The Department of Veterans Affairs has announced the deployment of a new model for processing compensation benefits claims at 16 VA regional offices as part of a wider plan to make an additional 150,000 to 200,000 compensation claim decisions each year.
It said the new organizational model involves special handling of claims from veterans who are facing the most serious injuries or illnesses or experiencing financial hardships or homelessness, and therefore need immediate attention.
Through a new "intake-processing center," claims are given express lane treatment if they only concern one or two conditions, a special operations lane for unique or uncommon circumstances, and a "core" lane for claims with more than two medical conditions, or those that will need additional evidence to make a compensation decision.
The segmented-lanes approach helps increase speed and accuracy because the claims specialists become familiar with processing claims of similar complexity, the VA said.
