Category: Veterans’ Affairs Department

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.

Chief Tango sends us a link from The Blaze about some Congressional inquiries into the work that Department of Veterans’ Affairs employees are doing instead of the job they were hired to do;

Senators Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) in a letter addressed to Secretary of Veteran Affairs Eric Shinseki claim that from January 1, 2012 through February 2013, 188 VA employees were paid full-time to do union-related work instead of assisting the nation’s veterans.

“Recently, it has come to our attention that a number of VA employees are paid government salaries, funded entirely by taxpayers, to perform work totally unrelated to their formal governmental duties,” the letter reads.

“In a practice known as ‘official time’ taxpayers pay for federal employees to perform union duties instead of their formal jobs they were initially hired to do,” it adds. “Federal employees not serving veterans during official time could lead to the failure of VA’s top goals and the well-being of those who have sacrificed in the service our nation, could be compromised. “

Of course, the Congressmen are depending on Shinseki to answer their questions honestly, that will never happen. I sat directly behind him once and listened to him lie to Congress while he was still in uniform. We’ve seen him lie about the numbers of phony POWs that the VA is compensating erroneously. We ain’t gettin’ no truth from him on this either.

The Baltimore Sun reports that, in hopes of clearing the hundreds of thousands of claims from veterans in the last few years, the VA is turning to the Veterans Service Organizations, like the American Legion and the Disabled Veterans of America, for help;

The groups have agreed to guide wounded and ill veterans through what’s known as a “fully developed claim” process, which means they will submit medical records and other documents along with their initial application rather than waiting until a review is underway to compile that paperwork.

VA officials say the streamlined process can cut average review times in half, to just over 100 days.

Verna Jones, director of the American Legion’s Veterans Affairs and Rehabilitation Commission, said the process “creates segmented or express lanes.”

“We’re very hopeful about this particular project,” Jones said.

If you’re waiting on a claim, I hope you have a VSO leading your charge. My claim, although fairly simple because of the complexity of the disease, swept through the claim process in less than two months because I had Paralyzed Veterans of America riding herd on my paperwork. They called me and kept me updated on the processing, and represented me fairly with the VA. If you don’t have a VSO rep helping you, it’s like going to court without a lawyer.

This new program makes VSOs more enticing. As far as I know they don’t require membership in their organization to represent you, but that’s your choice.

So, for three months now, I’ve been trying to get leg braces, you know, so I could walk. Calling civilian medical supply stores, I got zero call backs, which is pretty frustrating you know, when you’ve left 20 messages on voice mail and get no call backs. So, I figured, I’d try the VA – the same thing. I’d leave messages at the prosthetic department in Martinsburg’s VA Medical Center because for some stupid reason, no one answers their phones anymore, and apparently they don’t return your call.

So last week after weeks of calling everyday and leaving my number, I found an email address where I could leave a complaint. So I did, explaining that I was calling the prosthetic department everyday and couldn’t get them to even call me back.

So, after sending my email, I got a call from the dentist at Martinsburg saying they had a cancellation that they could get me in. I said “Sure, why not”. I’ve been going to a local dentist and paying out of my pocket for the last several years, so I thought this would be a way to check up on my dentist.

So I went to Martinsburg today and they examined my teeth. While I was there, the hygienist asked how I got the appointment, because she couldn’t find any information on me in the system. I told her someone called and asked me if I wanted to fill the cancellation, and I agreed. It was all a big mystery to everyone how I got a dental appointment with virtually no patient information. Well, I got this email from the email complaint line, just this minute;

They can set you up an appointment but the VA does NOT do braces. Your inquiry has been forwarded to the Chief of Dental.

I guess it was my mistake, even though I said I was trying to get braces from the prosthetic department, I didn’t mention that the braces were for my legs and not my teeth. Sorry, VA, I’m so stupid. Or something. But, I still need braces, so, you know, I can walk.

The Stars & Stripes reports that which we already know – the plan to force them to work overtime won’t clear the back log.

Members of VBA Truth — a group of anonymous claims workers with the stated goal of “raising awareness about what’s really going on in this dysfunctional agency” — said the overtime requirement announced this week shows that VA leaders don’t have a well-reasoned plan to end the backlog, and the problem isn’t just simply underperforming processors.

“We’ve been forced to work mandatory overtime the last two years, and yet the backlog remains,” said one VBA employee, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of firing. “It burns employees out and creates a feeling of resentment to the agency.”

As I mentioned earlier in the week, if the VA is like other government agencies, there is no overtime pay. An employee gets credit time which means that you get an equal amount of time off for the time you worked which creates a vicious cycle when the VA is trying to overcome a growing problem.

Department leaders said the required overtime, amounting to 11 or 12 days for claims employees, would have a “measurable impact” on reaching the department’s goal of eliminating the backlog in 2015.

VBA Truth members disputed that. They said similar overtime mandates, in spring 2012 and summer 2011, produced no real progress on the backlog.

I’ve heard similar complaints in my emails from those of you who work at the VA – that the problem is systemic and that the agency is flawed to it’s roots. But trying to change the way a government agency works takes leadership, and there is none at the VA.

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.

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.