Last month, President Obama suggested the Veterans Affairs Department tap its employees for ideas on how to cut the claims backlog at the Veterans Benefit Administration. Today, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki kicked off the "Innovation Competition," open to VA employees on an internal Web site.
Shinseki said "The men and women of VA know that many Veterans are often asked to wait too long for the critical services they have earned while defending our Nation."
He added that VA "employees who grapple with the claims process every day have the first hand knowledge and experience necessary to help us understand inefficiencies and improve the system. We are confident that our team will come forward with many creative and original ways to accelerate processes and better deliver services for our nation's Veterans."
Meanwhile, for anyone who likes to count, the number of education claims pending as of this Monday - two weeks into the fall semester - has hit 276,704. Last week's total was 254,657 and a year ago, when the VA did not have to deal with claims under the new GI Bill, the total was only 66,261.
COMMENTS
Another strategy would be to solicit former Veteran Service Officers whom would be willing to work as independent consultants to help with the backlog. As I can speak, with some knowledge on the subject, you have some very talented former VSO's who help Veteran's with claims from a volunteer approach, and have excellent claims approval numbers.
These are accredited claims consultants, some are even more well versed in VA benefit law, than the new attorneys who prey on Veteran claims and the money they can get from these veterans, (but that's another story), it should be all pro-bono!
Now, VA Administrators have two excellent approaches to help with claims backlog, one with a new hiring initiative and the other with a new consultant initiative, hopefully they will take heed and atleast entertain these suggestions. They are welcome to email me and I can elaborate and lay it out much more clearly, if need be.
KUDOS to the Administration for even soliciting suggestions!
Bobb Wright 09/14/09 12:04 pm ET
The VA just needs to commit to hire more employees who process claims. It is just that simple! You don't have to think outside the box to realize that you have numerous military men and women whom have recently served and will be submitting numerous claims in the next two to three years. When you have this type of challenge, you must allow for more numbers. The VA management should establish Temporary or Term Appts. to meet these demands. As a matter of fact use this prime opportunity to non-competitively hire Vets and their spouses to help meet these needs!
Bobb Wright 09/14/09 11:43 am ET
Many of the raters working claims are not well trained, so how can they do this with out better training.
The best way to help is with training. To many gulf war veterans claim are done wrong and are having to be done over and over adding to the backlog.
Also this program should let the VSO's have their input too. They see a lot of the problems first hand and can help in solving the problems.
Jim Bunker 09/14/09 11:29 am ET
Many of the raters working claims are not well trained, so how can they do this with out better training.
The best way to help is with training. To many gulf war veterans claim are done wrong and are having to be done over and over adding to the backlog.
Also this program should let the VSO's have their input too. They see a lot of the problems first hand and can help in solving the problems.
Jim Bunker 09/14/09 11:27 am ET
The employees at the VA could be trained to find out this information from the veterans in their clinical encounters.
I am willing to help in this process, but I need to be trained to ask the right questions and refer them to the proper channels.
We need to be more efficient.
Susan E. Solow 09/11/09 09:19 am ET