidence can be
difficult to unearth. Existing regulations regarding incidents in
combat have long recognized the difficulties of keeping track of
details. VA's proposed regulation will expand that definition for
stressor incidents to the entire combat zone, which is important as the
majority of servicemembers in theater do not have traditional combat
occupations, yet still face many of the same hazards and threats.
Without specific combat decorations, often unavailable to non-combat
military occupational specialties, veterans face an uphill battle
proving that the traumatic events happened.
It is hard to see how VA can meet the new timeliness goal when VBA
has to expend more time and resources to decide PTSD claims than almost
every other type of claim. Development work on cases such as these can
take many long months and, often enough, after these extensive efforts,
VA ends up denying many claims that are truly meritorious simply
because no evidence exists to corroborate the stressful events. The
proposed regulation would help by greatly reducing unnecessary
development and allowing VBA to move these cases more quickly to the
decision phase. Generally, VA is required to publish a final regulation
within 90 days from the publishing of a proposed regulation, yet many
months have passed since this deadline and veterans are still waiting.
VA must move with greater speed to meet the needs of the veterans.
Perhaps more frustrating is the ongoing delays surrounding VA's
addition of three new presumptive conditions associated with Agent
Orange. Under the provisions provided for in the Agent Orange Act of
1991, Secretary Shinseki announced last October that VA would add three
new conditions: ischemic heart disease, Parkinson's disease, and B-cell
leukemias to the presumptive list. Despite lengthy delays waiting for
even a proposed regulation, in late March the proposed regulation was
published in the Federal Register along with a notation of a decreased
period for public comment recognizing the need to move forward with
this important change. Even so, the normal deadline of 90 days is
rapidly approaching, and will expire before the end of this month.
There is little indication that this final regulation will meet this
deadline, and veterans must once again wait for long denied justice.
Every day the Legion fields dozens of calls from concerned veterans
asking what progress is being made on the final implementation of these
regulations. As must be the case with other veterans' organizations,
the only answer we can give these veterans is that VA assures us that
they are working on it, and we must wait and see.
These delays cost veterans in unseen ways. While it is easy to say
there will be no net impact as veterans will be ``back paid'' once VA
finally adjudicates their claims, while they wait for service
connection, they must also wait for health care for these conditions.
The effects of heart disease and Parkinson's when untreated can be
devastating. VA must act to move forward on this and grant these
deserving veterans their claims with all due haste so they can receive
the preventive health care they are entitled to. The time for delays
has long since passed, and this must be a priority for resolution, with
no more obstacles thrown in the way of these veterans.
AREAS OF PROMISE
VBA should not be only criticized however. There are areas of
progress that represent encouragement and hope that veterans are going
to receive their benefits from a more functional system. Whether it is
simple, internal changes to help certain Vietnam era Navy veterans by
establishing a Brown Water Database, or a myriad of pilot programs and
development of the electronic system for the next generation of claim
processing, VA is moving forward. Not least of these changes is a
renewed willingness to work with the front line soldiers in the battle
for veterans' benefits, the Veterans Service Organizations (VSOs), who
daily work to obtain deserved benefits for veterans.
VA currently estimates approximately 38 ongoing pilot programs are
aimed at understanding and improving operations in the benefits system.
With so many irons in the fire, oversight and accountability is
paramount. A tracking system to monitor lessons learned and provide
transparent analysis of benefits of these pilots is important.
Furthermore, VA must continue to involve the users of their systems,
veterans and the service organizations who represent those veterans, in
the early stages of these programs to identify areas of concern that
might not otherwise be identified until far too late in the process to
allow for easy correction.
In Little Rock, Arkansas, VA ran a pilot examining changes to the
current CPI model of processing claims. The pilot covered applications
of Lean Six Sigma techniques from private sector businesses and working
in team based, pod structures to facilitate better communications up
and down the chain of claims processing. The American Legion believes
that when VA workers see only the small, component parts of a claim,
they lose sight of the whole picture. Without the perspective offered
by the whole picture, the impact of simple procedural errors can be
lost and yet with a more complete picture of the entire claims process
an employee can better see the impact of the necessary actions in the
claim.
Indications gleaned from American Legion visits to this pilot were
positive and we hope that beneficial lessons were learned.
In Providence, Rhode Island, VBA has been working with a program
where the office operates in an entirely electronic environment. Rather
than shuffling through papers and books, the employees have access to
all the necessary tools and information right on their computers,
taking advantage of electronic options like enhanced search techniques
and information sharing. This will be a key component in the operating
environment VA envisions for their future business model. This is also
a critical lesson that VA seems to be implementing. It is not enough to
change the tools and continue to operate under old models. The old
models carry with them inherent flaws. When new tools such as e-
processing are examined, VA is hopefully utilizing the unique
capabilities those tools offer in a different manner than the
traditional paper based models.
In Pittsburgh, American Legion staff recently returned from an
examination of several ongoing pilot programs. Chief among these
programs was the Case Management Development Pilot. This pilot aims to
improve public contact with the veteran. Communications from VA have
traditionally been more frustrating than helpful for veterans. The
Veterans Claims Assistance Act (VCAA) letters have long been noted as
being nearly incomprehensible. Now, public contact teams from VA follow
up by phone with veterans to ensure that the veterans understand what
VA is asking for, and as important, that VA understands what veterans
are stating and asking for. Putting a personal face on both the VA and
the veteran is a two way street that helps both sides of the equation.
VSOs such as The American Legion are eager to help VA with this
public contact and ensure that the veteran also understands the claims
from the point of view of an advocate as opposed to a neutral party
such as VA. Furthermore, service officers of The American Legion and
other organizations can help share the workload with VA. The ultimate
goal is to help veterans and when VA and VSOs work in concert with each
other, there is great benefit that can be provided to veterans. We have
expressed concerns to VA regarding a greater role that VSOs could play
in this program in contacting veterans, and we are hopeful that we can
work to improve that relationship.
These and other pilots have benefited from close involvement
between VA and the front line users of the benefits system, the VSOs
who represent veterans in their claims. With the exception of a recent
electronic claim processing pilot in Baltimore, VA has worked to
involve VSOs at an early level in the proceedings of pilots, which
benefits both sides. Even VA itself has admitted to challenges faced by
an increasingly inexperienced workforce. This is not meant to be a
criticism. The benefits system can take many years to master, and yet
if VA were not hiring new employees, we would face an even greater gap
as the most experienced employees retired. It must be an ongoing
process.
However, many service officers have many years of experience, and
have recognized critical failure and success points within the system
during those years. A price cannot be placed on that kind of
experience. When those insights are offered early on in the process,
sometimes overlooked errors can be corrected early and not late in the
process, saving time. Efficiency is what will help VA move forward.
VSOs offer an extra set of eyes that can point out things that might
otherwise be missed. These are systems that will be used by both VA and
VSO alike, and designing them with both end users in mind will only
benefit the greater end.
All of these programs will ultimately feed into the Veterans
Benefits Management System (VBMS) which will be the operating system of
VA's future. While VBMS will not begin its first pilot until November
of this year, many of the early indications are that this will be
helpful to VA and veteran alike. While final details of the system are
not available, it should hopefully include elements which will enhance
file sharing electronically and make finding necessary information
easier. Furthermore, the ability to electronically organize and display
key information should speed processing time. The ability to separate
issues and rapidly process those that are ready for decisions--while
saving more difficult issues for more lengthy development--can lead to
exactly the sort of time saving measures that get the benefits to the
veterans in a more timely manner.
Electronic measures cannot be seen as a cure all, though.
Institutional attitudes that have placed a greater priority on ``moving
widgets'' than recognizing the importance and impact of the claims on
individual veterans' lives must be overcome. Though VA states that
quality of work is an equal component to timeliness, the lack of
transparency about accuracy statistics as compared to statistics of
claims processed and timeliness belies this and must be improved. It
does veterans no good to process claims more rapidly if they are still
being processed poorly and with a lack of attention to detail. VA must
be more forthcoming on how they intend to show their worker and
management base that they are measuring them not solely on how many
units they move per month, but on the fact that those claims are done
without errors that will negatively impact veterans.
The importance of eliminating errors cannot be underestimated. A
veteran's only option to correct mistakes made by VA is to appeal the
claim. When the public sees headlines about how a veteran is waiting
years for their claim to be processed by VA this is almost always
indicative of a claim that is working its way through the appeals
process. Errors made at a Regional Office take years to correct, not
hours. This can be changed with a greater attention to detail. Quick
fixes, where VA acknowledges a procedural error that is costing a
veteran benefits and corrects it on the spot, are fixes that not only
save the veteran years of delays, they save the VA years of work. Get
it done right the first time and there is no need to clog the system
with second, third and fourth times.
CONCLUSIONS
Because of the transformation that VBA is going through, there is
great potential to move forward. Drawing on positive lessons learned,
benefiting from creative and dedicated minds to change the architecture
of the system to a more effective model, exploiting the opportunities
presented by updated, modern technology, VBA has the potential to truly
improve into a veterans' benefits system that veterans can rely on and
trust. Provided VA maintains the present attitude of acknowledging
mistakes and diligently working to correct them, as well as using
individual initiative to creatively improve the process, there is hope
that the mistakes of the past can be forgotten and that the system for
tomorrow can be the great system that the veterans of America deserve.
VBA will be most effective in this transformation if they continue
to engage and work with all stakeholders in the claims process. It is
not enough to examine their problems internally. There is good advice
to be taken from lawmakers, such as those on this committee, who are
dedicated to ensuring that veterans are getting the benefits that the
government intends for them to receive; or the VSOs who work in the
sometimes frustrating system every day and see firsthand the impact of
those errors on veterans' lives. Perhaps most importantly, VA must
strive to repair their image with the veterans themselves. Too much
trust has been lost.
Veterans must be able to look to their government to uphold its end
of a bargain begun when a new recruit first swears the oath to uphold
and defend the Constitution of the United States. In the military, a
veteran learns the importance of ``having the back'' of their allies
and comrades. VA must have the back of the veterans who have served. VA
must work hard to win back this trust, damaged by years of perceptions
of broken promises and an unfeeling bureaucracy that treats them like
numbers and not people.
To be fair, there have been promising steps forward by this
Secretary and administration of VA to own up to their errors, to
recognize where they are failing the veterans of this country and to
accept the responsibility to repair the damaged trust and the damaged
system. As the largest veterans' advocacy organization in the United
States, The American Legion believes that this country is and should be
capable of providing the best benefits to those who sacrifice so much
for their country. We are encouraged by this movement forward by VA and
look forward to a continued working relationship with them to ensure
that momentum is not lost and that this transformation to a 21st
Century system of benefits is truly a great leap forward for veterans.
The American Legion stands ready to answer any questions of this
Subcommittee and thanks you again for this opportunity to provide
testimony on behalf of our members.
Prepared Statement of Richard Paul Cohen, Executive Director,
National Organization of Veterans' Advocates, Inc.
MR. CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE:
Thank you for the opportunity to present the views of the National
Organization of Veterans' Advocates, Inc (``NOVA'') concerning the
state of the Veterans Benefits Administration (``VBA'').
NOVA is a not-for-profit Sec. 501(c)(6) educational organization
incorporated in 1993. Its primary purpose and mission is dedicated to
train and assist attorneys and non-attorney practitioners who represent
veterans, surviving spouses, and dependents before the Department of
Veterans Affairs (``VA''), the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims
(``CAVC''), and the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal
Circuit (``Federal Circuit'').
NOVA has written amicus briefs on behalf of claimants before the
CAVC, the Federal Circuit and the Supreme Court of the United States of
America. The CAVC recognized NOVA's work on behalf of veterans when it
awarded the Hart T. Mankin Distinguished Service Award to NOVA in 2000.
The positions stated in this testimony have been approved by NOVA's
Board of Directors and represent the shared experiences of NOVA's
members as well as my own eighteen-year experience representing
claimants before the VBA.
THE VBA HAS OBVIOUS PROBLEMS
NOVA's previous testimony and reports from the Department of
Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General have detailed the VBA's
problems including:
an antiquated and insecure paper file;
inadequately trained employees;
ineffective supervision;
inadequate metrics leading to inability to determine whether work
is performed correctly;
work credit system which induces employees to rate claims which
have not been properly developed;
an institution which is more concerned with finding fraudulent
claims than timely granting meritorious claims; and
an institution which is so out of control that it takes years to
promulgate needed regulations and which is incapable of effectively
communicating policy to its employees.
