[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
VETERANS AFFAIRS IN THE 112TH CONGRESS: REVIEWING VA'S PERFORMANCE AND
ACCOUNTABILITY
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON VETERANS' AFFAIRS
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2012
__________
Serial No. 112-76
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
78-766 WASHINGTON : 2013
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; DC
area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC
20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON VETERANS' AFFAIRS
JEFF MILLER, Florida, Chairman
CLIFF STEARNS, Florida BOB FILNER, California, Ranking
DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado CORRINE BROWN, Florida
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida SILVESTRE REYES, Texas
DAVID P. ROE, Tennessee MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine
MARLIN A. STUTZMAN, Indiana LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
BILL FLORES, Texas BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio JERRY McNERNEY, California
JEFF DENHAM, California JOE DONNELLY, Indiana
JON RUNYAN, New Jersey TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota
DAN BENISHEK, Michigan JOHN BARROW, Georgia
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
TIM HUELSKAMP, Kansas
MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada
ROBERT L. TURNER, New York
Helen W. Tolar, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Pursuant to clause 2(e)(4) of Rule XI of the Rules of the House, public
hearing records of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs are also
published in electronic form. The printed hearing record remains the
official version. Because electronic submissions are used to prepare
both printed and electronic versions of the hearing record, the process
of converting between various electronic formats may introduce
unintentional errors or omissions. Such occurrences are inherent in the
current publication process and should diminish as the process is
further refined.
C O N T E N T S
__________
September 20, 2012
Page
Veterans Affairs In The 112th Congress: Reviewing VA's
Performance And Accountability................................. 1
OPENING STATEMENTS
Chairman Jeff Miller............................................. 1
Prepared Statement of Chairman Miller........................ 32
Hon. Corrine Brown, Acting Ranking Democratic Member............. 3
Prepared Statement of Hon. Brown............................. 34
Hon. Russ Carnahan, prepared statement only...................... 34
WITNESSES
Hon. W. Scott Gould, Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs, U.S.
Department of Veterans Affairs................................. 4
Prepared Statement of Hon. Gould............................. 35
Accompanied by:
W. Todd Grams, Executive in Charge, Office of Management,
Chief Financial Officer, U.S. Department of Veterans
Affairs
QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD
Responses from the Department of Veterans' Affairs............... 42
MATERIALS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
Setting Up an eBenefits Account.................................. 61
Claim Status Availability in eBenefits........................... 62
VETERANS AFFAIRS IN THE 112TH CONGRESS: REVIEWING VA'S PERFORMANCE AND
ACCOUNTABILITY
Thursday, September 20, 2012
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Veterans' Affairs,
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:19 a.m., in
Room 334, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Jeff Miller
[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Miller, Roe, Stutzman, Flores,
Johnson, Runyan, Benishek, Huelskamp, Turner, Brown, Michaud,
McNerney, Walz, and Barrow.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JEFF MILLER
The Chairman. The Committee will come to order.
Thank you, everybody, for being here for today's Full
Committee hearing entitled Veterans Affairs in the 112th
Congress: Reviewing VA's Performance and Accountability.
Let me start by first saying VA is to be commended for some
of the areas that we are going to be examining in this
morning's hearing.
For example, the number of homeless veterans is declining
and I know that that is something that the Secretary has been
very focused on over the last number of years.
VA reports that on any given night, the number of homeless
veterans has fallen from 76,000 in 2009 to 67,500 in the latest
report of 2011.
We have to sustain that effort and address the root causes
of homelessness. But at present, I am pleased that the goal of
ending homelessness by 2015 is well within reach.
Also on the positive side, the default rates on VA
guaranteed loans continue to be lower than non-VA backed loans.
Given the turmoil in the housing market, the success VA has had
in keeping veterans in their homes is laudable.
And, finally, I want to congratulate VA on the aggressive
manner in which it prepared for and promoted the Veterans
Retraining Assistance Program or VRAP, part of our effort to
reduce veteran unemployment.
With the VOW Act's goal to retrain 99,000 veterans using
the Montgomery GI Bill, as of today, VA had received 58,432
applications and I understand they have approved 45,205 and
maybe more than that by this morning.
So to VA today, we say thank you and keep up the good work.
Despite these successes, progress is not being made fast
enough or in some cases any progress being made in other key
areas.
On the important issue of mental health care, too many
veterans either do not seek assistance or are unable to get VA
mental health care in a timely fashion. As a result, access to
mental health care is in crisis.
In April, the VA inspector general released a report
finding that more than half of the veterans who seek mental
health care through VA wait 50 days, that is five zero, 50 days
to receive an evaluation.
These are men and women who have taken the brave and
difficult step of seeking help. They are waiting too long to
receive that help.
Interestingly, just days before the IG report was released,
VA made a surprise announcement that it was going to be
increasing mental health staff by 1,900 individuals. It is
undoubtedly important to ensure proper staff are in place to
meet the increasing demand for mental health care, but here is
the problem.
There is already almost 1,500 mental health professionals
and vacancies within the system which means 1,900 new hires
equates to a net gain of 400. As of mid July, VA had hired less
than 900 employees as part of this effort.
