Backlog Surpasses 1 Million

[pacmanx1]

VA FACES FLOOD OF NEW CLAIMS AS BACKLOG SURPASSES 1 MILLION, SYSTEM CALLED "OUT OF CONTROL" Carol Wild Scott, Chairman, Veterans Law Section, Federal Bar Association: "The mounting backlog is out of control. The backlog is symptomatic of a process out of control."

NOTE from Larry Scott, VA Watchdog dot Org ... Congressional hearings can uncover some interesting information.

http://veterans.hous...aspx?NewsID=595

How big is the VA's claims backlog? According to Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA), Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs:

In 2009, VA received more than 1,000,000 claims for disability benefits, representing a 14 percent increase in workload from 2008. Currently VA is receiving more than 97,000 new disability claims per month. As of June 5, 2010, there are 546,387 claims pending from veterans seeking compensation and pension disability benefits, with 195,891 (36%) pending longer than 125 days. Including appeals, VA's total claims-related inventory exceeds 1 million, which is the figure most stakeholders use when referring to the claims "backlog".

Why do we have the backlog? According to Carol Wild Scott, Chairman, Veterans Law Section, Federal Bar Association:

"The mounting backlog is out of control. The backlog is symptomatic of a process out of control."

Scott's complete testimony is here ...

http://veterans.house.gov/hearings/Testimony.aspx?TID=636

98&Newsid=595&Name=%20Carol%20Wild%20%20Scott

We get more from Bob Brewin of www.nextgov.com . This article is used with permission.

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VA faces flood of new claims and charges of a 'hostile' work environment

By Bob Brewin

http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_2010061

6_2924.php?oref=topnews

The Veterans Affairs Department faces a wave of more than a million new disability claims this year, a workload compounded by delays in developing automated systems to process them, department officials and representatives of veterans services organizations told House lawmakers on Wednesday.

In addition, employees at the Veterans Benefits Administration have difficulty managing paper claims in a work environment described as "hostile" and that has "deteriorated significantly" since Eric Shinseki took over as VA secretary in January 2009, a representative of the American Federation of Government Employees told the hearing.

"In 2009, for the first time, we received over 1 million claims during the course of a single year," Michael Walcoff, acting undersecretary for benefits at VA, told a hearing of the Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs. The number of claims the department received increased from 578,773 in 2000 to 1.014 million in 2009, a 75 percent rise.

Walcoff said the number of claims should increase 13.1 percent this year to just under 1.2 million. For 2011, he said claims are projected to grow another 11.3 percent to more than 1.3 million.

Accounting for the sharp increase are the nearly 10-year-old wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and less restrictive requirements for Vietnam veterans to file claims for exposure to Agent Orange, a toxic defoliant, he said. The new Agent Orange rules will add 186,000 claims to VBA's workload through 2011. Last month, VA kicked off a fast-track procurement for an automated system to process Agent Orange claims.

Walcoff told lawmakers the agency has begun a series of pilot programs to help streamline claims processing, including a Business Transformation Lab test in its Providence, R.I., regional office that electronically processes a small number of claims. Business practices developed in Providence will be incorporated into VBA's new automated Veterans Benefits Management System, which is scheduled to go online in 2012.

Ian C. de Planque, deputy director of the American Legion's Veterans Affairs and Rehabilitation Commission, said the Providence pilot provided claims examiners with electronic tools that removed the need to "shuffle through papers and books."

In addition, examiners typically process portions of a veteran's claim serially. VBA changed that practice in another pilot at its regional office in Little Rock, Ark., where teams of employees worked together on claims. The test shows the "most promise . . . as the starting point for digital claims processing," said Carol Wild Scott, chairman of the Veterans Law Section of the Federal Bar Association.

Joseph Violante, National Legislative Director for Disabled American Veterans, said since VBA is at least a decade behind in automating its claims process, it should not "rush to meet self-imposed, aggressive deadlines for piloting and rolling out the VBMS. He urged, "They get this done right the first time."