VBA, under pressure from Congress and from various stakeholders,
has recently initiated pilot projects incorporating techniques intended
to solve, in isolation, only one problem at a time. Still the veterans
claims adjudication system limps along each month incorrectly deciding
claims and thereby adding thousands of appeals to the system and adding
to the frustrations of veterans and other claimants. During the past
year, from May 15, 2009 to May 15, 2010, the VBA's Monday Morning
Workload Reports show an 11 percent increase in pending appeals from
171,716 to 190,778. http://www.vba.va.gov/REPORTS/mmwr/historical/2009/
index.asp; http://www.vba.va.gov/REPORTS/mmwr/index.asp.
Apparently, as a result of the VBA's awareness that improperly
developed claims lead to erroneous decisions and that, in the rating
process, the most time is consumed by claim development, the VBA
continues to try different plans to generate fully developed claims
prior to rating. Remarkably, the VBA has never advocated for veterans
to have the right to hire a lawyer, for pay, during the time that the
claim is initially filed and developed to assist in the claim
development.
The most recent annual report of the Chairman of the Board of
Veterans' Appeals shows the effect of having lawyer representation of
veterans and their families, following enactment of the Veterans
Benefits, Health Care, and Information Technology Act of 2006, P.L.
109-461. In FY 2009, those claimants who had attorney representation at
the BVA received a larger percentage of favorable results than did
those without attorney representation and a larger percentage of
favorable results than did those who were represented by VSOs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FY 2009
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Allowed Remanded Positive Outcome
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Representation No. % No. % No. %
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VSO's Overall 7,688 24.8 11,714 37.8 19,402 62.6
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
American Legion 2,100 23.5 3,469 38.8 5,569 62.3
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Amvets 65 25.6 91 35.8 156 61.4
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DAV 3,853 25.5 5,607 37.1 9,460 62.6
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MOPH 179 31.7 191 33.8 370 65.4
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PVA 118 28.7 156 38.0 274 66.6
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VFW 1,138 24.2 1,746 37.2 2,884 61.3
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VVA 235 23.8 454 46.0 689 69.8
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
State Svs. Org 1,975 24.1 2,802 34.2 4,777 58.3
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Attorney 853 22.7 1,743 46.4 2,596 69.0
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Agents 21 23.1 32 35.2 53 58.2
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Other Rep 304 28.1 357 33.1 661 61.2
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No Rep 886 18.7 1,554 32.9 2,440 51.6
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total 11,727 24.0 18,202 37.3 29,929 61.3
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In addition, a recent law review article published in The Federal
Circuit Bar Journal advances the proposition that denying veterans the
right to hire a lawyer at the outset of a claim ``may cost a single
veteran millions of dollars'' Benjamin W. Wright, ``The Potential
Repercussions of Denying Disabled Veterans the Freedom to Hire an
Attorney'', 19 FCBJ 433,435 (No. 3, 2009).
Not only has the VA been disseminating mixed messages by
recognizing the difficulty in developing claims yet not attempting to
obtain attorney assistance in developing claims, but the VA, which
asserts that it wants to assist veterans and put veterans first, is now
requesting legislation which is harmful to veterans. Just a few weeks
ago, the Secretary requested introduction of a bill which the VA
drafted and titled the ``Veterans Benefits Programs Improvement Act of
2010'' which will be harmful to veterans and the claims which they
file. Among the provisions which have the potential to hurt veterans
are those which would allow the VA to impose a stay on the adjudication
of a claim without obtaining prior permission from any court, section
201; cutting in half the time allotted for a veteran to file an appeal,
section 202; eliminating the benefit of equitable tolling for the late
filing of a BVA appeal and making the timely filing of such an appeal
jurisdictional, section 203; eliminating the requirement that decisions
by the BVA must be supported by adequate reasons and bases, section
206; and radically changing the law of Equal Access to Justice Act
(``EAJA'') fees by requiring a veteran to be awarded monetary or other
benefits, in court or on remand by the RO, before the veteran is
entitled to EAJA fees, section 207.
SOLUTIONS REQUIRE AN ORGANIZATIONAL OVERHAUL
During the Claim Summit, conducted by the House Committee on
Veterans' Affairs on March 18, 2010, NOVA focused on three primary
deficiencies which must be corrected by the VA, simultaneously, if the
system is to be fixed. They are lack of a well defined business model
and plan, lack of adequately trained staff and administrators to carry
out the plan, and lack of accurate and reliable metrics to monitor
performance.
NOVA has also previously testified that there are too many levels
of management in the VA's organizational chart which has led to
institutional paralysis or the inability to act expeditiously and
properly, and which has led to mixed messages coming out of the VA.
In addition to the VBA's need for an effective business plan,
adequate training and supervision, accurate metrics, and a streamlined
organization, the VBA must become user friendly and must consider the
needs and limitations of veterans in order to efficiently and
accurately assist veterans. Veterans must be given all the help they
need and desire in processing their claims, including the right to hire
an attorney. Additional impediments should not be imposed such as
shortening a veteran's time to appeal unfavorable ratings. The VA
should not deprive veterans of a full explanation of the decisions made
regarding their claims. Rather, the VA should operate under the
assumption that veterans generally file meritorious claims which should
be fully and quickly granted. Such a change in outlook would naturally
lead to a triage system for claims management which would dramatically
cut backlogs of initial claims and appeals.
Veterans and their families must not be overburdened by useless
paperwork and redundant, undecipherable requests for information. Ill
and impaired veterans should not be required to initiate their claims
with more than a simple, one page, claim form. They should be given
face to face interviews and the right to participate in hearings and
review claim files without the need to travel four or more hours to
participate in the adjudication of their claims. Rather than the
present system containing 57 Regional Offices which requires many
veterans to travel large distances, a veteran friendly system would
disperse most of the functions of the present Regional Offices to
locations in or in close proximity of each VA Hospital, and Vet Center.
Decentralizing the VA would allow, interviewing, form completion and
evidence development, and hearings to be located close to the
claimant's home, while centralized state offices would house the rating
boards. Active veteran participation would tend to result in more
complete and accurate claim development. Obviously, the previously
discussed recommendation to decentralize the VA will not work without a
20 first century veterans claim system which is paperless and which
allows access by veterans and their representatives. Also, the VA will
never deserve the confidence of our country and our veterans until the
VA can demonstrate that claims files are tamper proof and safely
stored. A somewhat analogous system has been utilized by the Social
Security Administration which has a paperless file, which has multiple
local offices dispersed throughout each state for taking applications,
dispensing information and conducting interviews, and which has
centralized offices for reviewing the evidence.
A user friendly system would begin the claim development phase by
clearly and precisely requesting specific documentation from the
veteran, such as a necessary DD214 or current medical records. Rather
than utilizing an assembly line approach with six teams performing
separate tasks, an efficient system would utilize one decision unit to
handle everything from reviewing the application for completeness in
predetermination through gathering the evidence and producing rating
decisions. It is crucial that the combined development/adjudication
unit be directed to partnering with the claimant and the claimant's
representative, if the claimant is represented, to fully understand and
develop the claim. If additional information is necessary, the team
should issue an understandable and case specific VCAA notice, prior to
any rating decision, should assist with any additional development, and
then should issue the rating decision. Because most of the delay in
processing claims involves development, particularly waiting for and
obtaining C&P exams,\1\ NOVA suggests that the VBA utilize 38 U.S.C.
Sec. 5125(a) to forego obtaining an additional exam where the record
already contains an exam sufficient for rating purposes which would
result in a grant of the benefit requested.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ March 17, 2010, Report from the VA Office of Inspector
General, ``Audit of VA's Efforts To Provide Timely Compensation and
Pension Medical Examinations'' Report 09-02135107, pages i, 11;
September 23, 2009, Report from the VA Office of Inspector General,
``Audit of VA Regional Office Claims Processing Exceeding 365 Days''
Report 08-03156-227, pages iii, 4, 8, 9; Booz Allen Report, page 12.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A user friendly system must grant veterans the same rights granted
to all citizens, the option to hire a lawyer for assistance, if
desired, from the very beginning of the proceedings. Presently,
veterans who are notified of the possibility that their rating will be
reduced are not permitted to hire an attorney, for a fee, to represent
them even after they formally object to the notice of reduction. A
veteran must wait until after his rating has actually been reduced to
hire a lawyer, for a fee. Similarly, veterans who believe that an
earlier denial was the result of clear and unmistakable error must
prepare a request for revision without being allowed to hire a lawyer,
for a fee. Not only should the veteran's right to chose to hire a
lawyer be expanded, but after a lawyer or other representative is
hired, neither the VBA nor the BVA should view the veteran's
representative as having interests opposed to the VA's central mission
of providing proper benefits to veterans and their families. Rather,
the VA should partner with the claimant's representative and use
informal conferences to speed claim development and to narrow the
issues to be decided.
Because the present rating system is difficult for veterans to
understand and for rating boards to apply, the complexity of the Rating
Schedule frequently leads to erroneous decisions. It is necessary for
the VA to rework the entire Schedule for Rating Disabilities contained
in 38 CFR Part 4 to simplify and update the ratings. Being mindful of
the increasing number of veterans whose life is in shambles because of
residuals of PTSD or TBI, in rewriting the Schedule for Rating
Disabilities the VA should comply with the recommendation that ratings
be designed to compensate veterans for loss of quality of life in
addition to loss of earning capacity.
To control the ever increasing backlog of claims, the VBA must
adequately triage claims. Increased use of presumptions would eliminate
the need for development of evidence regarding the incidents of
military service for all those who were deployed to a war zone
regardless of their military occupational specialty or place of
assignment within the war zone. Thus, for example, anyone who was
deployed to a war zone, whether during WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf
War or the GWOT who is subsequently diagnosed with PTSD should have the
sole inquiry, during the rating stage of their claim, concentrate on
the severity of their symptoms. Anyone who is diagnosed with a medical
condition while on active duty and who is presently being treated for
that condition should not need to prove a medical nexus between the
conditions. Also, veterans who are receiving Social Security Disability
or Supplemental Security Income benefits based on conditions which are
related to service should be presumed to be unemployable.
Following an unfavorable rating decision, the claimant should only
be required to file one request for an appeal instead of the present
requirement to file both a notice of disagreement and a substantive
appeal to the BVA. Thereafter, the claimant and his representative
should have the right to submit further evidence or argument and to
have a denovo review on the record, or a hearing by a Veterans Law
Judge (VLJ) sitting in a BVA office close to the decentralized Regional
Offices.
Adequate training, supervision and accountability are essential to
create a system which fulfills the mission to correctly decide all
claims. This requires reworking the organizational chart to provide
reporting and direct accountability from the Regional Offices to the
Secretary. Presently, there are an excessive number of layers of
executives in the system which impedes the flow of knowledge and which
inhibits accountability. Files do not get lost, shredded or compromised
in a modern business with direct accountability. Also, in a system with
direct accountability poorly trained workers are not called upon to
perform functions essential to the mission. It is essential that the
pressures placed on rating specialists and VLJs to turn out decisions
be replaced with a system which expects the right decision to be made
at all levels of the process. Veterans require a system which does not
issue a decision until the claim is fully developed, which involves a
true partnership between the claimant and the VA, and which rewards
prompt and correct decision making. NOVA's experience confirms the
findings in the 2005 report of the Office of Inspector General that the
present work credit system is providing a disincentive to properly
deciding claims. It should be replaced. To complement new expectations
of increased accuracy and accountability it is essential that VA
employees be repeatedly and adequately trained and supervised.
Additionally, the high rate of VLJ decisions which are returned by the
CAVC to the BVA because of inadequate reasons and bases is unacceptable
and contributes to the backlog and to the reputation of ``hamster
wheel'' adjudications.
In a system with adequate training and accountability VLJs do not
write decisions which are affirmed only 20 percent of the time, on
appeal to the court. To ensure efficient, convenient, timely and proper
appellate review at the administrative level, the Board of Veterans'
Appeals should be decentralized and dispersed within reasonable
distances from the many Regional Offices. Not only should the VLJs be
moved out of their fortress in Washington, D.C., but they must be
reconfigured into a corps of truly independent and well trained Federal
Administrative Law Judges.