Follow-up requests by Committee staff for additional
information unfortunately has gone unanswered. Meanwhile data
suggests that 18 veterans per day commit suicide and five of
those were receiving VA care at the time of their death. We
have got to do better. I do not think anybody can question
that.
Another area of continued concern is the backlog of
disability claims. Notwithstanding pledges by VA officials that
we are about to turn the corner, the backlog has steadily
increased throughout the past two years and at the beginning of
this Congress, the number of pending claims was 764,476 with
39.4 percent pending for more than 125 days.
As of this month, that total number of claims pending has
increased to 897,767 and 66.4 percent are pending longer than
125 days.
The Department's refrain has been that overall production
is over one million claims annually and that the Agent Orange
claims presented a challenge. But the simple fact remains that
more claims continue to be filed than processed and there is no
end in sight.
Although this Administration has promised that the backlog
will be eliminated by 2015 and that claims will be processed
with 98 percent accuracy by that time, quite frankly, many of
us, myself included, are worried as to whether this goal
remains realistic or not.
In addition, the Committee has frequently been told that
VBA's transformation plan is the answer to all the problems.
Although we certainly commend VA for realizing that
comprehensive changes are required to bring VBA into the 21st
century, the Committee has yet to see an actual plan.
We need to see it in writing and we need to see clear
benchmarks and deadlines. We have yet to see this plan despite
making three separate requests both during hearings and in
writing which have gone unanswered.
I would like to continue working with the department on
bringing VA into the 21st century and we will be best able to
do so by being provided with a written copy of the
transformation plan.
Finally, although VA has been more fortunate than other
agencies in the resources it has received in this tight fiscal
climate, the bureaucracy has helped itself to those resources
rather than channeling them directly to services for the
veteran.
VA's Senior Executive Service Bonus Program continues to
average nearly $4 million in annual pay-outs with no apparent
correlation between these bonuses and agency performance. The
Committee is also addressing the lavish conference
expenditures. I and Ranking Member Filner sent a letter to VA
over a month ago asking for details as to how $100 million was
spent in 2011 on conferences and to date, we have yet to
receive a response.
The government was on the verge of a shutdown and a default
last year. Thus the fact that VA cannot describe how over $100
million was spent to me is unconscionable.
Despite promises of better fiscal stewardship from the
Administration, these are glaring examples of serious
shortcomings that have got to be fixed.
There is more I could have touched on in this opening
statement, but I will wait for our questioning. We have got a
lot of ground to cover this morning.
And I want to yield now to the Ranking Member, Ms. Brown,
my colleague from Florida, for her opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Miller appears in the
Appendix]
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CORRINE BROWN,
ACTING RANKING DEMOCRATIC MEMBER
Ms. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate you
holding this hearing on VA performance and accountability
during the 112th Congress.
I am looking forward to finding out from the VA the
progress it has made in addressing concern raised by this
Committee.
I am also looking forward to hearing from the deputy
secretary how, in his view, the VA has become able to meet its
responsibilities and provide health care and benefits to our
veterans.
I believe that this is an important point that we should
not forget. For all the faults we find with how the VA
operates, at the end of the day, it is providing service and
benefits to millions of veterans and their families.
Because the VA generally does a good job, it makes it even
more important that we are proactive addressing their problems.
Sometimes it is easy for us to forget that our role is to
provide needed oversight to the VA. In the final analysis, we
are all in this together. As the army says, it is one team, one
fight.
I also want to say how disappointed I am with the Senate
republicans in an almost party line vote to block the veterans'
job corps legislation. At a time when our veterans sorely need
our help, they decided to play politics rather than being
patriots.
The cost of the war is more than just airplanes, tanks, and
bullets. It is the cost of our heroes, our veterans, and we owe
them more than just being a political toy.
So today I am introducing the Companion Bill in the House
and I hope, Mr. Chairman, that I have your support in bringing
this bill to the House floor as soon as possible. Veterans
deserve all that we can do to help them and their families.
We need to stand up for them as they are standing up for
us. Veterans' unemployment is 30 percent, so I think we should
do all we can. As I said, the army motto is one team, one
fight, working together in a bipartisan manner to make sure
that we can address these needs.
I am also looking forward to the deputy secretary's update
on how the oversight concerns raised by this Committee has been
addressed, how the VA is better today than it was yesterday,
and what improvements and actions we can look forward to in the
future.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back the balance of my
time.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Brown appears in the
Appendix]
The Chairman. I appreciate the gentlewoman's comments.
I would say that, this Committee has focused on veteran
unemployment and if you take our bills that we have done here
and compare them to the bill that was over in the Senate
yesterday, the job corps bill was looking at costing some
$50,000 a job where our VRAP bill was $16,000 a job. And we did
not start a whole new bureaucracy in order to do what we needed
to do.
VRAP trains up to 99,000 veterans and the Job Corps Program
only 20, so, yes, I commit to you to work as we work towards
trying to find jobs for those unemployed veterans out there,
not only those that are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan,
but certainly those 35 to 60-year-old individuals who are
finding themselves in need to retrain.
I want to welcome the panel today to the table. With us
this morning is W. Scott Gould, the Deputy Secretary of
Veterans Affairs for the Department of Veterans Affairs, and
Mr. Gould is accompanied by W. Todd Grams, Executive in Charge
for the Office of Management and the Chief Financial Officer
for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
I appreciate you both being here this morning. And,
Secretary Gould, you are recognized to proceed.
