How to fix VA's low quality IT (computer) systems.

[broncovet]

Here is my take:

Next time (VA) gets money from Congress to update VA computers, award the contract to someone who is qualified, not to friends and family of politicians or VA "high ups" as political favors, who mostly squander the money and accomplish nothing.   That will improve things a lot.  Right now, ebenefits/va.gov is a mess.  You log in to one, it makes you log out and go to the other.  Merge ebenefits and va.gov, and you dont need 3 different ways to login.  VA should have COMPETENT Information security, not cushy jobs for politically well connected job seekers who stand around and make excuses for security breaches  and demand still more money from congress.  

The above would also improve VA claim process, and pretty much everything else.  Of course, it would mean firing some top management, because mostly the problems are NOT individual employees, but corruption in VA management which squanders money which should be used to help Veterans, ensuring the problem continues unabated.  

Too many top managers give cushy jobs to friends and family, as well as government contracts.  

Veterans deserve top level care, and many managers are determined to see Veterans dont get it.  

 

 

 

[broncovet]

Im not confident that EVERYTHING is on VA.gov and that ebenefits is of "no" value.  Apparently the VA isnt confident in that either, or they just would have already migrated away from ebenefits to va.gov.  COMPLETELY.  

I knew they were doing that, the question is why does that take 5 years?  

Its also seems like a waste of resources..reminds me of Facebook renaming themselves "Meta".  Same company different name.  That is what va.gov is:  Same as ebenefits just a different name.  

Why change the name?  Oh, yea, so they can get more money from congress to "update" the system, and frustrate Veterans and employess in the interim.  Shakespear once said, " A rose by any other name would smell as sweet".   VA changed that to "A website by any other name would cost as much and be just as inefficient."  

Edited Sunday at 07:07 PM by broncovet

[brokensoldier244th]

Last I knew it had something to do with the tracking of legacy appeals- that they had to stay within the framework of Ebenefits rather than being migrated over like most everything else. 

[Lemuel]

Whatever.  Until Friday it was a horrible experience for me to try to get anything done on eBenefits or va.gov.  It is working for me now so I will not complain.  I can sign one with my prime DS login without using one of the newer ones which I do not trust all of.

[broncovet]

While Im not privvy to "inside" VA's IT systems, what Broken soldier says is almost certainly correct, at least probably what one or more of the other VA employees told him.  I do trust Broken Soldier, but not so much the rest of Va employees.  At least not all of them.  I have a great great VA doc I trust, but have been lied to by other VA employees.  Its kind of like the "world" where there are individuals who are highly trustworthy, and some who will try to con their own mother.  

After all this, I cant understand VA's reasoning as to why some of this stuff has to stay on ebenefits.   It could boil down to it "would just take too much labor" to move some stuff (like broken soldier posted) to va.gov.  

Still, however, I cant understand why VA found it necessary to convert from the name "ebeneifts" to "va.gov".  

[Lemuel]

I would agree with Bronco and Broken Soldier.  But signing on through my prime DS Log In the second time on Friday last, got me to appeals and included my BVA legacy appeal.  Appeals are down for maintenance right now.  Just checked.  But no problem with my DS Log In taking me to the link to my appeals.

June 6 and the first time I tried Friday last, could not find my way to anything I wanted to see.  And could not get to travel pay.  Do not know why that has been taken of the Kiosks at the VAMC and CBOC. 

[Vync]

If you think va.gov and ebenefits have issues, the beneficiary travel site is far worse. It is horrifically slow and rarely works. Click the "add an appointment" button and then it just freezes. The travel system was far more efficient when I could just go to the VAMC cashier office, turn in my signed voucher, and leave with gas money. Even if I had to drive to the VAMC and stand in line, it still took less time than constantly retrying online over several days.

Speaking of VA's online services, CHAMPVA does not even have an online method of submitting manual claims for reimbursement. Instead, you have to round up all your paperwork and send it through the mail. About 30% of the claims I submitted are never received. I even sent claims by certified/return receipt where someone in the mail room has to sign for it. It does show as delivered, but not scanned into their system so you have to resubmit. Mail does get date stamped when it arrives, but can take weeks before it even gets opened and scanned. And then once the claim is in the system, it seems to take about four to six months to get reimbursed. And then they deny your reimbursement claim because you missed the one year timely filing cutoff window. Having an online way to submit reimbursement claims would completely bypass the mishaps involved with mailed claims. And having an online system available to beneficiaries would make it easy to quickly check the status of claims instead of having to call a hotline and hope someone answers. It probably will never happen because it makes way too much sense.