Appeal from the VLJ's decision should go to the CAVC and then to
the Federal Circuit. NOVA recommends two changes to the operation of
the court. First, the CAVC should be granted class action jurisdiction
so as to be able to remedy situations which affect a broad class of
veterans. Second, the CAVC should be required to resolve all issues
which are reasonably raised, except for constitutional claims if the
appeals can be resolved without reaching the constitutional claims.
Prepared Statement of Molly M. Ames, Rating Veterans Service
Representative, Veterans Benefits Administration Regional Office,
San Diego, CA, on behalf of American Federation of Government
Employees, AFL-CIO, and AFGE Veterans Affairs Council
Chairman Hall, Ranking Member Lamborn and Members of the
Subcommittee:
Thank you for the opportunity to share the perspective of the
American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the National
Veterans Affairs Council (VA Council), the exclusive representatives of
front line employees of the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA).
I have been employed with VBA since 1997. I currently serve as a
Rating Specialist (RVSR) at VBA's San Diego Regional Office (RO).
Previously, I worked as a Claims Assistant and Veterans Service
Representative (VSR). AFGE and NVAC are extremely frustrated with VBA's
extreme delay in implementing key provisions of P.L.110-389 that, if
implemented properly, have the potential to significantly reduce the
current inventory and ensure that more claims are processed correctly
the first time. The following are our specific concerns and
recommendations.
Listening to Front Line Employees and Their Representatives
AFGE and NVAC greatly appreciated Chairman Hall's request for our
views during the drafting of the P.L.110-389 and our views on
implementation of the law at recent hearings. In contrast, VBA has
largely excluded AFGE and NVAC from its efforts to implement provisions
of this law that directly impact the ability of front line employees to
do their jobs, including skills certification, training and the work
credit system. We appreciate some recent efforts by VBA to solicit
input from employees and their representatives and hope this is the
start of a more inclusive atmosphere.
AFGE and NVAC urge the Subcommittee to increase the frequency of
its site visits to the ROs, to include opportunities for unfiltered
discussions with employees and their representatives outside of the
presence of management.
Addressing Hostile Work Environments
Labor-management relations at many ROs have deteriorated
significantly, resulting in a work environment that is more hostile now
than under the prior Administration. Terminations of both experienced
employees and newly trained employees are a routine occurrence. Local
AFGE officers in a number of offices have been retaliated against for
permissible union activity. Management recently singled out a VSR with
valuable skills and experience and refused to allow her to join her
colleagues in working overtime on the claims backlog simply because of
her status as a local president with official time.
The constant threat of termination places additional stress on a
workforce that is struggling to comply with arbitrary increases in
production requirements, despite mandatory overtime every weekend.
It is equally discouraging that VBA is unwilling to proceed with
regional and local labor management forums mandated by the December
2009 White House Executive Order on labor-management forums. These
forums offer a valuable opportunity for labor and management to work
together on effective solutions to the claims backlog.
Quality Assurance
Section 224 of P.L. 110-389 (Section 224) provides for a third
party assessment of VBA's Quality Assurance program. The input of front
line employees and their representatives will be an essential component
of any such assessment. Pressured RO managers have resorted to a number
of techniques for hiding the size of the backlog and the number of
aging claims. Our members on the front lines see how these techniques
are employed on a daily basis.
Also, many managers lack sufficient experience and subject matter
expertise to carry out quality assurance duties, leading to greater
errors, which in turn lead to more appeals, remands and other delays.
For example, at the San Diego RO, employees who have been rating
cases less than 2 years are overseeing the work of new employees, and
others with less than 2 years of experience are training new RVSRs.
Given the enormous, recent growth in our workforce--from 150 to 500
employees in a just a few years at the San Diego RO--a sufficient level
of experience is no longer there.
VBA should implement skills certification tests for quality
assurance personnel, similar to those required under P.L. 110-389 for
direct supervisors of claims processors. More generally, management's
performance measures should include quality of training and compliance
with training requirements
Skills Certification Testing for Managers
We strongly support the requirement in the new law that managers
pass the skills certification tests similar to those required of claims
processing personnel. Our members regularly report that they are
supervised by managers who have little or no experience performing the
complex functions involved in processing disability claims, rendering
their roles as mentors and trainers ineffective.
Lack of management expertise also takes a toll on workplace morale.
Front line employees facing intense production pressures have to answer
to supervisors who have not experienced these demands firsthand.
To date, front line employees and their representatives have had
very limited involvement in the development and administration of
skills certification tests, despite substantial evidence that the test
does not properly measure needed skills and repeated incidence of
testing problems.
All managers, including higher levels management and those involved
in quality assurance, should be required to pass supervisor skills
certification tests.
Training: Shortcuts and Poor Quality Remain the Norm
Our members report a wide range of deficiencies in the training
provided at ROs. Most problematic: widespread training shortcuts for
new and experienced employees. After new employees complete their
initial classroom training, their on-the-job training at the RO is
routinely cut short to rush them into production. It is also common for
new employees to be kept at one station to maximize their short term
productivity, thus depriving them of exposure to other skill areas that
are needed for their long term productivity.
At the San Diego RO, most of the temporary 1-year hires who have
been converted to permanent C&P employees have only received in-house
training and are not being rotated; the lack of initial training and
exposure to other teams will deprive them of critical skills in the
long term.
Similarly, experienced employees are routinely deprived of their
full 80 hours of annual mandatory training by pressured managers who
have significant discretion as to how much training time is allowed. We
receive regular reports of ``training by email'', where employees are
permitted a fraction of the time that was officially allotted to learn
a new concept, and deprived of the opportunity to learn face-to-face
from experienced instructors.
RVSRs on the Appeals Team, like myself, receive valuable training
from the Board of Veterans Appeals by videoconference; it provides us
with an opportunity to ask questions directly of Board attorneys and
judges. Unfortunately, the RVSRs on the Rating Board do not have this
opportunity and are only provided in-house training from coaches with
minimal experience.
Management performance measures should reflect the quality and
thoroughness of training program. Also, VBA should be required to use a
cadre of formally trained instructors from VA Central Office to conduct
RO trainings.
Long Overdue Study of the Work Credit and Work Management Systems
Despite its assertions over the years, VBA has never produced
evidence of a comprehensive reliable time and motion study that would
enable it properly assign work credits for different tasks in the
claims process. Nor has VBA adjusted individual employee production
standards to reflect the increasing complexity and difficulty of the
claims process. As a result, employees are pressured to short cut those
tasks that are undervalued, such as additional case development.
As long as employees are subjected to arbitrary and unreasonable
production standards, the claims development process will be flawed by
inefficiency and incomplete claims development. The ultimate harm falls
upon the veterans, who are deprived of full, fair, and timely
consideration of their claims, and a growing backlog.
The recently issued VSR standards have exacerbated this problem by
eliminating credit for other routine, critical steps in the claims
process. It seems that management is once again looking for a quick fix
to bring down the backlog instead of properly training people and
letting them do their jobs.
More specifically, under the old standards, VSRs received work
credit based on their performance in 60 criteria; under the new VSR
rules, there are only 5 criteria. Most problematic is the complete loss
of credit for follow-up development. The elimination of any credit for
work beyond initial development will have a significant adverse impact
on the claims processing system.
Similarly, the current method in which VBA provides credit for RVSR
work adversely affects timeliness and quality. More specifically, these
standards fail to provide any credit for additional development or
completion of VA examination requests, both of which may take an RVSR
multiple hours of production time to complete. The lack of credit for
additional development of completion of VA examination request often
forces the RVSR to choose between serving the claimant's needs and
meeting production standards.
It is also problematic that local stations are permitted to
increase production standards above national levels, creating
inconsistencies and morale problems.
New employees are also held to unrealistic standards. They are
given only 90 days to reach a production standard following a period
without any production requirements. Also, they are not given any
deductible time to correct prior work. In contrast, the mentors who
review their work for errors receive deductible time for their work.
Implementation of a revised work credit system, customized for both
new and experienced employees based on an independent, scientifically
based study is urgently needed.
Counterproductive Telework Production Standards
The White House and Office of Personnel Management have stepped up
their commitment to flexible workplace arrangements for Federal
employees. Yet, the VA--which continues to lag behind other Federal
agencies in the use of flexiplace--maintains discriminatory,
counterproductive telework policies across all its ROs. Last year, at
our request, Congressman Frank Wolf asked Secretary Shinseki to offer
telework to more claims processors, and to end the arbitrary, unfair
practice of requiring higher production from work-at-home employees.
Unfortunately, Secretary Shinseki refused to change course.
VA's telework policies at the ROs make even less sense when so many
ROs are facing severe space shortages. Every seat in the San Diego RO
is full and more employees keep arriving. It is very difficult to get
training rooms. We also do not have enough space for certification and
vocational rehabilitation testing. It is nearly impossible to meet with
all employees at the same time.
It is equally confounding that former Secretary Peake was willing
to drop a similar practice of higher production standards at the Board
of Veterans Appeals. VA Shinseki should be doing even more to promote
telework in light of current White House goals to increase the use of
telework!
All RO claims processing personnel with appropriate job duties
should be offered the telework option. Work-at-home employees should be
subject to the same production standards as their peers.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify on behalf of AFGE and the
National VA Council.
Prepared Statement of Paul Sullivan, Executive Director,
Veterans for Common Sense
Chairman Hall, Ranking Member Lamborn and Members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for inviting Veterans for Common Sense (VCS) to
present our comments about ``The State of the Veterans Benefits
Administration'' (VBA).
VCS appreciates the many hearings and round table discussions this
Subcommittee has held in the past few years on this topic of vital
interest to our veterans and families.
We seek a broader relationship between VBA and VBA's many
stakeholders. For example, we support additional hearings devoted to
individual veterans offering their views about their challenges with
VBA as well as their ideas for improving VBA. In another example, we
support a greater dialog with the private sector to find innovative
ideas to kick-start VBA into the 21st Century. All of this can easily
be accomplished with a White House-Congressional-Veteran Advocate
conference open to the public so we can cast a wide net for short-term
and long-term solutions.
Progress reforming VBA begins by listening to veterans and
advocates. Allow us to begin today by stating our goal is to work
closely with VBA so our veterans receive both prompt and high-quality
health care and disability benefits. In many instances, an approved VBA
claim is required before a veteran receives medical care.
Our testimony contains four parts. Our first part highlights
promising news about the current state of VBA. Our second part lists
troubling challenges needing prompt attention. Our third part, from our
Web site, www.FixVA.org, describes VBA's systemic problems. And our
fourth part offers a few pragmatic and progressive VCS solutions for
the consideration of Congress and VA leaders also posted at
www.FixVA.org.
Part One: Recent Promising News About VBA
On February 4, 2010, VCS listened to VA Secretary Eric Shinseki
testify before Congress and announce that fixing VBA was his top
priority for this year. We commend him for addressing this serious
issue. VCS wants him and all of VBA to succeed, as this is in the best
interest of our veterans and our families.
On March 18, 2010, VCS listened as VA's top information technology
advisor, Peter Levin, told Chairman Bob Filner and dozens of veterans'
advocates, ``In my judgment, [VBA] cannot be fixed. We need to build a
new [claims] system, and that is exactly what we are going to do.''
This admission of the scope and severity of VBA's crisis of poor
quality combined with long delays was a critical first step toward
reforming VBA.
On May 7, 2010, VA announced VBA would contract to build a
simplified processing system for Vietnam War veterans' claims for
disabilities. Scientists linked exposure to Agent Orange (dioxin)
poisoning in Southeast Asia to several serious health conditions. VCS
supports VA's decision, and we will be monitoring this public-private
effort.
On June 2, 2010, the Office of Management and Budget approved VBA's
new Form 21-526EZ, an express disability compensation claim. VCS hopes
a new form may reduce the burdensome and frustrating 26-page claim
obstacle course our veterans now face. We believe, when implemented,
the new form may make it easier for veterans to file claims, easier for
advocates to assist veterans, and easier for VBA staff to process
accurate claims.