STATEMENT OF W. SCOTT GOULD, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF VETERANS
AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS ACCOMPANIED BY W.
TODD GRAMS, EXECUTIVE IN CHARGE FOR THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT
AND CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS
AFFAIRS
STATEMENT OF HON. W. SCOTT GOULD
Mr. Gould. Thank you, Chairman Miller, Ranking Member
Brown, distinguished Members of the Veterans' Affairs
Committee. Thank you for your unwavering commitment to veterans
and for this opportunity to testify today.
With me is Mr. Todd Grams, VA's Chief Financial Officer.
Let me also acknowledge some of the veteran service
organizations here today. Their insights are always
appreciated.
And, Mr. Chairman, I ask that my written statement be
included for the record.
The Chairman. Without objection.
Mr. Gould. VA's only agenda is to provide veterans the best
care and benefits possible. We appreciate this Committee's
assistance in achieving this goal.
Since 2009, we have accomplished many important
achievements, yet we know we have more to do.
Almost four years ago, we set three key priorities which
remain unchanged today. First, increase veterans' access to
benefits and services; second, eliminate the backlog in
compensation claims in 2015; and, third, end veterans'
homelessness also in 2015.
I will briefly update you on our major achievements in each
of these three areas.
First, we have made great strides in increasing veterans'
access to care and benefits. In our medical facilities, VA has
handled more than 358 million medical encounters since 2009.
Hundreds of thousands more veterans now receive care and
benefits thanks to VA decisions on Agent Orange, Gulf War,
traumatic brain injuries, and PTSD.
Between 2008 and 2012, we increased the number of veterans
receiving VA disability compensation by 21 percent, life
insurance coverage for disabled veterans by 31 percent, the
number of education beneficiaries by 63 percent, and those
compensated for PTSD by 64 percent.
Last month, we opened a state-of-the-art VA medical center
in Las Vegas, the first new hospital in 17 years. Three more
are under construction, Denver, Orlando, and New Orleans.
We have also added 51 new community-based outpatient
clinics, 40 mobile health clinics, and a fifth polytrauma
center.
In 2011, we provided telehealth to more than 380,000
veterans.
Since 2009, VA built an automated system for processing
Post-9/11 GI Bill payments and has issued over $21 billion in
payments to over 800,000 recipients.
Today we have over a million veterans and family members in
our educational programs across this country.
Since the start of this Congress, 756,000 families got a VA
home loan guarantee.
With Congress' support and leadership, we implemented the
Family Caregiver Program and now have over 5,900 primary family
caregivers benefitting from this program.
We are using technology to outreach to more veterans than
ever before to provide easier access to benefits' information
through on-line tools such as Blue Button and eBenefits.
Almost a million servicemembers and veterans have
downloaded electronic copies of their personal health records
to date.
Since 2005, we have increased the number of mental health
professionals from 13,000 to over 20,000 and recently
announced, as the Chairman just mentioned, our plans to hire an
additional 1,600 more clinical staff, 1,900 including support.
Since its establishment in 2007, our veterans' crisis line
has rescued, rescued over 23,000 potential suicide victims.
Since 2009, our National Cemetery Administration has opened
six new national cemeteries, awarded grants to establish 15
state cemeteries and five tribal cemeteries.
Second, VA is using every tool available to end veteran
homelessness. We thank the Committee for its support and for
the resources to drive these efforts. Homelessness among
veterans has declined by nearly 12 percent since the January
2010 HUD count and we remain committed to ending veterans'
homelessness in 2015.
In the last two years, VA has helped over 119,000, 82 and a
half percent of VA borrowers who got in trouble, who were in
default avoid foreclosure.
Chairman Miller, thanks to the leadership of this
Committee, the Administration joined with you to make the VOW
to Hire Heroes Act of 2011 a reality.
The VOW Act created the Veterans Retraining Assistance
Program or VRAP, as you mentioned a moment ago, and over 55,000
veterans have now applied.
In fiscal year 2011, VA's total award to small businesses
was nearly $5.9 billion, 33.6 percent of all of VA's
procurements, far exceeding the national goals for veteran and
service-disabled veteran-owned businesses.
Thirdly, eliminating the claims backlog is certainly our
most complex challenge. VBA's annual claims receipts increased
48 percent over the last four years and there has also been an
increase in the average number of medical conditions each
claimant files.
This growth in demand is driven by a number of factors, but
most importantly our decisions as advocates for veterans that I
mentioned a moment ago on Agent Orange, PTSD, Gulf War.
It is also exacerbated by increased survival rates, ten
years of war, difficult economic conditions, and I would say
successful VA outreach, getting more people to apply for the
benefits they have earned.
We are determined to eliminate the backlog. Secretary
Shinseki and Panetta testified before you, Mr. Chairman, in an
historic joint Committee hearing in July on the range of our
VA/DoD collaboration and transition initiatives. These included
IDES, the Integrated Disability Evaluation System, VA's
paperless processing system called the Veterans Benefits
Management System, and the integrated electronic health record
which you know as IEHR, an ambitious effort that we have
committed to have in place no later than 2017.
