This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: Rob Strain

  • VA making progress or scamming the numbers?

    The VA seems to be making some progress in recent weeks … from Politico:

    The Veterans Affairs Department is chipping away at a massive inventory of disability claims for veterans, reducing the number of claims considered backlogged by about 13 percent in recent weeks.

    …

    But in recent months, the department has taken steps to try to deal with the backlog. The oldest claims in the system were moved to the front of the line and claims processors were required to work at least 20 hours of overtime each month. That has helped to reduce the backlog to just over 531,000, the VA said Thursday.

    Among the claims cleared were about 65,000 cases that had been pending for longer than two years. About 2,000 such cases remain.

    So, that little bit of mandatory overtime helped them clear up more than 100,000 claims – 65,000 of which were sitting for more than two years.

    I’m skeptical.

    It seems like the VA has just rubber-stamped all those claims – or denied them (because that clears them from the backlog as well), without any scrutiny – I wonder how much VA fraud we are going to be hearing about in the coming years …

    Additionally, if all those claims were able to be processed in such a short time, why were they sitting for years to begin with?

    Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, has a similar assessment of the VA’s sudden abilities.

    “Any progress toward eliminating the backlog is welcome news. But we cannot forget that the department is still far short of its own backlog performance benchmarks for 2013.

    “Additionally, one can’t help but question how the department was able to process most of its two-year-old claims in just 60 days. If two months was all VA needed to adjudicate these claims, why did the department let them sit for two years or longer? Furthermore, what will happen to the backlog once VA employees are taken off of mandatory overtime and returned to regular duties? Nevertheless, when it comes to evaluating VA’s success in combatting the backlog, the two most important numbers are zero and 2015. In other words, this problem won’t be solved unless the backlog is at zero by 2015, just as VA leaders have promised.”

    Well, he’s partially right, but it’s not all about zero by 2015 – the claims have to be done properly, the first time, and cases of fraud need to be identified and handled. If those two things aren’t done, then a backlog of zero is meaningless.

  • VA hacked, unsure what was stolen

    Apparently, when the VA isn’t getting their computers stolen, compromising personal data, the Chinese and other nations are hacking into the VA’s systems – and it’s been happening for years, according to the Washington Examiner.

    At least eight different state-sponsored organizations have breached the security of VA data networks since at least March 2010, said Jerry Davis, who until February was the chief information security officer at VA.

    “I learned that these attackers were a nation-state sponsored cyber espionage unit and that no less than eight different nation-state sponsored organizations had successfully compromised VA networks and data, or were actively attacking VA networks, attacks that continue at VA to this very day,” David said in written testimony

    This stems the VA transmitting sensitive information, including medical records and personal information, over unsecure and unencrypted networks.

    The worst part is that the VA doesn’t even know what has been stolen:

    A foreign government hacked into Department of Veterans’ Affairs computers and stole data on as many as 20 million veterans, then covered its tracks by encrypting files before exporting them, according to congressional testimony today.

    As a result, VA officials do not know what was stolen, a top VA official told the House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Potentially, the breach could be complete personal and medical records on everyone in the VA’s files, said Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., the subcommittee chairman.

    “These actors have had constant access to VA systems and data, information which included unencrypted databases containing hundreds of thousands to millions of instances of veteran information such as veterans’ and dependents’ names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and protected health information,” Coffman said.

    So, they’ve known about it for years and have still done nothing about it – way to take care of veterans.

    Cross-posted from After the Army.

  • Mandatory overtime for VA claims workers

    According to the Huffington Post, the Department of Veterans Affairs will require at least 10,000 claims workers to work at least 20 hours of overtime each month until September.

    “We need to surge our resources now to help those who have waited the longest and end the backlog,” said Allison Hickey, undersecretary for benefits at the VA.

    It seems they might finally be getting tired of all the recent negative attention and may actually start putting some effort into their job … or they realized they completely blew the 2015 deadline and are doing everything they can to minimize the pain they are going to feel when they fail.

    The most important thing the VA needs to remember while working these claims is that they aren’t just paper packets … these are people – whom are represented by those packets, and often, people in a lot of pain and a very bad point in their life. The VA needs to get the backlog fixed – but they need to do it right (the first time).

    Cross posted from After the Army.

  • VA bonuses add up to $16.9M over 5 years

    The Washington Examiner reports that the VA has given out about $16.9 million in bonuses to senior executives over the past five years.

    There appears to be little correlation between pay and performance. For instance, one of the worst-performing regional offices is in Phoenix, where the average wait time for a veteran to get a disability rating is almost 470 days — more than 15 months.

    Sandra Flint has been director of the Phoenix regional office for about eight years. Since 2007, she has received at least $53,109 in bonuses, including more than $21,000 in merit bonuses, according to the records obtained by The Washington Examiner. Her 2011 salary was $165,300.

    Since 2009, the backlog of claims in Phoenix has more than doubled and now stands at just under 80 percent. Flint did not return telephone calls seeking comment.