On June 10, 2010, VCS reviewed briefing materials concerning VBA's
pilot programs intended to improve claim processing quality and
timeliness. Overall, VCS supports these endeavors, so long as they
actually improve accuracy and speed. The pilots must also be scalable:
meaning VBA must be able to apply the pilot (or successful parts of it)
to the entire VBA system within a short time frame. VBA's pilots adopt
a veteran-centered approach, and VCS salutes this culture change. VCS
reserves judgment on the pilots until VBA releases final reports about
the completed pilot programs.
Part Two: Troubling News About VBA
While tackling some of VBA's systemic challenges, VBA continues to
face serious obstacles stalling VA Secretary Shinseki's vision of
transforming VBA.
Leadership Vacancies. As of June 8, 2010, VBA remains leaderless.
There is no permanent Under Secretary or Deputy Under Secretary. VCS
urges VA Secretary Eric Shinseki to fill the positions as quickly as
possible with qualified veteran advocates who will continue his efforts
to transform VBA. We strongly encourage VBA's soon-to-be-selected
leaders to bring on board a team of dozens of subject matter experts
focused on two goals. The first goal should be to improve both the
quality and timeliness of claim decisions. The second goal should be to
develop and implement a long-range plan to overhaul VBA's information
technology, training, regulations, and leadership.
Unacceptably High Error Rate. VBA's error rate processing claims
hovers at more than 25 percent, according to VA's Office of the
Inspector General (OIG). Of particular concern are high error rates for
PTSD and Agent Orange claims. We refer the Subcommittee to a hearing
held earlier this month regarding VBA's inability to implement
recommendations made by OIG and agreed to by VBA. VCS urges VA to
institute total quality management controls as well as auditing to
reduce the error rate. VCS has posted VA OIG audits at our program Web
site, www.FixVA.org.
Tidal Wave of Claims. VA estimates the number of claims flooding
into VBA may reach one million this year, creating additional burdens
on VBA to process more claims. VCS urges VBA to closely monitor claims
filed, granted, and denied by period of service, gender, age, and
condition in order to have a more robust picture of emerging trends. VA
currently receives one million new claims each year, and the total of
all pending claims, appeals, and other claim-related work is in excess
of one million. Demand for VBA benefits may remain at a high rate for
many years due to:
Iraq and Afghanistan claims. The two wars already caused
nearly 500,000 new claims, with 500,000 more expected in the next 5
years.
Vietnam War claims. Scientific evidence linking Agent
Orange poisoning to medical conditions may result in hundreds of
thousands of new claims.
PTSD claims. Scientific evidence linking deployment to a
war zone with PTSD may result in tens of thousands of new and re-opened
claims.
Gulf War claims. Scientific evidence linking toxic
exposures during the 1991 war may result in tens of thousands of
additional claims.
Economic Recession. The economic recession and high
unemployment causes some veterans to file more claims against VBA in
order to obtain care.
Education Benefits Debacle. VBA's failure to implement the Post-9/
11 GI Bill education benefits could have easily been prevented if VA,
Congress, and veterans' groups cooperated on the design, construction,
and implementation starting in 2007. If there was greater communication
and cooperation among legislators, VA, and veteran stakeholders, then
the crisis may have been mitigated or prevented.
VA's Anti-Veteran Legislative Proposal. On May 25, 2010, VA sent a
letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi containing draft
legislation focusing on VBA. VCS objects to VA's efforts to restrict
veterans' due process rights to retain counsel for claim appeals. VCS
provided VA and Chairman Filner with a letter detailing some of our
major objections.
Unfinished Gulf War Issues. On May 3, 2010, VCS submitted comments
regarding VA's draft Gulf War Veterans' Illness Task Force report. VCS
awaits VA Secretary Shinseki's response to our comments, especially
those about improving disability compensation benefits for Gulf War
veterans. The 20th anniversary of the start of the conflict, now the
longest in U.S. history, represents an opportunity for VA to conduct
outreach for research, health care, and benefits for our Gulf War
veterans.
PTSD Claim Regulations. On October 14, 2009, VCS submitted comments
regarding VA's proposed regulations granting a presumption of service
connection for PTSD for veterans diagnosed with PTSD who deployed to a
war zone. VCS supports VA Secretary Shinseki's bold initiative, and we
hope VA publishes the final regulations soon so veterans may receive
care and benefits. We urge VA to work transparently with veterans'
advocates and Congress so we can monitor the implementation of the new
regulations.
Historical Pattern of Neglect. The press coverage about VBA remains
unflattering, due in part to what appears to be a lack of media
outreach by VBA. We hope this can change soon, with more news in the
press about fewer VA errors and shorter wait times for veterans.
On August 13, 2003, the Wall Street Journal reported on
the tragic plight of Afghanistan War veteran Jason Stiffler. While
deployed, Stiffler was injured and suffered psychological trauma,
leading him to have both traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post
traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Nearly 7 years ago, the estimate of
Iraq and Afghanistan claims was only 50,000. Today, VBA has received
nearly 500,000 claims from current war veterans. Seven years ago, the
number of claims sitting at the Board of Veterans appeals was just over
100,000. Today, the Board has 200,000 pending appeals. VCS asks the
Subcommittee to read the article: http://
www.veteransforcommonsense.org/index.php/veterans-category-articles/
1766-wall-street-journal.
On June 7 and again on June 9, 2010, National Public
Radio (NPR) aired two lengthy investigative reports about TBI. The two
NPR articles describe significant problems for soldiers caused by the
military due the lack of awareness, exams, and treatment for TBI. VCS
urges VBA to be aware of the military's lack of exams and treatment
when it comes to reviewing veterans' claims for TBI. VCS asks the
Subcommittee to read the NPR articles.
NPR Part One: http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/index.php/
whats-new/1754-npr.
NPR Part Two: http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/index.php/
whats-new/1763-npr.
Conclusion for Parts One and Two
While many challenges persist at VBA, significant progress toward
reform is being made by VA Secretary Shinseki. However, simply
recognizing a catastrophe exists and promising to transform VBA is not
enough. VCS and our collective constituency want to see results.
Measurable results will be observed when a new team is brought in to
lead VBA with a broad mandate from Secretary Shinseki and President
Obama. Results will be celebrated when VBA's error rate is reduced
significantly, and claims are processed quickly (with an exception for
serious cases with multiple conditions).
In order to reach our long-term goal to transform VBA for the 21st
Century, VCS asks Congress to pass a new law mandating the creation of
an entirely new VBA system from the ground up. A new law should fund
the creation of a new, streamlined VBA, based on VBA pilots. The new
law and new VBA must set requirements for quality and timely decisions
so our veterans don't wait for health care or benefit payments.
Part Three: VCS Identifies Nine Major Problems at VBA
Parts three and four contain information from our new program Web
site, www.FixVA.org. On Friday, April 9, 2010, Veterans for Common
Sense held a press conference in San Diego, attended by the Honorable
Bob Filner, Chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee. At our
new Web site, VCS listed the nine major problems in Part Three as well
as the nine practical solutions shown in Part Four:
1. Stagnant System. For decades, leaders at VBA failed to upgrade
VBA information technology, regulations, training, and oversight. This
led to a backlog of one million claims (of all types), hundreds of
thousands of appeals, and a high error rate. Veterans wait, on average,
6 months for an initial claim decision from VBA. Veterans who appeal a
VBA decision can wait an additional 4 or 5 years for a decision from
the Board of Veterans Appeals (BVA). Instead of reforming VBA, leaders
tinkered with a few rules, declared victory, and hoped Congress and
veterans would walk away.
2. Different Locations. VBA leaders work at 1800 G Street, NW in a
separate building a half-mile away from VA Secretary Eric Shinseki's
headquarters at 810 Vermont Avenue, NW, in Washington, DC. Out of sight
means out of mind when it comes to reforming VBA.
3. Obsolete Computers. VBA uses several different computer
systems, some dating back decades. They don't work. Mail is stacked,
claims are shredded, and claims are lost because VBA is not digitized.
VBA's obsolete computers mean VBA leaders don't know why Guard and
Reserve veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan war are half as likely
to file claims, yet twice as likely to have their claim denied. The
current system computer is not friendly for VBA staff or for veterans.
4. 26-Page VBA Application. VBA forces veterans to complete a 26-
page claim form. Imagine being a veteran with post traumatic stress
disorder--PTSD--or traumatic brain injury--TBI--and trying to fill out
VBA's complex, overwhelming, and burdensome paperwork all alone.
5. No Military Records. VBA doesn't have automatic access to
computerized military service records and military medical records.
That means VBA must request paper records one at a time for each
veteran. VBA and military searches for paper records often take years
and often are the root cause for denials for benefits and health care
due to veterans' lack of evidence for their claim.
6. Two Separate Agencies. Except in a few locations, VBA and VHA
don't share office space, and that means they might as well be on
different continents. Most veterans file their VBA claims at a VHA
medical facility, where there are few, if any VBA staff to review the
claim, set up claim exams, or make claim decisions. VHA then mails the
claim form to VBA. In some cases, veterans incorrectly confused a VBA
claim denial as a VHA health care denial--with devastating
consequences.
7. VBA Vacancies. VBA recently began advertising for new positions
to process the tidal wave of claims. For example, in Waco, Texas, VBA
is hiring 100 new claims processors.
8. Attorney Restrictions. Veterans are prohibited from hiring an
attorney until after VBA has denied their claim. Enemy prisoners of war
can have attorneys at Guantanamo, yet our veterans fight VBA alone.
9. VA Audits Prove Serious Problem Exists. In the past 7 months,
more than 10 VA Office of the Inspector General (VA OIG) reports have
found very serious systemic problems within VBA. Examples include
unacceptably high VBA error rates at eight VBA regional offices. VBA's
reports about the backlog of claims are incomplete and difficult to
understand. A recent study also found VA remains unable to determine
the full human and financial costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
After nearly 9 years of war, that's unacceptable.
Part Four: VCS Offers Nine Practical and Progressive Solutions
1. New Leaders. The Under Secretary for Benefits position is
vacant. VCS urges VA Secretary Eric Shinseki to hire new, pro-veteran
leaders at VBA dedicated to fixing VBA within the next 2 years. The new
leaders will also need additional support staff to oversee a massive
overhaul of the beleaguered agency.
2. Move Leaders. VCS urges Secretary Shinseki to relocate VBA
leaders from 1800 G Street in Washington to inside VA's national
headquarters located at 810 Vermont Avenue, where they will be co-
located with his other VA leaders. This sends the signal to veterans,
Congress, and the public that fixing VBA is a top priority.
3. Presumptive Conditions. VCS urges Secretary Shinseki to create
an automated, veteran-friendly system that takes advantage of laws
creating more presumptions in favor of the veterans, such as VA's new
regulations expanding health care and disability benefits for Vietnam
War veterans suffering serious and adverse medical problems associated
with their exposure to Agent Orange poisoning. VA's goal should be to
process claims in 1 month, not the current 5 to 6 months. Two examples
under consideration now supported by VCS would streamline PTSD and Gulf
War claims.
4. Single Page Claim Form. VCS urges Secretary Shinseki to adopt a
one-page claim form to replace VBA's current 23-page form. This would
cut burdensome red tape and remove a significant barrier, especially
for veterans with mental health conditions and/or brain injuries. This
will also make it easier for VBA employees to process claims. VHA
currently uses a one-page health care enrollment form, and VBA should
follow suit.
5. Joint DoD-VA Record. VCS urges Secretary Shinseki to work
closely with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and begin using the new,
robust lifetime electronic military medical record proposed by
President Barack Obama. VCS urges the military to complete the
mandatory pre- and post-deployment medical exams as part of the new
record. This will end VBA's current lengthy practice of reconstructing
medical records, a process that takes years and delays veterans' timely
access to health care and benefits.
6. VBA Staff at VHA Facilities. VCS urges Secretary Shinseki to
bring VBA to where our veterans are by restructuring VBA and placing
VBA claims processing staff at VHA medical facilities to meet face-to-
face with veterans. Veterans hope and expect to see friendly VBA
experts who can quickly and accurately process claim forms, set medical
appointments, and decide veterans' claims. Completing a veteran's claim
correctly the first time reduces appeals that clog up VBA.