Mr. Chairman, in 2009, President Obama charged Secretary
Shinseki to transform VA into a high performing 21st century
organization. Both the President and this Congress have
afforded us the resources to make that transformation a
reality.
We have made significant progress, but we know that more
remains to be done. I am grateful that Congress has been both
our partner and our constructive critic as we have forged
ahead.
Mr. Chairman, I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Gould appears in the
Appendix]
The Chairman. Thank you very much for your testimony.
We will have the first round of questions and then if we
need to go with a second round, we would be more than happy to
do that as well.
I want to talk a little bit about mental health and where
we are and ask your help. We had asked two months ago for
information in regards to where we are with mental health
issues. We asked for a status broken down by occupation and
facility of those new hires.
There is a concern that I have that some of the new hires
may, in fact, be transfers from other VA facilities that may be
getting hired and also be getting incentive bonuses to make a
transfer. While they are being called a hire, they are leaving
a gaping hole somewhere within the system from where they went.
Like I said, we started the process of asking for this back
in July and I am just trying to find out are we going to get an
answer? Do you have an answer for us today or can we expect an
answer any time in the near future?
Mr. Gould. Yes, sir, you certainly can. I would just like
to place the interest that the Committee shares and that we are
all very focused into a broader context.
Mental health is obviously an area where we are addressing
the hidden wounds of war. VA has an enormous integrated mental
health system and we understand that link between mental health
and physical health. The two are inextricably linked.
The quality and size of our system is second to none. We
have increased from 13,000 to over 20,000 mental health
professionals in our system. We have a suicide prevention
mechanism that is with our crisis hotline that has literally
fielded 650,000 calls in the last three years, directed 99,000
veterans and active-duty servicemembers in crisis to help
within our system, and lastly saved 29,000 individuals. It is
really an extraordinary record.
And we are a demand driven organization. More people have
demanded services in mental health here. We identified that
problem last year. The IG confirmed it for us and we have
embarked at your direction, Mr. Chairman, on an aggressive
effort to hire 1,900 total mental health professionals and
support staff, 1,600 mental health professionals.
We are today hiring 75 a week. We are on track to meet the
goals that we have set for hiring these individuals and, of
course, our job one will be to train them, get them in place,
and have them into the fight to join this extraordinarily large
and high quality system that we have at VA.
The Chairman. And I appreciate the numbers that you
provided to the Committee. I would ask, if you could, provide
for us, somebody provide for us a written report as to where we
are in meeting the goals because I think this Committee and
certainly VA itself share the same end result and that is to be
able to provide care when the veterans need it, not some point
down the road unfortunately when the veteran may have done
something different than they may have wanted to do when they
were reaching out for help.
Let's talk a little bit about the backlog of claims that is
out there. And I think, you know, probably the big question
that a lot of people want answered right now is, is the goal of
2015 attainable?
It looks like we are slipping every day because of the
numbers of claims that are coming in, but I would like to get
an update from you, if you will, as to where we are because we
are hearing it from veteran service organizations all across
the country.
I did an on-line chat yesterday with DAV and that was one
of the big questions obviously is where are we with the
tremendous backlog that is out there.
Mr. Gould. Thank you for that opportunity to address the
backlog.
We are focused on it. It is a key area of endeavor for all
of VA and specifically VBA. We are committed to make sure that
our veterans receive the benefits that they have earned. We
know that is our number one job. We are committed to make that
happen.
Mr. Chairman, as you mentioned, you know that we are
swimming upstream on this. We have got a 50 percent growth in
the number of claims since 2008. Think of that. Any business
you have ever been in, 50 percent growth during that period of
time.
And as a consequence, the backlog which we define as any
claim longer than 125 days has grown from about 180,000 to
576,000 in that three-year period. At the same time, also the
complexity of the claims, the number of components in a claim
has grown by 330 percent.
We also recognize that that increased wave is the product
of our own decision-making. Think about this, and I want to
make sure that every Member of the Committee really appreciates
what has happened here.
There were some courageous decisions made to increase
access. Agent Orange, PTSD, these were along with Gulf War
Syndrome examples where VA knew that the consequence would be
that we are going to grow the wave and it might have been in
VA's bureaucratic interest to say, no, no, no, let's not
approve, let's not create that new access.
Instead what we did is we made the right decision. The
consequence of that Agent Orange, Gulf War, and PTSD was that
more people have access to our system and the consequence of
that is a bigger backlog.
That story is laid out in pretty hard data. In 2009, we
processed 977,000 claims. We got a million. 2010, we processed
a million. For the first time in the organization's history, we
get 1.2. In 2011, we processed a million claims again. We
received 1.3 million claims. Sir, I am pleased to announce that
this year, we will also hit a million claims.
The consequence of that receipt outpacing our ability to
produce places us at the beginning of a three-year run to end
the backlog. And let me describe, if I might take a minute, how
we are going to do that.
At a very high level, our strategy to make this happen is
we acknowledge the approximately 700,000 claims that we have in
inventory and we project that we will receive another four
million.
Our job in the next three years is to process 4.7 million
claims. How are we going to do it? There are three elements to
our strategy and approach to make that happen.
