Veterans' Disability Benefits: Better Accountability and Access Would Improve the Benefits Delivery at Discharge Program

VA considered the costs of these options by conducting a cost benefit analysis and determining that there are no quantifiable measurements that indicate the benefits outweigh the costs of separately reviewing and tracking the rating quality for Benefits Delivery at Discharge (BDD) claims. According to VA, the two sites that rate BDD claims--Salt Lake City, Utah, and Winston-Salem, North Carolina--surpassed the national average in rating quality. Although BDD claims comprise only a portion of claims reviewed by these sites, VA found no evidence to indicate that a separate review of BDD claims would provide a benefit to the process. VA concluded that the cost associated with such a change would outweigh any associated (unquantifiable) benefits.

In December 2008, the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) notified its staff that it would begin tracking claims filed by both National Guard and Reserve servicemembers. VBA analyzed the information captured from January to June 2009 to determine to what extent different components are filing claims and receiving timely benefits. It found that Guard/Reserve servicemembers accounted for 18 percent of all pre-discharge claims submitted from January to June 2009. As of June 2009, the average days to complete (ADC) a BDD claim is 77.9 days compared to 198.2 days for original compensation claims submitted after discharge (i.e., the traditional claims process) by veterans of all eras. In June 2009, VBA began tracking ADC for Quick Start pre-discharge claims submitted by servicemembers having fewer than 60 days until discharge.

VA established a plan to implement its paperless processing claims initiative in multiple phases, including an evaluation of performance at the end of each phase, consistent with our recommendation. Phase 1 ran from August 2010 to April 2011 in which VA tested paperless claims processing in one regional office (Providence, Rhode Island). Phase 2 ran from May 2011 to November 2011 during which VA improved the initiative in multiple ways. For example, VA refined business rules to expedite claims processing and added another regional office (Salt Lake City, Utah) for additional testing. At the end of each phase, VA reviewed what worked well and what did not work well and identified actions to improve performance. Since November 2011, VA has conducted additional reviews, added two regional offices (Wichita, Kansas and Fort Harrison, Montana), and continued to improve the initiative. VA officials meet weekly to discuss the initiative's performance, issues, and risks; and review the status of the initiative every other month.

The Compensation and Pension Service of the Veterans Benefits Administration has increased the number of Benefits Delivery at Discharge (BDD) oversight visits for FY09. The following regional offices and their intake sites were visited: Nashville (Ft. Campbell); Honolulu (covers Camp Smith Ft. Shafter, Hickam AFB, MCB Hawaii, Pearl Harbor NB, Schofield Barracks, Tripler AMC, and Sand Island CG); Atlanta (Ft. Gordon); Roanoke (Norfolk NB); Baltimore (Ft. Meade); Seattle (Ft. Lewis [covering McChord AFB] and Bremerton [covering Bangor Sub Base, Everett NS, Fairchild AFB, Kitsap NB, and Whidbey. Island NAS]); Louisville (Ft Knox); Chicago (Great Lakes NTC); and Togus (Brunswick NAS), with additional visits scheduled to Newark and Buffalo. BDD oversight visits are also included on the fiscal year 2010 site visit schedule. As of January 2010, VA has revised its site visit protocol to require a review of BDD operations as part of any regional office that has BDD operations and has been using this protocol during its FY 2010 site visits.

The Department of Defense (DOD) reported that it has developed a plan to track servicemember participation and attendance in the Transition Assistance Program (TAP) using servicemembers' social security numbers and completion of the Pre-separation Counseling Checklist (DD Form 2648/-1). Attendance and participation data will be collected in a central data repository maintained by the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC). The participation rate is calculated each fiscal year by identifying the total number of servicemembers eligible for TAP based on servicemembers' anticipated separation dates and those who served 180 days of active duty service. The number of servicemembers that participated in pre-separation counseling is divided by the total number of eligible servicemembers to calculate the participation rate. Further, DOD receives information from the Department of Labor on headcounts of those attending the Employment Workshop and information from the Department of Veterans Affairs for those attending the VA Benefits briefing. While DOD has improved its approach for documenting servicemembers' participation in TAP using a unique identifier, it is still in the process of developing a methodology for computing participation rates without double counting servicemembers who may attend TAP more than once.