Since 2007, the Veterans Benefits Administration has added over 7,100 claims processing personnel, but even as the claims backlog still climbs, claims processors say there remains too great an emphasis on quantity over quality, the Center for Naval Analysis told the House Veterans affairs subcommittee on disability assistance and memorial affairs recently.
The American Federation of Government Employees was on hand to call for a scientific time-motion study to determine how much work employees can be reasonably expected to complete, accurately – and VBA said it has hired Booz Allen to evaluate the current claims process.
The subcommittee was looking into how the VBA’s employee work-credit system and its “claims processing improvement” work management system model may contribute to diminished quality, accountability and accuracy in compensation and pension claims.
The hearing was in partial consideration of the Veterans Disability Benefits Claims Modernization Act of 2008, HR-5892, which subcommittee chair, John Hall, D-NY, sponsored and which passed by a roll call vote in 2008 but never became law.
Hall said in particular he wanted to revisit the issue of partial, provisional and temporary ratings, arguing that if VA increases the use of the authority to use them and also awards credit to claims processing personnel for doing so it would improve timeliness and accuracy and probably make claims processors happier in the process.