One begins with our people. Any great organization has got
to train, prepare. We are training our people in a new way,
more effective training, more of it, designed around a new
process. We borrowed from the Internal Revenue Service the
segmented lanes model. We are segmenting our lanes so all of
our receipts are now in three key areas and we are applying new
technology.
Let's face it. VBA is the land that technology passed by
for the last two decades. For whatever reason, there was not
adequate investment there and there was not adequate leadership
to make that happen. But today we have a plan. It is in place
and we are executing it.
And why am I confident that we can do it? For a couple of
reasons. One is that the technology that we rely on in part is
fielded in four pilot sites now and is going through user
acceptance testing. We will know, this Committee will know. I
look forward to come in reporting on our progress on the
technology.
We also have done the new training. It is at 18 locations
now and last week, we are rolling it out across the country.
The training works. Our training has improved quality by four
points in the last year. And, finally, the new process elements
working as well.
Think for a minute of the success story I just mentioned a
moment ago on GI Bill, Post-9/11 GI Bill payments. We have got
800,000 people on that program now. When we started this
journey three years ago, there was not a program for the new GI
Bill. There was no technology to support it and there was not a
process in place.
The same team that designed and implemented that system,
albeit smaller scaled than the claims that we are tackling, is
the team that is doing this now. So I am reasonably confident,
daunted but confident that we can do this and we will do it by
processing 4.7 million claims over the next three years with
better people, process, and technology.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Ms. Brown.
Ms. Brown. I will yield to Mr. Michaud.
The Chairman. Mr. Michaud.
Mr. Michaud. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and Ms. Ranking
Member, for having this very important hearing.
I also would like to thank our panelists as well and I want
to thank you, Mr. Gould, and the VA employees for all the great
work that you do providing services for our veterans.
And I know the secretary has made a lot of improvements
over the last few years, but we still have a long ways to go to
make sure that we can provide the adequate services that our
veterans have earned and deserve.
I have got a couple questions. My first one is at the end
of August, it came to my attention that the VA was moving
forward with regulations to implement a fix to the state
veterans home reimbursement rate issue. This has been an
ongoing problem for the Committee.
We finally were able to pass legislation, the Senate. It
went to the President. He signed it. And the VA started moving
forward with these regulations without first consulting with
the state veterans home and this clearly was not the intent of
Congress.
Secretary Shinseki received a letter from myself as well as
the chair and Ranking Members of both the House Committee on
Veterans' Affairs as well as the Senate Committee, a joint
letter from the four corners, stating the law and it is very
clear. The secretary should consult with the homes and that is
a big issue for me is the fact that that has not occurred.
So my question is, can you assure me that the VA will in
good faith meet with and negotiate with the state homes to
develop an equitable provider agreement, number one?
And the second issue is, when the VA meets with the state
veterans home, to have someone in there that actually can make
the decisions in that regard so they can hear firsthand some of
the problems.
This has been an ongoing issue since we originally passed
the law back in 2006 and I do not want to get in the situation
again where rules are implemented that will cause problems for
our veterans' homes throughout the country.
Mr. Gould. Mr. Michaud, I am glad you raise it. Very
simply, I think that we at VA have an obligation to do two
things under the Federal acquisition regulations. You know and
I am sure we will hear more about areas where we need to do
better in that score.
But I think we have got two principal obligations, an
obligation to transparency and an obligation to value. I cannot
promise that we will not be very tough negotiators at the table
looking to safeguard the expenditure of public funds, but I can
assure you as in our discussion represented that the law was
clear on that need to have a consultive process. And we will
certainly commit to do that. And I look forward to that
discussion.
Mr. Michaud. Well, I hope you do because the law is very
clear and that was a big concern not only of mine but the four
corners of both the House and the Senate that the process was
moving forward without that interaction which was required
under the law. So I appreciate that.
My second issue, and it is a frustration I know that both
sides of the aisle have on this Committee and I know staff,
republican staff and democratic staff has as well, is a lot of
times when we ask for information from the VA, we do not get
it. And it is not in the form that we asked the information and
that is really frustrating.
It is not because, I know myself anyway, but I am not sure
about other Members, but it is not that we are going to try to
get you by asking that information. It is because we have a
reason for asking it.
A good example is back in June when we were discussing the
claims backlog within VBA, the concern in the inspector
general's report was that VA employees were rushing through the
process to get a claim done, therefore the accuracy rate has
not been anywhere near where it should be.
So taking that consideration with the employees feeling
they have to rush through, my question to General Hickey at the
time was, is there any benefit for an employee as far as how do
you rate the employee as far as doing a good job or a bad job
and how do you determine that.
At that time, she stated that they do have a metric system,
I cannot remember, that is a 93 or 98, you know, question
metrics that they go through on how they evaluate the employee
for accuracy, for timeliness getting claims done.
So my question was, well, can the Committee see that
metrics. Since that is how they are evaluating employees, it
should be there, should be in place. We have not seen that 93
or 98 metric system that we asked for back in June. Instead we
received some, you know--well, we received information that was
not a 98 metric system.
So I guess my concern is not getting the information that
we asked for from the VA so we can do a better job in
evaluating how the VA is doing.
Mr. Gould. And, Mr. Michaud, first of all, as Congressman
Brown said, you know, one team, one mission here. Our number
one job is to take care of our veterans.
