VA regional offices slow to incorporate new law into claims process

Despite the Veterans Affairs Department's best efforts at a smooth transition, implementing new regulations for processing benefits claims in the agency's regional offices has been problematic, according to a new General Accounting Office report.

Two years ago Congress passed the Veterans Claims Assistance Act to ensure that veterans get help preparing their claims for benefits. The law directs the VA to inform veterans of the information necessary to complete their claims, inform them when important medical or military service information is missing, provide medical examinations for disabled veterans who cannot afford medical care and provide any other appropriate and necessary assistance.

Days after the law was passed, the Veterans Benefits Administration immediately began to shift its operations to incorporate the law into the claims process, according to GAO's report "Veterans Benefits: VBA's Efforts to Implement the Veterans Claims Assistance Act Need Further Monitoring" (02-412). VBA oversees the processing of veterans benefits, paying out nearly $25 billion each year to vets.

"VBA has issued guidance, obtained and responded to regional office staff questions, conducted informal review of cases and issues clarifying instructions based on the questions it received and the results of its review," the report said. "To better hold regional offices accountable for proper implementation, VBA revised its quality assurance system to reflect VCAA requirements."

But VBA regional offices are not following many of the instructions the agency has provided on the new rule, according to informal agency reviews conducted last year. In August 2001, VBA stressed the importance of following the guidelines to its regional offices in a second set of instructions.

VCAA implementation errors continued to plague the agency after that directive, and in April 2002, VBA asked its regional offices to retrain employees on the new rules and certify that each staff member had read and understood the guidance.

"This may not be enough," the report said. "VBA has not determined the reasons why the regional offices are not properly implementing the VCAA."

VCAA has also created another barrier to expediting a chronically slow claims process cycle, according to GAO. While VBA has processed claims more quickly than it has in years, reducing its backlog of unprocessed claims from 430,000 in March to 389,000 as of June 3, the agency's more ambitious production goals will not help reduce the backlog of benefits claims, the report said. VBA decided to reconsider about 98,000 claims that were denied prior to the new law's passage and review nearly 250,000 cases that were pending when the law passed.

GAO recommended that VA Benefits Undersecretary Daniel Cooper find out why regional offices are not implementing VCAA so that those issues can be addressed. In a written response, VA Secretary Anthony Principi agreed with GAO's conclusions and said that the agency's fiscal 2002 numbers would reveal if the retraining effort was successful and, if not, the agency would investigate the implementation of VCAA in its regional offices.

"The Department is committed to correcting these shortcomings and will continue its efforts to effectively implement VCAA," Principi wrote.