7. Hire More Veterans. Veterans returning from Iraq and
Afghanistan have an unemployment rate of nearly 15 percent, according
to a recent CNN broadcast. VCS urges VA Secretary Shinseki to place
personnel offices at military discharge locations so veterans have
faster access to VA jobs, including VBA positions. We urge VA to hire
veterans.
8. Veterans Need Attorneys. VCS urges Secretary Shinseki to work
with Congress so our veterans can hire an attorney before they file a
claim. This is especially vital for our veterans suffering from PTSD,
TBI, or other mental health conditions. Completing a fully developed
quality claim correctly the first time with expert legal advice reduces
appeals that often clog up VBA for years.
9. Greater Transparency. VCS urges Secretary Shinseki to release
more information about the agency's work as well as conduct more
outreach to inform our veterans about their benefits. VCS urges the
Secretary to hire the appropriate staff to conduct oversight so there
is more accountability within the new VBA system, especially staff to
oversee quality as a high priority. VCS also urges VA to begin
tabulating the current cost of the wars as well as estimating the
future costs of the war so VA is well positioned with staff and
facilities to meet the increases in demand.
Conclusion
VCS presents Congress with our bold agenda listing VBA's systemic
challenges and pragmatic solutions.
At the top of our list of critical VA actions: VA must fill top VBA
leadership vacancies.
VCS constantly encourages veterans to seek care and benefits from
VA. VCS also advocates for systemic improvements so our veterans
receive the prompt and high-quality medical care and benefits they
earned.
Our final message to VA and Congress is for VBA to work with
veterans' advocates and focus on quality claim decisions, timely claim
decisions, and improving VA's culture.
Prepared Statement of Michael Walcoff, Acting Under Secretary
for Benefits, Veterans Benefits Administration,
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
Chairman Hall, Ranking Member Lamborn, and Members of the
Subcommittee:
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss
the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) disability compensation and
pension programs. Accompanying me today are Ms. Diana Rubens, Associate
Deputy Under Secretary for Field Operations; Mr. Tom Pamperin,
Associate Deputy Under Secretary for Policy and Program Management; Mr.
Mark Bologna, Director for the Veterans Benefits Management System
(VBMS) initiative, and Dr. Peter L. Levin, Senior Advisor to the
Secretary and Chief Technology Officer. My testimony will focus on the
Secretary's goal to eliminate the claims backlog by 2015 so as to
ensure timely and accurate delivery of benefits and services to our
Veterans and their families.
Mission, Transformation Strategy and Goals
Our mission at VA is to fulfill President Lincoln's promise--``To
care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and
his orphan''--by serving and honoring the men and women who are
American's Veterans. VA is also to transform into a 21st Century
organization that is Veteran-centric, results-driven, and forward-
looking. This transformation is demanded by a new era, emerging
technologies, the latest demographic realities, and renewed commitments
to today's Veterans. To this end, VA must deliver first-rate and timely
health care, benefits, and other services to our Nation's Veterans,
families and survivors.
Secretary Shinseki, the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), and
the entire VA leadership fully share the concerns of this Subcommittee,
Congress as a whole, the Veterans Service Organizations (VSOs), the
larger Veteran community and the American public regarding the
timeliness and accuracy of disability benefit claims processing. As you
know, Secretary Shinseki has set the critical goals of eliminating the
disability claims backlog by 2015 and of processing disability claims
so no Veteran has to wait more than 125 days for a quality decision (98
percent accuracy rate) on that claim. Achieving these goals is at the
center of our work as we collaborate across the Department and with our
partners in the Department of Defense to tackle this important
objective for our Nation's Veterans.
Under the leadership of Secretary Shinseki, we are attacking the
claims process and backlog through a focused and multi-pronged
approach. At its core, our approach relies on three pillars:
1. Culture: A culture change inside VA to one that is centered on
accountability to and advocacy for our Veterans;
2. Reengineering business processes: Collaborating with internal
and external stakeholders (employees, administrations and staff,
Congress, VSOs, public and private entities) to constantly improve our
claims process using best practices and ideas; and
3. Technology and infrastructure: Deploying leading edge, powerful
21st century IT solutions to create a smart, paperless claims system
which simplifies and improves claims processing for timely and accurate
completion the first time.
Transforming our disability claims processing system involves
identifying short-term changes with immediate impact to streamline the
way we currently do business, improving business processes, enabling
practices which will best leverage technology, and hiring staff to
bridge the gap until we fully implement our mid-range plan. We expect
these transformational approaches to begin yielding performance
improvements in 2011 and gain in significance beyond; nonetheless, it
is important to mitigate the impact of the increased workload until
that time.
Our aggressive efforts are at the heart of our requirements for the
large increase in our 2011 budget request for the VBA. The President's
2011 budget request for VBA is $2.1 billion in discretionary funding,
an increase of $460 million, or 27 percent, over the 2010 enacted level
of $1.7 billion. The 2011 budget supports an increase of up to 4,048
FTEs, including maintaining some of the temporary employees funded
through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
Importantly, the budget also includes $145.3 million in information
technology (IT) funds in 2011 to support the ongoing development of a
21st Century smart, paperless claims processing system. We greatly
appreciate this Subcommittee's consideration and support for our fiscal
year (FY) 2011 budget request as we continue this important work for
our Veterans.
All of us working inside VA are well aware that from the outside,
Congress and the VSOs are not yet seeing external results, but we are
confident that that will change by the end of 2011.
We recognize the frustration of many Veterans and our employees
with the time it takes to reach a decision on Veterans' disability
claims. Throughout VA we are rededicating ourselves to the mission of
being advocates for our Veterans. This agency-wide commitment flows
from the Secretary down to the VA leadership to our dedicated employees
in the field. Our leadership team is deeply committed to improving our
relationship with Veterans and other stakeholders, so that we are seen
as their advocates and partners, no matter the circumstance. Before
going further, let me provide an update on our current disability
claims workload.
Current Workload
Our pending claims inventory is rising due to the unprecedented
volume of disability claims being filed. In 2009, for the first time,
we received over one million claims during the course of a single year.
The volume of claims received has increased from 578,773 in 2000 to
1,013,712 in 2009 (a 75 percent increase). Original disability
compensation claims with eight or more claimed issues increased from
22,776 in 2001 to 67,175 in 2009 (nearly a 200 percent increase). Not
only is VA receiving substantially more claims, but the claims have
also increased in complexity. We expect this level of growth in the
number of claims received to continue in 2010 and 2011. VBA experienced
a 14.1 percent increase in annual claims received in 2009, while we
projected an increase of 13.1 percent and 11.3 percent in 2010 and
2011, respectively. This substantial growth is driven by a number of
factors including our successful outreach efforts, which is a priority
of the Secretary as well as this Subcommittee and Congress; improved
access to benefits through initiatives such as the Disability
Evaluation System, Quick Start, and Benefits Delivery at Discharge
Programs; increased demand as a result of nearly 10 years at war; and
the impact of a difficult economy prompting America's Veterans to
pursue access to the benefits they earned during their military
service. As a result, we now average over 97,000 new disability claims
added to the inventory each month, and we project to receive an
astounding nearly 1.2 million disability claims this year.
The projections listed above do not take into account important
decisions made by Secretary Shinseki over the last year. On October 13,
2009, Secretary Shinseki announced his decision to establish
presumptions of service-connection for Veterans exposed in service to
certain herbicides, including Agent Orange, for three particular
illnesses based on the latest evidence presented by the Institute of
Medicine of an association between those illnesses and exposure to
herbicides.
Due to this policy change alone we expect the number of
compensation and pension claims received to increase from 1,013,712 in
2009 to 1,318,753 in 2011 (a 30 percent increase). Without the
significant investment requested for staffing in the FY 2011 budget
request, the inventory of claims pending would grow from 416,335 to
1,018,343, and the average time to process a claim would increase from
161 to 250 days. If Congress provides the funding requested in our
budget, we will be able to increase production in order to lower the
inventory to a projected level of 804,460 claims pending with an
average processing time of 190 days. This Agent Orange decision, which
is the right decision for our Veterans, will add to the disability
claims inventory in the near term but with the aggressive actions VA is
taking will not prevent us from achieving elimination of all backlog in
2015.
Through 2011, we expect over 186,000 claims related to the new
presumptions, and we are dedicated to processing this near-term surge
in claims as efficiently as possible. Included in the claims projected
through 2011 are approximately 93,000 claims from Vietnam Veterans and
survivors previously denied for these conditions. We have a plan to re-
adjudicate these decisions, as required under the court orders in the
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California case of
Nehmer v. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. VA is also soliciting
private-sector input to design and develop an automated system for
faster processing of new Agent Orange presumptive claims--we already
have over 40,000 new claims and are receiving about 8,000 more per
month.
While the volume and complexity of claims have increased, so too
has the overall production effort of our claims processing workforce.
In 2009, the number of claims processed was 977,219, an increase of 8.6
percent over the 2008 level of 899,863. The average time to process a
rating-related claim was reduced from 179 to 161 days in 2009, an
improvement of 11 percent. We recognize that these improvements are not
enough. VA currently has approximately 508,000 pending disability
claims, 35 percent of which have been pending for longer than our
strategic target of 125 days, and are therefore considered to be part
of VA's claims backlog. VBA continues to aggressively hire and train
claims processing staff across the Nation, and we currently employ over
11,600 full-time claims processors.
Hiring more employees is not a sufficient solution. The need to
better serve our Veterans requires bold and comprehensive business
process changes to transform VBA and therefore VA into a high-
performing 21st century organization that provides the best services
available to our Nation's Veterans, survivors, and their families.
Improvement Initiatives
VA's transformation strategy for the claims process leverages the
power of 21st century technologies applied to redesigned business
processes. We are examining our current processes to be more
streamlined and Veteran-focused. We are also applying technology
improvements to the new streamlined processes so that the overall
service we provide is more efficient, timely and accurate. We are
harvesting the knowledge, energy, and expertise of our employees, VSOs,
and the private and public sectors to bring to bear ideas to accomplish
this claims process transformation.
Our end goal is a smart, paperless, IT-driven system which empowers
our VA employees and engages our Veterans. While we work to develop
this system, we are making immediate changes to improve our business
processes and simultaneously incorporating the best of those changes
into the larger effort, our signature program, the Veterans Benefits
Management System (VBMS). Our efforts are also synchronized and
coordinated with VA's Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record and Veterans
Relationship Management System programs.
VA has developed a plan to ``break the back of the backlog'' which
includes short, medium, and long term initiatives running in parallel
and feeding into continuous improvement efforts.
Short Term Initiatives
There are a number of claims process improvement initiatives in
various stages of concept development or execution. Some of the
initiatives are quickly implemented changes to build momentum and reach
out to our Veterans. For example, in an effort to speed up our work and
to connect with our Veteran-clients, VBA now requires staff to reach
out and call Veterans more often during the claims process rather than
to rely solely on written communication. VA is also currently working
to develop over 60 new medical questionnaires to take the place of
current VHA examination templates to improve rating efficiency.
Another initiative is being conducted at our St. Petersburg
Regional Office (RO) to identify and pay Veterans at the earliest point
in time when claimed disabilities are substantiated by evidence we
already have on record. In addition, four ROs are testing the concept
of an ``Express Lane'' to expedite single-issue claims to improve
overall processing efficiencies and service delivery. Yet another
initiative will allow employees and Veterans to communicate regarding
VA benefits using on-line live chat capabilities through the new portal
called e-Benefits. All of the initiatives I have described and a number
of others are being tracked for impact on timeliness and quality, and
we will launch the successful initiatives nationally. For example, VA
has initiated a new shorter application form--cutting the previous 23-
page form down to 12 pages. In many cases we expect to see significant
improvement in Veteran satisfaction with the application process.
On October 10, 2008, then-President Bush signed the Veterans'
Benefits Improvement Act of 2008, Public Law 110-389. Members of this
Subcommittee played an integral role in developing that legislation.
Section 221(a) of the Act directed VA to carry out a 1-year pilot
program to assess the feasibility and advisability of expeditiously
processing fully developed compensation and pension claims within 90
days after receipt of the claim. In 2009, 10 ROs implemented the fully
developed claim program. VA has expanded this program for
implementation at all ROs.
Mid to Long Term Initiatives
The results of the short term efforts feed directly into our mid-
range high-impact technological solution, VBMS, to support paperless
processing and an electronic management system to process claims from
start to finish.