One of the roles that this oversight Committee plays is in
bringing issues of poor performance to our attention and
getting it done. I put your request in that category, informed
by the notion that how you manage and rate your people and
measure their performance is a critical part of improving our
ability to process claims.
I can say that this Committee has not been remiss in the
level and vigor of its oversight. In the last three years, we
have had 214 hearings. We have had 1,400 a week came up and
said, look, we have got an issue, we want to explain what is
going on here. We have had 4,400 official requests for the
record and 54,000 constituent requests.
By any stretch, that is a great deal of work for a
dedicated team of some 40 individuals who work at VA. I can
only offer that we are challenged to get the volume of requests
and the quality that you demand, that this Committee demands,
to apologize for it and know that it has not fallen off the
table. We will get that information here.
And I personally know that the performance evaluation
system, the performance metrics by which our employees are
measured in VBA is changing. Labor and management have worked
together to develop a new set of standards to willingly hold
each other to a higher standard and to evaluate performance
based on group productivity.
So we look forward to share that information with you and I
will go back to our team and renew with questions to get that
information to you.
Mr. Michaud. Well, thank you very much.
And I just want to reiterate she said they had it, so it
was not that they had to create anything new and just a matter
of giving us what we asked for, not something that we did not
ask for.
Mr. Gould. Yes, sir.
Mr. Michaud. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Roe. [Presiding] I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Just a couple of short questions. One, 54,000 constituent
requests sounds like a lot. And you have what, 300,000
employees in the VA system? I get a thousand requests every 90
days in my congressional office for services. And we had 2,000
the first six months of this year and we have got seven people
doing that.
So we do ten percent of what the VA does and that is in
three years. We do 4,000 requests a year as every congressman
and woman up here do, I think. Probably everybody has about
that request. So that is not an overwhelming--it sounds like a
lot, but we also see the same thing.
Secondly, I want to start by thanking the VA. This Monday
in a driving rainstorm in Sevierville, Tennessee, we opened a
CBOC. Three hundred people showed up in the driving rain. That
is the support that you get for veterans around the country.
And I think that is one of the best programs that the VA
has is to take its care to the people, not have them drive
great distances to get this care. And I think it means a lot to
the veterans. I think the quality of their care goes up because
they will access it more.
So we had a local mayor, county mayor who made available
space for a dollar a year for the VA to lease, an extremely
generous offer even the VA could not turn down. So I want to
just put that plug in because that is a very positive thing.
Mr. Walz and I yesterday co-chaired the Invisible Wounds
Caucus together and we had a hearing yesterday. And one of the
things that is counterintuitive is that the more people the VA
has hired, the suicide rate has gone exactly the opposite
direction we want it to. So hiring more people had not solved
the problem.
And we heard various solutions yesterday and I want to ask
some questions. VA working with non-VA assets, for instance,
not alone, other programs like that around the country because
what we hear and what we heard yesterday was vet on vet is more
effective. If you call up and talk to one--one veteran gets to
speak to another veteran, that this is extremely effective.
So are you all working with others outside the VA system?
Mr. Gould. We certainly are. And as a physician, as a
doctor, I know you know the challenges that we are facing.
I think the most interesting piece of data that we have is
that since 2005, the veterans who are under our care, that
suicide rate has actually gone down. So our approach is working
when veterans get in care.
At the same time in the last ten years in our country, how
many people died of suicide, 350,000, the equivalent of the
population of New Orleans, took their own lives. We have a
national crisis afoot and it is no surprise that the military
from which we draw those recruits is also challenged given the
unique stress and strains that we have placed on them.
We assert that our care is effective. We are hiring more to
create more access and as we had recently with our suicide
prevention line increased by 50 percent the number of people
who were there to answer that critical call.
Mr. Roe. Here's what Dr. Rudd yesterday told us and we have
heard this testimony before is that you clearly have the group,
you just get a group of the population, there is an incidence,
a background incidence of suicide in that group. But then there
are two other groups. There are groups of the number of
deployments and multiple deployments. The rate skyrockets.
Mr. Gould. Yes.
Mr. Roe. So that is where we need to look at a program and
we know out here, we need to do better screening and getting
mental health screening and getting people in the military.
But once you have seen two and three and four deployments,
that goes up. We know that number. And so that is where I think
obviously with DoD and VA, that is sort of out of your purview,
but we need to create programs with both of those to identify
those folks and be proactive in that. I think that is very
important.
Secondly, I want to know is that in the backlog, the claim
and backlogs of claims, when will a veteran like myself be able
to go on-line, let's say I have a claim, and can go on-line and
look where my claim is, can find it, look at it, because I have
been told ever since I have been here now for three years that
was going to happen? When is that going to happen?
Mr. Gould. You have been to the Web site and seen
eBenefits?
Mr. Roe. No, I have not. I just want to know if I am a
veteran and I have got a claim out there in claims land,
wherever it may be, and I do not know where it is and when it
is ever going to--and I have not heard from anybody in six
months, when can I type in my information and find out why it
is taking so long because we were told that was going to occur?
Mr. Gould. And correctly. It is in the eBenefits functional
suite. Today there are 46 different things that you can do on
the eBenefits Web site. And today I am happy to announce 1.9
million people have visited that site. So it is a web-based
tool to be able to get information from VA including the status
of claims.