    Another long-time regional director who has reaped big bonuses is Carl Hawkins, the top executive in the Columbia, S.C., office since about 1998. Hawkins was paid $79,275 in performance bonuses over five years, the third-highest among current regional office directors. His pay in 2011 was $165,300.

    Since 2009, the backlog of disability claims in Columbia has grown from 32.5 percent to 71.2 percent. It now takes an average of 308 days to rate a claim in Columbia.

     

    The VA has been taking a beating from the media on the backlog, bonuses and other waste – such as expensive employee conferences, but there has been only the same response from the leadership for the passt several years – ‘we’ll fix it.’

    The time for excuses is over. There is a complete leadership failure at the VA and leaders need to be held accountable. It is long past time for Eric Shinseki and his immediate subordinate directors to be relieved and replaced. Their failures are an absolute disgrace, and they are ultimately responsible.

    Shinskei, you’re a failure – it’s time to accept your responsibility and get someone in there who can actually fix something.

    Cross posted from After the Army.

  • House bill would ban VA bonuses

    The House Veterans Affairs Committee passed a bill today that would grant in-state tuition rates to all veterans attending public universities as well as ban all VA executive bonuses for five years.

    Senior executives at the Department of Veterans Affairs would be banned from receiving any bonuses for five years under legislation approved by a congressional committee Wednesday.

    The move comes after two weeks of criticism over how the department awards bonuses, and reports of several five-figure awards for VA officials despite questionable performances.

    “Questionable performances” is inaccurate – piss-poor performance is better.

    Representative Jeff Miller, R-Fla., the head of the committee issued a statement on the bill.

    “The fact that so many VA executives collected huge performance bonuses year after year while continually failing at their jobs calls into question whether department leaders even know the meaning of the word ‘accountability,’” he said in a statement.

    “Until we have complete confidence that VA is holding executives accountable – rather than rewarding them – for their mistakes, no one should get a performance bonus.”

    The VA suspended bonuses for fiscal year 2012 last month, but lawmakers, including Miller, complained that the VA decision didn’t go far enough.

    Additionally, the bill calls for an increase in the amount of disability compensation equal to increases in Social Security increases.

    The bill will have to pass the full House and the Senate before it becomes law.

    The full text of the bill can be found here.

    Cross posted from After the Army.

  • Jon Stewart goes after the VA, again

    I’m just going to leave these here and let you watch through them:

    “In only two more years, they’re hoping to only have you wait four more months” sums up the progress the VA has made.

    Cross posted from After the Army.

  • Bonuses for VA execs … a great waste of money

    WSBTV.com has the story about how VA executives in Atlanta received bonuses despite issues within their realm of responsibility.

    Despite the scandal engulfing the Atlanta VA Medical Center, Channel 2 Action News has uncovered the VA’s top executives have been pocketing large salary bonuses.
    Those salaries are being paid with tax money and the tax money of veterans.
    Channel 2’s Scott MacFarlane obtained records that show top brass throughout the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs have scored big bonus checks in recent months, including in Atlanta.
    Despite a laundry list of findings, the Atlanta management has botched how it handled some of its high-risk patients that led to patient deaths, suicides, an overdose and a schizophrenic patient found roaming free inside the building.
    Records show former Atlanta VA Medical Center Director James Clark pocketed a $13,000 bonus in 2011 and another $17,000 worth of salary bonuses in 2010.

    …

    Those bonuses were given at roughly the same time period in which the audit said two Atlanta veterans showing suicidal tendencies sought help, got lost in red tape and then killed themselves.
    It’s also about the same time another person with a history of substance abuse was overlooked and overdosed and died.
    The report said a mental health patient managed to roam free in the building for hours and injected testosterone around the same time as well.

    Giving a bonus to someone in government seems like a waste – unless they’ve done something to save the government even more money, i.e. the Waste, Fraud and Abuse program, which often rewards those whom point out ways the government can save money.

    So, I have a serious question: Considering all the issues with both the benefits administration and the health administration at the VA, why do any bureaucrats at the VA get bonuses?

    Cross posted from After the Army

  • VA to be slammed by Obamacare

    The Navy Times has a story about the coming implementation of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, and the impact it will likely have on the Department of Veterans Affairs.

    Starting in 2014, the law punishes those without health insurance, and the VA’s health plan meets the minimum requirement for coverage – which means that there may be an increase in the number of people seeking health care from the VA.

    It is unclear how many veterans might turn to VA, but the 2014 budget includes $85 million to cover increased medical care costs, plus $3.4 million to cover administrative costs because VA would have to provide a written statement to each enrolled veteran about their coverage.

    The VA’s 2014 budget estimates coverage for 6.5 million veterans, an increase of 1.3% over fiscal year 2013 – about 100,000 more veterans than this year.

    There’s a problem there:

    Kenneth Kizer, director of the Institute for Population Health Improvement at University of California Davis Health System, estimates 1.8 million uninsured veterans will be looking for coverage when the Affordable Care Act requirement kicks in next year.

    Last time I checked, 1,800,000 is a whole hell of a lot greater than 100,000, so there are going to be issues with VA health care next year, as if there weren’t already.

    Cross posted from After the Army