To inform the components of VBMS and as a part of our overall
strategy to eliminate the backlog, we have four main pilot initiatives
underway that are integral to our overall transformation plan. Each
pilot functions as a building block and test bed for the development of
an efficient and flexible paperless claims process. The results of all
four pilots will be incorporated into the nationwide deployment of the
VBMS in 2012.
The Little Rock Compensation Claims Processing Pilot began in July
2009 following completion of the VBA Claims Development Study by Booz
Allen Hamilton. The Little Rock pilot focused on a ``Lean Six Sigma''
approach to streamlining current processes and procedures. The Veterans
Service Center converted from the VBA's existing claims processing
model into new fully integrated claims processing teams or pods. The
pilot concluded in May 2010, and VBA is evaluating the outcomes to
determine next steps.
The Business Transformation Lab (BTL) in Providence, RI, serves as
a ``test ground'' for defining processes and testing functionality that
will be incorporated into the development and deployment of VBMS. The
primary purpose of the BTL is to utilize a structured approach to
identify the most efficient way to process claims in an electronic
environment incorporating current technology. As part of this process,
the Providence RO is testing paperless claims processing using a small
population of claims. The business process improvements identified by
the BTL will be supported by technology enhancements and be integrated
into VBMS.
The Pittsburgh RO began the Case-Managed Development Pilot in
January 2010. The purpose of the pilot is to identify opportunities to
reduce the time required to request and receive evidence, providing
direct assistance to Veterans in compiling the necessary documentation
to support their claims throughout the claims process. A second
important aspect of the pilot is to enhance relationships and
partnerships with our Veteran-clients through personal communications.
Goals of the pilot include more personalized service to Veterans and
greater advocacy on their behalf; more accurate decisions; and a more
transparent understanding of VA's claims process.
The fourth pilot, the Virtual Regional Office (VRO), has already
produced excellent results. The single and focused purpose of the VRO
pilot was to deliver the specifications for an implementable,
professional-grade technical front end ``dashboard'' of the new system.
This dashboard will enable VBMS users to do their jobs more efficiently
and effectively. Based on the role of that individual user, the
dashboard will provide relevant information about a Veteran's claim
that will enable faster and more accurate processing of claims. The
specifications were not developed in a vacuum but rather side-by-side
with VBA employees who gave input to the developers. The initial field
use of dashboard capabilities is scheduled to begin in November 2010,
and will be primarily focused on testing the software. Each iterative
version of the dashboard will add improved functions and tools. In
fiscal year 2012, we will begin nationwide deployment of the end-to-end
paperless claims process and software platform, VBMS.
As mentioned earlier, VBMS is a critical business transformation
initiative supported by the latest technology, and designed to improve
VBA's ability to deliver important benefits to our Veterans, their
families and survivors. VBMS is a holistic solution that integrates
both a business transformation strategy (BTS) and a web-based, 21st
Century paperless claims processing system which will significantly
reduce VBA's reliance on the receipt, movement, and storage of paper.
By eliminating the dependence on paper, VBA will be best positioned to
make better use of available resources, regardless of geographic
location.
As noted earlier, VBMS will also provide services to other critical
initiatives underway at VA including the Veterans Relationship
Management initiative (VRM) and the Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record
(VLER). Data captured through VBMS will be used to provide information
to Veterans through VRM on the status of their claims and to update
VLER. Integration of the various initiatives will allow us to provide
our Veterans with new ways of interacting with VA in ways that meet
their needs and are convenient for them.
We recognize that technology is not the sole solution for our
claims-processing challenges; however, it is the hallmark of a forward-
looking organization and must be at the core of our efforts. Combined
with a renewed commitment and focus toward increasing advocacy for our
Veterans, the VBMS strategy combines a business transformation and re-
engineering effort with enhanced technologies, giving an overarching
and clear vision for improving service delivery to our Nation's
Veterans.
Partnerships
VBA recently partnered with the Department of Defense (DoD) to
create the eBenefits portal (www.ebenefits.va.gov). The portal provides
Servicemembers, Veterans, families, and care providers with a secure,
single sign-on process to on-line benefits information and related
services (such as military personnel records and status of VA claims).
Servicemembers can use this eBenefits account while on active duty and
as Veterans following separation, allowing both DoD and VA to provide
benefit updates and to deploy the right benefit information at the
right time. Future eBenefits releases will provide additional self-
service capabilities that empower users to electronically communicate
with VA and DoD about their benefits and services from anywhere at
anytime.
VBA continues to meet with stakeholders to improve communication
and to promote innovation. On April 8, 2010, VBA met with several of
the largest Veterans Service Organizations (VSOs) to partner on ideas
to help eliminate the backlog and increase quality. In June 2010,
several VSOs traveled to Pittsburgh and Providence to observe pilot
operations. We continue to meet with the VSOs on a regular basis to
collaborate and develop proposals that have potential to boost our
overall strategy. On June 8, 2010, we met with ``out of the box''
thinkers from various organizations to brainstorm new ways to improve
the services that we provide to our Veterans. On June 10, 2010, we also
met with our union partners, the American Federation of Government
Employees (AFGE), to develop strategies to improve client service and
eliminate the backlog. We will continue to examine every new idea from
our employees and stakeholders that may assist us in our mission.
Conclusion
Secretary Shinseki's goal is to transform VA into an organization
that is Veteran-centric, results-driven, and forward-looking. At the
same time, VA must deliver first-rate and timely health care, benefits,
and other services to our Nation's Veterans, families and survivors.
Nothing less will do. All of VA is moving forward aggressively and
comprehensively to transform our claims process through a focused and
multi-pronged approach. At its core, our team approach relies on three
pillars: Culture, Reengineering business processes, and Technology and
infrastructure. We look forward to working with Congress, VSOs, and
other partners to meet our critical goals and the needs of 21st Century
Veterans and their families.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony. I will be happy to
respond to any questions from you or other Members of the Subcommittee.
MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
Electronic Work Measurement Application
Final Work Rate Standards
Prepared for:
Compensation and Pension Service
Veterans Benefits Administration
1800 G Street, NW
Washington, DC 20006
July 15, 2004
Deliverable #12
Under Contract GS-35F-4594G
Document Control Number--1804328-Part 2/FWRS v1.0
Prepared by:
SRA International, Inc.
2000 15th Street North
Arlington, VA 22201
__________
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction...................................... 73
2. Data Consolidation and Preparation................ 73
3. Computation Approach.............................. 73
4. Work Measurement Analysis Tool.................... 75
4.1 Analysis Tool Contents............................ 75
4.1.1 High-Level Results and Parameter Settings......... 75
4.1.2 Detailed Model Results............................ 76
4.1.3 Data Extracts..................................... 76
4.1.4 Characteristics of Former-VSD Work................ 77
4.1.5 Input Data........................................ 77
4.2. Recalculating Work Rate Standards................. 77
4.2.1 Adding and Removing Stations...................... 78
4.2.2 Changing Loading Methods.......................... 78
4.2.3 Recalculating Work Rate Standards................. 79
5. Draft Work Rate Standards......................... 79
5.1 Number of Observations per RO..................... 79
5.2 Summary Work Rate Standards....................... 80
APPENDIX A: EXCEL ANALYSIS WORKBOOKS................................ 82
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 4-1. Select Stations for WRS Computation................... 78
Figure 4-2. Recalculate WRS Button................................ 79
Figure 4-3. Calculations Complete Indicator....................... 79
LIST OF TABLES
Table 5-1. Number of Observations per RO--April 2004.............. 80
Table 5-2. Number of Observations per RO/PMC--February-May 2004... 80
[Table 5-3. Direct Labor Work Rate Standards, Non-Rating--April
2004, Table 5-4. Direct Labor Work Rate Standards, Rating--April
2004, Table 5-5. Direct Labor Work Rate Standards, Non-Rating--Feb-
May 2004, Table 5-6. Direct Labor Work Rate Standards, Rating--Feb-
May 2004, Table 5-7. Work Rate Standards--Loading Method 1--April
2004, Table 5-8. Work Rate Standards--Loading Method 2--April 2004,
Table 5-9. Work Rate Standards--Loading Method 3--April 2004, Table
5-10. Work Rate Standards--Loading Method 4--April 2004, Table 5-
11. Work Rate Standards--Loading Method 5--April 2004, Table 5-12.
Work Rate Standards--Loading Method 1--Feb-May 2004, Table 5-13.
Work Rate Standards--Loading Method 2--Feb-May 2004, Table 5-14.
Work Rate Standards--Loading Method 3--Feb-May 2004, Table 5-15.
Work Rate Standards--Loading Method 4--Feb-May 2004, Table 5-16.
Work Rate Standards--Loading Method 5--Feb-May 2004 are being
retained in the Committees files.]
1. INTRODUCTION
Compensation and Pension (C&P) Service periodically performs work
measurement studies in which it gathers data from regional offices
(ROs) regarding the distribution of time spent on work activities. The
purpose of these studies is to develop work rate standards that express
the amount of effort normally required to complete various kinds of
work. Work measurement studies gather data using a ``self-observation''
technique in which employees are intermittently asked to record their
current activity. The goal is to gather enough random observations to
develop reliable estimates of how employees distribute their work
effort among various activities and end products (EPs).
C&P Service collected work measurement data at 15 ROs, including
three colocated Pension Maintenance Centers (PMCs), during the month of
April 2004 (approximately 22 working days). Additional data were
collected at the three colocated ROs and PMCs during February, March,
and May 2004 (approximately 84 days including April). The additional
sampling months were intended to capture the seasonal fluctuation in
work flow and composition at the PMCs. Because there is less monthly
variation in work flow and composition for the ROs' Veterans Service
Center (VSC) work, C&P indicated it was sufficient to survey VSCs for
only 1 month. The data collection periods were consistent with the
corresponding monthly periods for which data on staff hours and
completed end products were reported from the Veterans Benefits
Administration's (VBA) automated systems.
The work measurement data were collected using the Electronic Work
Measurement Application (EWMA) for computer users and paper forms for
outbased employees and others who do not use a computer at work. At
most stations, file clerks, work study, and Virtual VA employees did
not participate in the study, but their hours on duty for the study
period were incorporated into loading factors, which are applied to the
direct labor work rate standards. Section 3 provides more information
about loading factors used in the work rate standard computations.
This report describes the work rate standard development
methodology, presents a summary of the data analysis results, including
national work rate standards, and provides instructions for recomputing
the work rate standards using various loading methods. Two sets of work
rate standards were developed--one based on the 15 ROs surveyed in
April, and the other based on the three ROs/PMCs surveyed from February
through May.
2. DATA CONSOLIDATION AND PREPARATION
The data consolidation process involved the following steps:
1. All paper forms were batched and entered into the database of
work measurement observations.
2. One file was created that included all data collected in April.
Another file was created that included all data collected at the ROs
with colocated PMCs during the months of February through May.
3. Various cross-tabulations were run against the two files to
provide the underlying raw data that support the analysis described in
the remainder of the report.
3. COMPUTATIONAL APPROACH
This section describes the methodology for calculating work rate
standards. All steps were applied to both the April file and the
February through May file.
1. Unusable work measurement observations--those either indicating
an activity choice of ``Lunch/Leave/Loaned Time/Not Part of Study'' or
time-stamped outside the work measurement period--were discarded.
2. The proportions of time spent on each EP were estimated for
each participating RO by dividing the observation count for a
particular EP by the total observation count for the station. For
example, at Atlanta, 918 out of 36,927 total observations fell under EP
110 (performed by rating staff or for a rating activity).\1\ Using
these data, an estimated 2.5 percent of overall work time was spent
performing rating activities on EP 110.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The following activities were considered part of rating time:
Prepare Rating (1d), Prepare/Review SOC/SSOC (2c), Conduct Hearing
(2g), DRO Review (2h), and Prepare Rating--Appeal (2i). The Develop
Claim--Not by Telephone (1c), Development of Appeal (2b), and
Certification (2e) activities were also considered part of rating time
when they were conducted by Rating Veteran Service Representatives
(RVSR) or Decision Review Officers (DRO).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. The number of hours spent on each end product at each RO were
computed by multiplying the time proportions from the previous step by
the staffing hours for the station. The time proportions were
aggregated into non-rating
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FTNT 4 TEXT !!! deg.
and rating groupings for each EP. For example, Atlanta had a total
of 34,824 staffing hours for the study period, an estimated 2.5 percent
of which was spent performing rating activities on EP 110. Combining
these figures, an estimated 866 hours were spent performing rating
activities on EP 110.
