Va Raters To Work Manditory Overtime On Claims Till Sept 30Th

[manning01]

Check this article out. Glad to see they are making them work more hours to work on our claims that have been sitting around collecting dust. Whether they accomplish anything more from this OT remains to be seen along with these so called provisional claims. At the same time as a DOD employee I'll be taking 11 days of furlough time off without pay starting in July till Sept while they do all this extra OT to make them look like they saved the day for us vets.

http://www.va.gov/opa/pressrel/pressrelease.cfm?id=2444

http://www.stripes.com/news/va-workers-told-to-work-overtime-to-clear-claims-backlog-1.221099

[Veldrina]

we are currently working 10 hrs days & saturdays AND sundays to do these claims. Also, I have been put in the special Brokering Team reviewing cases from San Diego that were sent to us.....wow, never knew San Diego was a bigger mess than us in NY! I need sleep! :(

I agree, the system is broken, & the brightlights in Washington are panicking & looking busy by demanding we switch stuff around & throwing money at us, while what we really need is better computers & ppl to scan in the claims so we become paperless that much quicker, etc. The VA HAS been taking a bunch of steps to join the 21st Century, but Congress is the enemy right now. (YEAH NSA, I SAID IT! COme at me, bro!)

[TiredCoastie]

Hi everyone. I've been watching VBA performance stats for a couple of years now using the Monday Morning Workload Reports. It's kind of a hobby to keep me from checking eBennies too often From what the performance stats show, the backlog is actually getting smaller.

Maybe it's the OT. Maybe it's the provisional ratings. Maybe there are more FDCs. Maybe someone high enough has had enough with no work getting done. But something is happening to reduce the overall numbers.

Watching these performance stats each week, the overall backlog began to drop in early March. The majority of the effort is against claims older than 125 days (per Departmental performance guidance, those are officially "overdue" at that point - will bite my tongue here). What that means is that more claims are closed than opened and that most of the claims that are closed are older than 125 days. But because individual ROs contribute to the overall nation-wide stats, looking at three shows about the same. I watch Philly, Baltimore, and Roanoke. What you see in February and before is that the VA was treading water.

The big questions are "will it last?" and "does that mean my claim gets done faster?" Those are probably ones no one can probably answer. In terms of the gains, they could be artificially produced through provisional decisions, etc and then slow down again when they fully complete every claim prior to closing. They could also be wiped out if the services RIF a bunch of people over a short period of time. It's even harder to say how our individual claims will be handled. But it gives me a measure of hope that someday a brown envelope with good news will arrive...

[71M10]

As for those Monday Morning Workload Reports. Remember figures don't lie, but liars can figure!!

[carlie]

we are currently working 10 hrs days & saturdays AND sundays to do these claims. Also, I have been put in the special Brokering Team reviewing cases from San Diego that were sent to us.....wow, never knew San Diego was a bigger mess than us in NY! I need sleep! :(

I agree, the system is broken, & the brightlights in Washington are panicking & looking busy by demanding we switch stuff around & throwing money at us, while what we really need is better computers & ppl to scan in the claims so we become paperless that much quicker, etc. The VA HAS been taking a bunch of steps to join the 21st Century, but Congress is the enemy right now. (YEAH NSA, I SAID IT! COme at me, bro!)

Vel,

Along with going paperless which I see as a now problem,

they've given you decades of difficulties with purchasing worthless

computer programs costing million of dollars

AND

switching stuff on a consistent basis.

First the majority of raters and staff are supposed to focus on ABC claims

whoa . . .

4-6 months later

the majority of raters and staff are supposed to focus on DEF claims

and on . . . and on . . . and on.

I understand some of the road blocks you are faced with.

OH - my goodness - let's not forget all the meetings, memos, fast letters, etc . . .

[TiredCoastie]

As for those Monday Morning Workload Reports. Remember figures don't lie, but liars can figure!!

Yeah, performance metrics can often be spun to make any point needed...like any other statistic. Unless someone is snowing Congress and the American public -- yeah, like THAT nevers happens! -- the stats do show a slow and steady reduction overall with an acceleration in the last couple of months.

How slow overall?

At the rate they're going based on the average reduction in the stacks from 16 July 2012 until today (16 July 2012 was the high water mark in terms of the most claims on hand on a Monday morning if I can figure the figures right -- 843,433), it will be more than seven years before the backlog is completely cleared nationally.

But, if you look at the rate of reduction starting 15 April 2013 when things really started to move quickly, it will only take 2.7 years to reduce the backlog.

My guess is that it will take somewhere between 3 and 7 years IF and only IF the effort is sustained. As the future is very difficult to predict, and more cleared claims probably mean more federal funding in a time of "fiscal austerity," you could say that effort sustainment has a lot of headwind in the long term.

And, this is the national average that is increased or decreased by individual RO performance...so speedier ROs might be cleared much faster than the slower ones.

As of today, the backlog is 749,225 claims overall with 502,942 or 67.1% of the total on hand older than 125 days.

[Veldrina]

oh carlie, u don't even wanna KNOW what they have us doing now....I think i told u i've been punted into a brokering team for san diego? Well at first i thought i'd be rating those cases....u know, the thing i'm trained for? Noooooo...now we are simply reviewing the, & developing (which i havent really done in 5-6 yrs) and they're being sent down to the teams to rate,,,,wth??? i just never know whee these bright ideas come from ...but they are definitely from ppl way up in the chain who have NO CONCEPT of what the job entails.....i wanna crawl into a hole & hide somedays.