Any veteran who has applied for disability compensation through the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) can tell you that the experience isn’t pleasant. The boilerplate correspondence sent by the VA is hard to decipher, it can take nine months for a Regional Office (RO) to issue an initial decision, and valid claims are often denied the first time around. I am currently working on a claim that has been pending since 2001, in part because the VA waited five years to provide the veteran with the medical examination necessary to resolve his claim and then discounted the opinion when it was favorable to the veteran.
In response to heavy criticism, the VA has announced a plan to improve processing of disability compensation claims. Despite the plan’s ambition, the question is whether anything can repair a truly broken and overburdened system. As of July 2012, nearly 900,000 cases are pending before the VA. Of these, 558,000 are “backlogged,” meaning that they have been on file for more than 125 days without an initial decision. These numbers don’t even truly reflect the number of veterans who have been waiting to receive their disability compensation, as the “backlogged” cases do not include cases where a notice of disagreement (NOD) has been filed after an initial denial and the veteran is waiting for the next step.
With the number of cases pending both before the ROs and the BVA, what improvement can we expect from the VA’s plan? The following captures the main elements of the plan, along with my assessment of each element’s practical effect:
- Adopt a new electronic claims processing system VA wide. In theory, this could make the process much easier for veterans and claims adjusters alike, as there is a reason why postal mail is referred to as “snail mail.” However, for this to work, the electronic system needs to be user friendly, and it is questionable whether the VA is capable of designing such a system. Also, one must consider that many of our veterans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI), and they have difficulty concentrating on computer screens. Also, older veterans may be unaccustomed to using such a system and will have to rely on family members.
- Establish an “express” lane for uncomplicated claims with one or two health conditions, and for “fully-developed” claims claims that include all evidence and supporting documentation. The issue here is how the VA will determine that claims fit into one of these two categories. This not only creates another step in the process, but it essentially provides that claims will not be assessed on a “first come, first served” basis.
- Establish a “special operations” lane to handle claims requiring extra attention because the wounds or illness are particularly serious, or the veteran is homeless or suffering a financial hardship. In my experience, it is extremely rare for the VA to expedite a claim. My question here is what standards the VA will develop to determine whether a claim falls into this category. It will surely be very fact-specific.
- Establish a “core” lane for veterans seeking compensation for more than two medical conditions and clearly needing more evidence-gathering to process. Roughly 60% of claims fall into this category. If the claims adjustors assigned to this lane are able to clearly communicate to veteran claimants about additional steps or evidence needed, this could potentially save time.
What matters here is whether this plan will have practical effect. There must be more to this – the claims adjustors need to be trained appropriately depending on the lane to which they are assigned. The single act of dividing claims into categories has no practical value. And if an electronic system is developed, it needs to be user friendly. An electronic system is not be helpful if most veterans cannot access or understand it.
From my experience, the step most desperately needed is training of VA officials involved in the claims process – both in properly assessing claims and in communicating clearly with veteran claimants. Also, the different VA departments and offices need to better communicate with one another. I have had multiple experiences where two different departments within the VA gave conflicting information.
As a practicing veterans law attorney, I truly hope that the VA disability compensation system improves. In modern context, the system is pushed to the breaking point. Devising a plan for better handling the volume of claims, as the VA has done, is the first step towards that end. And after the first step will come another.
