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.  

 

 

 

[Lemuel]

24 minutes ago, Vync said:

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.

The reason I ask for transportation instead of asking a sister to take me to my appointment.

[Rattler]

On 6/29/2024 at 12:04 PM, broncovet said:

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.  

 

 

 

Amen and Amen. Give me the money and I will find coders that will fix it in a month.