He told lawmakers he was seriously concerned that VBA did not plan to make rules-based processing a core component of VBMS. That process is commonly used in the insurance industry to automatically compute numerous parameters in claims without the need for manual intervention. Violante said VBA officials told him rules-based processing "will be a component to be added on later, perhaps years later after the full national rollout."

He urged the subcommittee to "fully explore this issue with VBA and suggest that it might be helpful to have an independent outside expert review VBMS while it is still early in the development phase."

VBA got more bad news at the hearing when Molly Ames, a rating veterans service representative at the VA regional office in San Diego, said the agency should improve its relations between labor and management if it wants to better process the flood of claims. "Labor-management relations at many [regional offices] have deteriorated significantly, resulting in a work environment that is more hostile now than under the prior administration," she said in her testimony on behalf of the American Federation of Government Employees. "Terminations of both experienced employees and newly trained employees are a routine occurrence."

Ames said VBA has targeted union representatives, sometimes at the expense of veterans. A union official Ames did not identify was prevented from working overtime to process claims because she was a member of the union, she said.

Although Shinseki has touted the use of technology to transform VA since taking office, she said the approach does not apply to telework for employees.

VA "maintains discriminatory, counterproductive telework policies across all its [regional offices]," Ames said. "Last year, at our request, Congressman Frank Wolf [R-Va.] 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."

I deleted some of the links because they would not open but you can fined the full article on http://www.vawatchdog.org/10/nf10/nfjun10/nf061710-5.htm

Edited June 17, 2010 by pacmanx1

[john999]

Since the VA can handle the backlog let's see what they do about it. They can either do the right thing, or find a way to throw out claims by changing laws or regulations like the AO IHD presumption. If it comes to a choice between a vet's welfare and saving a buck you know how the VA usually goes.

[Pete53]

Pay the claims and work them if not warranted than stop paying with adequate notice

[stillhere]

I came up with a solution a while back (5 years ago) when I saw the backlog mounting. The VA already has in place the requiremnts for each rating for diseases that are considered SC. Now if a vet comes down with a DX by a doc and looks over the criteria for their disease and rates the disease themselves and sends it in with the explanation why. Then the VA grants right away at that % and starts benefits. If after further reviewed the rate should be higher or lower then that would need to be addressed by the VET and VA.

For example I am SC for heart disease and from reading the rate boards should be 60% I file and state I am applying for 60% based on such and such as written in the VA compensation rate tables. Bam! I get paid claim done and if the VA after review of my claim wants another C&P later down the road fine.

Now if a vet files and his disease does not match up with his reguest the VA would/could and should adjust as they see fit and if the vets does not like it then he can appeal. But the vet would be comped already and not have to wait except for the higher rating that he had originally asked for.

This would speed up a. the vet getting comped and b. the VA would only have to do corrections and adjustments to claims!

[Berta]

It is imperative that every vet or widow comply with the VCAA letter they get ASAP.

And to send them any probative evidence ASAP too.

Many claims will need a strong IMO and the time is now to see how one can be obtained in many cases.

Claims regarding proof of exposures of a stressor should be handled proactively by the veteran.

If they need proof of stressor or exposure to an agent that they believe caused their disability, they need to start the research on all that ASAP too.

For the 7 years it took for the VA to even read my evidence I was continually proactive every week at searching for more evidence.

That not only helped me obtain very favorable IMOs because so much background work had been done, but it also proved to me right away that any IMO fee I would need to pay would be a good investment.If one is not convinced that the medical evidence reveals they have a solid claim, then maybe best not to even spend the IMO money.

For DIC claims as part of the backlog it cannot be stressed enough-

only ahn auopsy can give a clrear definitive cause of death.

Although many DIC claims are awarded solely on a Death Certificate's findings, many many more could possibly be awarded with an autopsy and a clear assessment of autopsy findings as to the actual cause of death that could reveal a SC disability has contributed to the death.