The only way to achieve Veterans Administration Secretary Eric Shinseki’s goal for 2015 — that every disability compensation claim be processed within 125 days and with 98 percent accuracy — is to shift to a paperless claims system. And that transformation has begun.
That was the testimony Tuesday by VA’s top claim processing official before the House veteran affairs subcommittee on disability assistance.
Tom Murphy, director of compensation service for the Veterans Benefits Administration, an agency within the Department of Veterans Affairs, acknowledged the claims backlog has grown in recent years.
Compensation and benefit claims pending at VA, as of Jan. 23, totaled 852,127 and 65 percent of them — 557,460 — had been filed by veterans more than 125 days ago, which means they are backlogged.
Over the past year, the VA processed almost a million claims, but more than 1.3 million new claims were filed, some seeking compensation for the first time but most seeking an upgrade to current disability ratings. The number of veterans filing claims annually has more than doubled since 2000.
The surge is tied to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and also to court decisions and to VA policy changes that made hundreds of thousands of Vietnam War veterans eligible for compensation for diseases linked to possible wartime exposure to herbicides, including Agent Orange.
Murphy didn’t challenge subcommittee complaints that the backlog is rising. But he did challenge a lawmaker who suggested VA plans to move to electronic claims processing will only deepen the backlog, at least for a while.
Given projected claims growth, Murphy asked, “How do we take care of those veterans in less than 125 days, which the secretary has stated is our goal, and do it with the resources we have currently on board. … The only way we’re going to be able to do that is … to get out of the paper world and into the digital world.”
VA will introduce an electronic Claim for Disability. It will be available through VONAPP Direct Connec, VA’s online e-benefits site. The VDC site currently allows veterans only to request changes online to listed dependents on their benefits profile.
To understand what’s coming, Murphy said, veterans should think “along the line of your TurboTax,” but rather than filing income tax returns electronically, they will be prompted to file compensation claims. The process for an average claim is expected to take 30 to 45 minutes.
Most of the two-hour hearing, however, focused on VA’s mammoth effort to apply current medical science and revise the VA Schedule for Rating Disabilities by 2016.
Disability evaluation boards have used the disability ratings since the end of World War II to compensate veterans for average impairment in earning capacity caused by service-related conditions.
Over the past 60 years, the VA has adjusted the ratings system piecemeal to account for new illnesses and developments in medical science. But this is the first comprehensive review to ensure that disability categories, rating percentages and compensation levels are accurate and equitable.
Representatives for several veterans’ service organizations complained at the hearing that they have had few opportunities since the reform effort began two years ago to influence interim findings meaningfully.
Jeff Hall, assistant legislative director for Disabled American Veterans, acknowledged that the benefits agency has encouraged veterans groups to participate in initial public forums on how ratings are assigned to medical conditions.
The Disabled American Veterans is concerned that VA will continue to compensate solely on how disabilities affect earning capacity, ignoring calls from past studies for additional compensation tied to reduced quality of life.
Frank Logalbo, national service director on benefits for the Wounded Warrior Project, said the rating reforms must support higher compensation for mental health disorders including post-traumatic stress.
He also said “deep flaws in both VA evaluation procedures and its rating criteria pose real problems for warriors bearing psychic combat wounds.” Current ratings fail to compensate properly for loss of earnings because of mental health disabilities and the review process itself is woefully inadequate, he said.
“A one-time 20- to 30-minute conversation in a hospital office simply will not tell the most knowledgeable, conscientious examiner how the veteran functions in the community,” Logalbo said.
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