4. The effort required to complete one unit of each type of work
was estimated by dividing the hours spent on each EP (as estimated in
the previous step) by the completed work count for the study period.\2\
Separate computations were performed for rating and non-rating time.
For example, Atlanta completed 466 EP 110s during the study period.
Dividing the estimated time spent working on these EPs (866 hours) by
the completed work count yields a direct labor (unloaded) rating work
rate standard of 1.86 hours per unit.
5. Loading factors were computed to account for time spent on
certain activities not directly related to final EPs or for activities
that do not correspond to a measured work count. The treatment of
loading factors was determined based on C&P input. The loading factors
are as follows:
Allowances were computed as the proportion of total
non-leave observations spent on the following four activities:
Personal Needs (Activity Code 8a), Office Maintenance (8b),
Unavoidable Delay (8c), and Self-Development/Informal Training
(8d).
Adjustments for administrative EPs 330, 400, 930, and
960 were computed by prorating the observations over the time
spent on all other adjudication EPs. Separate adjustments were
computed for non-rating and rating time.
A loading factor was computed to account for time
spent on Estate Management (9f). Observations for Estate
Management were prorated over the time spent on all other
Fiduciary and Field Exam (F&FE) EPs (EPs 1000 through 1008 and
Activity Code 9c), excluding Special Field Exams (9d).\3\
Observations for EP 689 (Gulf Environment) were
spread over EPs 010, 020, and 110. This adjustment was
necessary because there were no completed work counts for EP
689 during the study period, therefore precluding the
calculation of a work rate standard for this EP.
The Files loading factor was computed as the
proportion of EP-related observations spent on Review Mail (7a)
and Maintain/Update Files (7b), as well as manually collected
Files and work study time. The Supervision loading factor was
computed as the proportion of EP-related observations spent on
Supervision/Management (8e) and Supervisory WIPP Reviews (8h).
Virtual VA time was spread over the PMC EPs 050, 150,
154, 155, and 314.
Section 4 provides information on these factors, including a
discussion of different methods for including them in the work rate
standard calculations.
6. The loading factors calculated in the previous step were
applied to the direct labor standards.
7. A statistical control procedure identified and removed
individual station averages that were inconsistent with those from the
other stations participating in the study. Control limits were
established that are three standard deviations above and below the
national work rate standards and the standards for each participating
station.\4\ If any stations fell outside the national control limits
(i.e., the station's control limits did not overlap the national
control limits), the station farthest outside these boundaries was
removed, and both the national average and its control limits were
recalculated. This process was repeated until all of the remaining
stations were within the control limits. NOTE: Stations with a work
rate standard of zero were the first ones removed in the control filter
process.
The work rate standards are reported as uncontrolled and controlled
figures--that is, before and after the application of Step 7 in the
computational process.
------------
\2\ Using completed work counts for a brief study period can be
problematic if many types of processes require several months to
complete. This calculation makes the assumption that work units are
completed in an even flow, and that the number completed during the
study period is reflective of the number worked on during the period.
This assumption is questionable for low volume, long or highly varied
duration, or seasonal work.
\3\ Special Field Exams are measured in hours spent and do not have
a work rate standard.
\4\ The control limits are based on the proportion of time spent on
each EP, as determined in Steps 2 and 3. Treating this proportion as a
binomial distribution, the standard deviation around the estimated
value is: where p is the estimated proportion of time, and
n is the number of observations used in estimating the proportion. The
standard deviation around the estimated time proportion is applied to
the staffing hours and completed work counts to develop control limits
for the filtering process.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7029A.004
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TO FTNT 4 TEXT !!! deg.4. WORK MEASUREMENT ANALYSIS TOOL
Appendix A contains two Microsoft Excel workbooks--the first,
WRSCP_April2004_Final.xls, contains all the calculations to derive the
work rate standards and other statistical descriptions of the data
gathered for the 15 ROs during the month of April; the second, WRS-PMC-
VSC_Feb-May2004_Final.xls, does the same for the data gathered for the
three ROs with colocated PMCs during the months of February through
May. The structure and content of the worksheets in both files follow
the same pattern and are described in Section 4.1. Section 4.2 provides
instructions for modifying or recalculating the work rate standards
within the worksheets.
4.1 Analysis Tool Contents
There are 30 worksheets in each workbook. The worksheets are
organized into five major sections:
1. The first three sheets display the high-level final results of
the model calculations and allow analysts to specify parameters used in
recalculating the work rate standards.
2. The next four sheets display detailed results and control
sheets for non-rating and rating standards. The model uses these sheets
to display calculation results only; analysts should not modify the
data on these sheets manually.
3. The next 11 sheets contain data extracts that are used to
calculate work rate standards or to provide different views of the
aggregated data.
4. The seven sheets that follow contain breakouts of the
characteristics of former-VSD work.
5. The last five sheets in the workbook contain the raw inputs to
the work measurement calculations.
A more detailed description of each worksheet is provided in
Sections 4.1.1 through 4.1.5.
4.1.1 High-Level Results and Parameter Settings
The first three worksheets show the high-level results of the
workbook calculations and provide the capability to adjust several key
parameters used in computing the work rate standards. The sheets in
this section are as follows:
NationalWRS shows the final results of the work rate
standards calculations. This sheet contains one key input to the
calculation process--the selection of a method for adjusting for
allowances and indirect time.\5\ The method is entered into cell K1.
The five method choices are as follows:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ All methods include adjustments for Allowances, Administrative
EPs, and Estate Management time (for F&FE). Methods 2 through 5 include
adjustments for Virtual VA time across designated PMC EPs. See Section
3, Computational Approach, for more details.
Method 1: Rating and Non-Rating Rubrics; Allowances
loaded in both rubrics proportionately.
Method 2: Rating and Non-Rating Rubrics; Allowances
loaded in both rubrics proportionately; Non-Rating also
includes Files spread proportionately.
Method 3: Rating and Non-Rating Rubrics; Allowances
loaded in both rubrics proportionately; Non-Rating also
includes Files and Supervision spread proportionately.
Method 4: Rating and Non-Rating Rubrics; Allowances
loaded in both rubrics proportionately; Rating also includes
Files spread proportionately; Non-Rating also includes Files
spread proportionately.
Method 5: Rating and Non-Rating Rubrics; Allowances
loaded in both rubrics proportionately; Rating also includes
Files and Supervision spread proportionately; Non-Rating also
includes Files and Supervision spread proportionately.
The remainder of the sheet provides a summary of the calculation
results. Specifically:
Columns B and C show the national uncontrolled non-
rating and rating work rate standards.
Columns D and E show the control-filtered non-rating
and rating work rate standards.
Columns F and G show the non-rating and rating work
rate standards for selected ROs. In these results the work rate
standards are based on the stations the analyst has chosen for
inclusion, as indicated on the Selected Non-Rating and
Selected_Rating worksheets.
Columns H and I identify the stations that were
removed during the control filtering process.
Selected Non-Rating allows the analyst to choose which
stations will be used in the non-rating work rate standards. The
worksheet consists of a matrix with EPs as rows and RO numbers as
columns. To select an RO for inclusion in the final standards for an
EP, enter a 1 in the RO's column; enter a 0 to exclude it. The work
rate standards for the hand-selected ROs can be seen in the last
column, as well as on the NationalWRS worksheet.
Selected_Rating allows the analyst to choose which
stations will be used in the rating work rate standards. The worksheet
consists of a matrix with EPs as rows and RO numbers as columns. To
select an RO for inclusion in the final standards for an EP, enter a 1
in the RO's column; enter a 0 to exclude it. The work rate standards
for the hand-selected ROs can be seen in the last column, as well as on
the NationalWRS worksheet.
4.1.2 Detailed Model Results
Detailed results of final work rate standards calculations are
shown on four worksheets:
Loaded_RO_WRS_NR displays the fully loaded non-rating
work rate standards for each end product and each RO.
Loaded_RO_WRS_Rating displays the fully loaded rating
work rate standards for each end product and each RO.
NR_Control displays the ``control sheets'' for all non-
rating work rate standards. For each end product, this sheet retraces
the filtering steps used to remove outlier stations and recalculate the
controlled national standards.
Rating_Control displays the ``control sheets'' for all
rating work rate standards. For each end product, this sheet retraces
the filtering steps used to remove outlier stations and recalculate the
controlled national standards.
4.1.3 Data Extracts
The workbook contains 11 worksheets that provide aggregations and
structured breakouts of the raw input data for use in calculating work
rate standards. The worksheets in this section are as follows:
RO_WRS_NR shows the direct labor (unloaded) non-rating
work rate standards for all final end products.
RO_WRS_Rat shows the direct labor (unloaded) rating work
rate standards for all final end products.
Loading_Factors shows the derivation of loading factors
that account for time spent on certain activities not related to final
end products. These adjustment factors are computed by station and for
the Nation as a whole.
EP_by_Act shows a breakdown of the time spent on each
activity for each adjudication end product.
EP_by_Team shows a breakdown of the time spent by each
team for each adjudication end product.
Team_by_EP shows a breakdown of the time spent on each
adjudication end product by each team.
Hours_OtherWork shows the number of hours spent on each
of the activities that are not used in loading factor computations and
not related to final end products. These activities include those that
fall under Indirect Labor, Other Measured Work, Outreach, Training,
Unmeasured Work and Special Field Exams.
RO_Counts shows the number of work measurement
observations by regional office for all final end products. The
observations for Federal and Court Account Audits are grouped together
because only a single work count was provided for the two activities
combined. Observations for Special Field Exams were omitted because
Special Field Exams are measured hour for hour and do not have a work
rate standard. The observations are grouped across activities.
RO_Rating_Counts shows the number of rating work
measurement observations by regional office for all final end products.
Rating observations included only those recorded under the Prepare
Rating (1d), Prepare/Review SOC/SSOC (2c), Conduct Hearing (2g), DRO
Review (2h), or Prepare Rating -Appeal (2i) activities; or the Develop
Claim--Not by Telephone (1c), Development of Appeal (2b), and
Certification (2e) activities when conducted by RVSRs or DROs.
RO_Non_Rating_Counts shows the number of non-rating work
measurement observations by regional office for all final end products.
These figures are computed as the total observations (from RO_Counts)
minus the rating observations (from RO_Rating_Counts).
RO_Counts_Team shows the number of work measurement
observations by work team for all end products, including
administrative EPs, Special Field Exams and Estate Management.
4.1.4 Characteristics of Former-VSD Work
The workbook contains seven worksheets that provide detail on the
attributes of former-VSD work.\6\ The worksheets show a percentage
breakdown of the time spent on claim-related and non-claim-related
work. For claim-related work, the worksheets provide a breakdown of the
adjudication EPs to which the work was related. For non-claim-related
work, the worksheets show a breakdown by major subject. All breakdowns
are shown for each station participating in the study and for the
Nation as a whole. Each worksheet contains data for a different end
product. The worksheets are organized as follows:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ In all cases, the breakouts refer to the distribution of work
time, not the distribution of EP counts. For example, the figures show
that 42 percent of telephone interview time is spent on claim-related
calls in the month of April. This does not mean that 42 percent of
calls are claim-related, since such calls may take a different amount
of time than other calls.
Telephone_Calls provides detail about the composition of
telephone interview work.
Personal_At_Office provides detail about the composition
of ``at-office'' personal interview work.
Personal_Away provides detail about the composition of
``away-from-office'' personal interview work.
Personal_Patient provides detail about the composition of
patient interview work.
Controlled_Corr provides detail about the composition of
controlled correspondence work.
Non-Controlled_Corr provides detail about the composition
of non-controlled correspondence work.
PA&FOIA_Corr provides detail about the composition of
Privacy Act/Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) correspondence work.
4.1.5 Input Data
The five worksheets at the end of the notebook contain the inputs
to the work measurement calculations. Specifically:
WorkCounts contains the completed work count figures for
each end product at each regional office.