Mr. Roe. The question I am asking is, that is all good and
fine and dandy, but the question I am asking is, am I going to
hear something in 30 days because I have got a house payment to
make or am I going to hear something in six months? When am I
going to get some resolution for me?
Mr. Gould. Well, I will answer that on a couple of levels.
I mentioned earlier that we have processed now at the end of
this year almost four million claims. So there are four million
people that have that answer.
If your answer is prospectively when can I use the web to
get that information in the future, that is part of our roll-
out.
Mr. Roe. That is the question I am asking. My questions
have not been answered yet. My question is, when a veteran in
my district or any of these districts that we represent goes
on-line with this backlog, where am I in this process? Am I
going to hear something in two months or three months or when
am I going to hear something?
Mr. Gould. So a couple ways you can get that information.
Call your VSO and they will enter the system or call a service
provider.
Mr. Roe. But what we were told was the veteran would be
able to electronically go to their iPad or their computer and--
--
Mr. Gould. Yes.
Mr. Roe. --be able to find out the status of their claim.
Mr. Gould. Yes.
Mr. Roe. I mean, I know it is a tough situation. But is
there in the foreseeable future, is that going to happen?
Mr. Gould. Yes. As I mentioned a moment ago, it is part of
our transformation plan, the technology component, and the very
system is already deployed called eBenefits. That will be the
place that your member can go to find the status of their
claim.
And today 1.9 million people already do that, get
information from the VA on the web. They can do it today. It is
a deployed system. And we continue to add to it on natural
basis every 60 to 90 days new functionality. So we are eagerly
anticipating growth in the use of that capability.
We also have a new phone system in place, a veterans'
relationship management, and, of course, we have new people who
are trained to take a phone call and answer that question by
phone. A little bit more conventional, but, again, your member,
your constituent can get that information through a variety of
ways.
You are specifically asking about eBenefits. I am here to
tell you that capability is out there. There are 109 million
people using it today.
Mr. Roe. Okay. I am going to have to check that out.
Mr. Gould. Great.
Mr. Roe. I yield now to Mr. McNerney.
Mr. McNerney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gould, Secretary Gould, I was very impressed with the
list of accomplishments that you gave at the beginning of your
testimony.
And when we are back in our districts, we do not hear that.
What we hear are the complaints. And so that is what we bring
forward.
So I appreciate you making that list and I encourage you to
make sure that that is known throughout the community because
you have accomplished quite a bit.
Mr. Gould. Thank you.
Mr. McNerney. One of the things that I think is frustrating
as a Committee Member, and I have heard this already this
morning, is the quality of answers that we receive in Committee
when we ask questions and when we submit questions to the
Administration.
It is often felt that we are not getting the question
answered the way we wanted. The information is misleading or
cloudy. So I would encourage you to work within the VA to try
and get a culture where when we ask a question that the answer
is straightforward and answers the intent of the question. And
that might help with some of the tension that does exist
between the Committee and the VA.
Another area of frustration is the claims processing. I
have the Oakland regional district. A regional office serves my
district. And, as you know, there is problems. There has been
problems in the past. I know that you are making a big effort
to solve those problems.
And one of the questions I have for you is, do you feel
that there is sufficient oversight within the VA now moving
forward because we are going to get through this one way or
another? There may be some pain in between, but are we going to
have to face this again in five years? Are regional offices
going to fall behind again or is there a system in place to
make sure that we do not get to this place again in the near
future, five years or ten years from now?
Mr. Gould. Well, sir, thank you for the recognition of the
accomplishments that VA has achieved over the last several
years. We do not get to say it enough and we often have
hearings around issues that feel like we are just looking at
the missed blocks, the missed assignment, the dropped pass as
opposed to the number of times that we put points on the board.
And when I talk about that, I talk about the 800,000
additional people who are in school, the 20,000 people who are
in a home today that would have been foreclosed if not but for
our intervention, the half a million people receiving claims
that is equivalent to the entire standing active-duty army
today, and the increased access, that 800,000 veterans by being
a part of this wonderful health care system.
You know, I do not know how many of you saw the recent data
from one of the top American medical commissions. We have 19 of
the top hospitals in the country. There are 6,000 hospitals in
America. We only have 152 and 19 of them are in the top
hospitals in America. That is really amazing.
To your point about clarifying and getting better at
providing information to this Committee, sir, I will take that
back and we will redouble our efforts to do that.
One of the challenges is when we are asked for data, we
deliver it with a forklift. It literally takes dozens of people
to be able to go through. And, you know, we have got one
instance where we are going through emails. There is a half
million of them. You know, what do you do with a request like
that? It is challenging.
And, finally, our commitment to fixing this problem once
and for all on claims processing, you are right, we want to
build a system that is robust, that has got a strong management
infrastructure, and that will be able to solve this problem and
keep it solved.
We are doing that. As I have articulated earlier, our plan
has the three components, people, process, and technology. We
are confident that we can do that because this team that is
doing it is the one who successfully fielded the new GI Bill
which has got over 800,000 people in school today and has paid
over $21 billion worth of tuition. Pretty significant
accomplishments and we are confident that we are building the
right kind of management infrastructure to make that possible
in the future.