StaffHours contains the total staffing hours during the
study period for each participating station. The hours are adjusted for
overtime worked during the study, compensatory time earned, borrowed
time, compensatory leave used, loaned time, holiday hours, annual
leave, sick leave, authorized absence, and non-GOE hours in the study.
The manually collected file clerk, work study, and Virtual VA hours
listed were incorporated into the loading factors computation in the
Loading_Factors worksheet.
Obs_Data contains a complete breakout of all work
measurement observations collected during the study. Observation counts
are shown by activity and by end product (where applicable) for each
participating regional office.
Rating_Obs_Data contains a complete breakout of all
rating work measurement observations collected during the study.
Observation counts are shown by activity and by end product (where
applicable) for each participating regional office. Rating observations
included only those recorded under the Prepare Rating (1d), Prepare/
Review SOC/SSOC (2c), Conduct Hearing (2g), DRO Review (2h), or Prepare
Rating -Appeal (2i) activities; or the Develop Claim--Not by Telephone
(1c), Development of Appeal (2b), and Certification (2e) activities
when conducted by RVSRs or DROs.
Team_Obs_Data contains a complete breakout of all work
measurement observations collected during the study. Observation counts
are shown by activity and by end product (where applicable) for each
work team.
4.2 Recalculating Work Rate Standards
As explained in Section 4.1, the workbook displays three different
``views'' of the final work rate standards: 1) uncontrolled standards
that include all stations participating in the work measurement study;
2) controlled standards that show the final results after outlier
stations have been removed using the filtering process; and 3)
``selected'' standards that show the results for a group of stations
chosen in the analysis. The workbook contains worksheets to add and
remove stations for the ``selected'' standards. The workbook also
provides the capability to compute work rate standards under
alternative loading methods. These two scenarios are described in
Sections 4.2.1 and 4.2.2, respectively.
4.2.1 Adding and Removing Stations
The Selected Non-Rating and Selected_Rating worksheets provide the
capability for analysts to choose which stations will be included in
the final work rate standards. These worksheets can be used as an
alternative to the controlled or uncontrolled standards that the model
also provides. Figure 4-1 shows a screenshot of the Selected_Rating
worksheet. To use these sheets, enter 1 to include a station in the
work rate standard calculation for a particular EP, and 0 to exclude
it.
Figure 4-1. Select Stations for WRS Computation
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7029A.001
4.2.2 Changing Loading Methods
The general process for loading work rate standards is as follows:
Allowances were computed as the proportion of total non-
leave observations spent on the following four activities: Personal
Needs (Activity Code 8a), Office Maintenance (8b), Unavoidable Delay
(8c), and Self-Development/Informal Training (8d).
Adjustments for administrative EPs 330, 400, 930, and 960
were computed by prorating the observations over the time spent on all
other adjudication EPs. Separate adjustments were computed for rating
and non-rating time.
Estate Management (9f) observations were prorated over
the time spent on all other Fiduciary and Field Exam (F&FE) EPs (EPs
1000 through 1008 and Activity Code 9c), excluding Special Field Exams
(9d).\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Special Field Exams are measured in hours spent and do not have
a work rate standard.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Observations for EP 689 (Gulf Environment) were spread
over EPs 010, 020 and 110. This adjustment was necessary because there
were no completed work counts for EP 689 during the study period,
therefore precluding the calculation of a work rate standard for this
EP.
The loading method described above is known as Method 1 and is the
default in the workbook. The workbook provides the capability to use
four other methods, as follows:
Method 2: Same as Method 1, with Files activities spread
proportionately over non-rating time; Virtual VA time is spread over
non-rating PMC EPs.\8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ PMC EPs include 050, 150, 154, 155 and 314.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Method 3: Same as Method 1, with Files and Supervision
activities spread proportionately over non-rating time; Virtual VA time
is spread over non-rating PMC EPs.
Method 4: Same as Method 1, with Files activities spread
proportionately over both rating and non-rating time; Virtual VA time
is spread over both non-rating and rating PMC EPs.
Method 5: Same as Method 1, with Files and Supervision
activities spread proportionately over both rating and non-rating time;
Virtual VA time is spread over non-rating and rating PMC EPs.
To change loading methods, enter the number of the desired method
in cell K1 on the NationalWRS worksheet.
4.2.3 Recalculating Work Rate Standards
To recalculate the work rate standards after changing parameters,
press the ``Calculate Work Rate Standards'' button on the NationalWRS
worksheet. The button is located underneath cell K1 and is shown in
Figure 4-2.
Figure 4-2. Recalculate WRS Button
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7029A.002
Depending on the processing speed of the computer, the calculation
may take more than a minute to finish. The worksheet will display the
message shown in Figure 4-3 when the calculation process is complete.
Wait for this message before continuing with other operations in the
workbook.
Figure 4-3. Calculations Complete Indicator
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7029A.003
5. DRAFT WORK RATE STANDARDS
This section summarizes the work measurement study data collected
and presented in the worksheets in Appendix A, including a summary of
the:
Total number of observations per RO.
Work rate standards.
5.1 Number of Observations per RO
Tables 5-1 and 5-2 show the total number of observations recorded
at each RO, broken down by observations collected from EWMA and paper
forms, and abstracted from manually-collected file clerk, work study,
and Virtual VA hours on duty.\9\ The tables also show the total non-
leave observations recorded at each RO (all observations excluding
Activity Code 8q: Lunch/Leave/Loaned Time/Not Part of Study). Table 5-1
presents the figures from the first file (15 ROs surveyed in April) and
Table 5-2 presents the figures from the second file (three ROs/PMCs
surveyed from February through May).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Portions of file clerk, work study, and Virtual VA time were
distributed to lunch, leave, breaks, and other related ``downtime''
activities (Activity Codes 8q and 8a-8d).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Non-leave observations totaling 639,145 were recorded at all 15 ROs
during the April study period. Approximately 6.3 percent of the total
non-leave observations came from paper forms. Approximately 10.8
percent of the total non-leave observations came from paper forms and
file clerk, work study, and Virtual VA hours combined.
Table 5-1. Number of Observations per RO--April 2004
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paper Forms Files/Work Study/ Total Non-
RO EWMA Virtual VA Total Leave
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Atlanta 35,377 2,082 2,400 39,859 36,927
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Baltimore 24,857 592 1,416 26,865 25,001
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Buffalo 27,629 2,652 0 30,281 26,894
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Denver 27,655 9,025 1,241 37,921 34,244
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jackson 31,985 2,020 391 34,396 31,633
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Little Rock 26,187 4,176 623 30,986 28,950
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Manchester 8,764 485 304 9,553 8,779
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Milwaukee 61,606 1,619 3,750 66,975 61,925
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Muskogee 55,904 3,510 2,800 62,214 57,558
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Philadelphia 84,704 3,252 7,274 95,230 87,832
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reno 19,128 0 1,184 20,312 18,961
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roanoke 54,752 4,452 2,902 62,106 57,029
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seattle 46,892 5,799 1,136 53,827 49,154
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
St. Louis 53,040 3,474 394 56,908 52,472
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
St. Paul 60,556 1,407 4,810 66,773 61,786
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total 619,036 44,545 30,625 694,206 639,145
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Non-leave observations totaling 837,300 were recorded at all three
ROs/PMCs during the February through May study period. Approximately
2.9 percent of the total non-leave observations came from paper
forms.\10\ Approximately 9.7 percent of the total non-leave
observations came from paper forms and file clerk, work study, and
Virtual VA hours combined.
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\10\ One envelope of May St. Paul paper forms was lost in the mail.
Missing observations were accounted for by increasing the number of
existing May paper observations proportionally based on the average
daily observations from February through April.
Table 5-2. Number of Observations per RO/PMC--February-May 2004
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paper Forms Files/Work Study/ Total Non-
RO EWMA Virtual VA Total Leave
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Milwaukee 249,889 6,853 14,689 271,431 251,691
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Philadelphia 333,966 13,068 27,435 374,469 345,074
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
St. Paul 236,912 5,095 19,006 261,013 240,535
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total 820,767 25,016 61,130 906,913 837,300
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.2 Summary Work Rate Standards
Tables 5-3 and 5-4 show the direct labor (unloaded) work rate
standards for each EP at each regional office for the first file (15
ROs surveyed in April). Table 5-3 lists the non-rating work rate
standards and Table 5-4 lists the rating work rate standards.
Table 5-3. Direct Labor Work Rate Standards, Non-Rating--April 2004
[Being retained in the Committee files]
Table 5-4. Direct Labor Work Rate Standards, Rating--April 2004 [Being
retained in the Committee files]
Tables 5-5 and 5-6 show the direct labor (unloaded) work rate
standards for each EP at each regional office for the second file
(three ROs/PMCs surveyed from February through May). Table 5-5 lists
the non-rating work rate standards, and Table 5-6 lists the rating work
rate standards.
Table 5-5. Direct Labor Work Rate Standards, Non-Rating--Feb-May 2004
[Being retained in the Committee files]
Table 5-6. Direct Labor Work Rate Standards, Rating--Feb-May 2004
[Being retained in the Committee files]
For the 15 ROs surveyed in April, Tables 5-7 through 5-11 show the
work rate standards for each EP, reported both as uncontrolled and
controlled figures--that is, before and after the application of Step 7
in the Computational Approach--and using each of the five loading
methods. For each EP, ROs with a work rate standard of zero were the
first ones removed in the control filter process.
NOTE: The unusually high non-rating work rate standard for Non-
Program field exams may be attributed to either incorrect user
recording of work observations or to a very low number of completed
work counts during April 2004. Work rate standard computations using
low work counts are especially susceptible to error.
Table 5-7. Work Rate Standards--Loading Method 1--April 2004 [Being
retained in the Committee files]
Table 5-8. Work Rate Standards--Loading Method 2--April 2004 [Being
retained in the Committee files]
Table 5-9. Work Rate Standards--Loading Method 3--April 2004 [Being
retained in the Committee files]
Table 5-10. Work Rate Standards--Loading Method 4--April 2004 [Being
retained in the Committee files]
Table 5-11. Work Rate Standards--Loading Method 5--April 2004 [Being
retained in the Committee files]
For the three ROs/PMCs surveyed from February through May, Tables
5-12 through 5-16 show the work rate standards for each EP, reported
both as uncontrolled and controlled figures--that is, before and after
the application of Step 7 in the Computational Approach--and using each
of the five loading methods. For each EP, ROs/PMCs with a work rate
standard of zero were the first ones removed in the control filter
process.
NOTES: Both non-rating and rating national work rate standards for
EP 010 \11\ for the three ROs/PMCs surveyed from February through May
are markedly higher than those computed for the 15 ROs surveyed during
April:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ The work rate standard for EP 010 includes observations
recorded for EP 011.
The higher non-rating work rate standard for the 4-month
study period stems from a greater amount of time spent on EPs 010 and
011 during February at Philadelphia and St. Paul, and a low number of
completed work counts across all three stations. C&P hypothesizes that
the return to normal work following the moratorium on particular EPs
during Fall of 2003 may have affected the way work was done in the
immediate months following the moratorium's removal.
The higher rating work rate standard for the 4-month
study period results from extremely high standards for Philadelphia. A
disproportionately greater amount of time was spent on EPs 010 and 011
at Philadelphia. Philadelphia spent more than four times longer on EP
010s and more than 11 times longer on EP 011s than did St. Paul and
Milwaukee, while the completed work counts produced at Philadelphia did
not increase proportionally.\12\ C&P attributes this greater amount of
rating time spent on EPs 010 and 011 to the existence of a Resource
Center located at the Philadelphia RO.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ EP 011 can be the most time consuming as it contains more
issues than EPs 010 and 110.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table 5-12. Work Rate Standards--Loading Method 1--Feb-May 2004 [Being
retained in the Committee files]
Table 5-13. Work Rate Standards--Loading Method 2--Feb-May 2004 [Being
retained in the Committee files]
Table 5-14. Work Rate Standards--Loading Method 3--Feb-May 2004 [Being
retained in the Committee files]
Table 5-15. Work Rate Standards--Loading Method 4--Feb-May 2004 [Being
retained in the Committee files]
Table 5-16. Work Rate Standards--Loading Method 5--Feb-May 2004 [Being
retained in the Committee files]
APPENDIX A: EXCEL ANALYSIS WORKBOOKS
(Two additional files are provided under separate cover.)