Mr. McNerney. Well, in the Oakland regional office, all the
claims are being brokered at this point in order for them to
catch up, but the brokered claims are not being--they are not
being followed. There is not the oversight through the Star
Program of the brokered claims.
Wouldn't that be important to know whether our brokered
claims are being processed accurately or not?
Mr. Gould. Yes, sir, it would. And it is one of the reasons
why the technology component of our transformation plan is so
important.
Imagine a world now where you want to broker a claim. And
what this term means is very simple, is go find the labor that
is available and match the available labor in the queue to that
claim so you can get it done more efficiently and what happens?
Our veterans wait less time. So that is our objective.
Today we do it by UPS and FedEx. Today we run the risk of
having those folders lost. We have got to docket them in on a
manual basis from, to, and so forth. With the VBMS System, we
will be able to broker that electronically and with it an audit
trail that gets generated so we know exactly where those claims
are going, who they were assigned to, what the status of that
is.
Mr. McNerney. And what is our timeline for that
implementation?
Mr. Gould. We are in user acceptance testing now. We will
have version 3.0 of that IT system by the end of this month,
version 3.1 by the end of October. It is delivering the
functionality now and, of course, as the system matures, it
gets better, it improves, we will be able to embrace more and
more functionality over time.
But it is out there. We are testing it now. This is not a
hypothetical or theoretical statement. We are doing the work
now in four locations.
Mr. McNerney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. [Presiding] Mr. Johnson.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Deputy Secretary Gould, veterans are reporting delays in
care and products like heart stents and prosthetics.
Do you have any insight into why this might be true?
Mr. Gould. And the particular things were heart stents----
Mr. Johnson. Heart stents and prosthetics.
Mr. Gould. Mr. Johnson, I do not. I can tell you what we
are doing to improve the quality of our acquisition system and
logistics supply chain, but I'm not aware----
Mr. Johnson. Well, I have a memo that you signed, Mr.
Secretary, on August 1st that explains VA's inability to meet
certain acquisition goals. And to that end, you have seemingly
prohibited the use of VA's national standardized contracts
until the next fiscal year.
This move has negatively impacted the care and services to
veterans and requires that VA provide reasons why this is still
occurring.
Mr. Gould. I disagree that that has. And the memo to which
you are referring, I assume, I have not seen it, has to do with
small business.
Every single individual on this panel knows that one of our
goals, our socioeconomic goals is to open up that $17 billion
supply chain at VA and get small business in the middle of it.
And we are firmly committed to seeing $34 of every $100 spent
to our small businesses. It means in your districts. It means
the business owners that some of you have been in your lives
depending on that opportunity. We are committed to opening it
up.
Mr. Johnson. Well----
Mr. Gould. So that letter----
Mr. Johnson. --the goals are not being met. Why would
VA's----
Mr. Gould. Sorry, sir.
Mr. Johnson. --prosthetics and sensory aid service need a
waiver for national contracts already vetted by the Small
Business Administration, VA's Office of Small and Disadvantaged
Business Utilization, and VA Form 2268? Isn't that a violation
of VA's contracts with these vendors?
Mr. Gould. No, it is not. Here is the goal that the
secretary set for us a year ago. It is a simple one. It says
$34 of every $100 in this massive VA system should be spent on
small business. It should be done competitively. It should be
done with an eye to value. One out of every three dollars. Over
the year----
Mr. Johnson. Let me ask you a question then. How many
contracts over $3,000----
Mr. Gould. May I complete my answer?
Mr. Johnson. How many contracts over----
Mr. Gould. Mr. Johnson, may I complete my answer?
Mr. Johnson. I have got your answer.
Mr. Gould. No. Actually, you do not have it.
Mr. Chairman, may I complete the answer?
Mr. Johnson. No. I have got five minutes----
Mr. Gould. Sir----
Mr. Johnson. --to ask questions, Mr. Gould.
Mr. Gould. But, sir, I would like to answer the question
and----
Mr. Johnson. No. We will get back to you if we have a
chance for you to finish that up.
Mr. Gould. And at the end of the day----
Mr. Johnson. I have got another question for you.
Mr. Gould. --our goal is to----
Mr. Johnson. How many contracts over $3,000--Mr. Gould, I
am asking the questions. Okay? I am asking the questions. I
have limited time. I do not have time for you to sit here and
debate this.
Mr. Gould. I am sorry. I thought you wanted a response.
Mr. Johnson. Okay. Well, I got my response.
Mr. Gould. All right.
Mr. Johnson. How many contracts over $3,000 were approved
versus those same contract values that were actually executed?
Mr. Gould. We can provide that information for you in
detail.
Mr. Johnson. Okay. I would appreciate it if you do that.
Of those total purchases over $3,000, how many went to
small businesses and how many waivers were issued?
Mr. Gould. I would be happy to provide that information for
the record.
Mr. Johnson. Okay. So you do not know a whole lot about
this program, Mr. Gould. You came here, you know, to answer
these questions and you have got to go back and look them up.
But I appreciate that. I thank you for that.
I think our veterans deserve better, but you and I differ
on that.
Mr. Gould. So do our small business owners.
Mr. Johnson. Why did----
Mr. Gould. They deserve an opportunity to participate----
Mr. Johnson. Why did the VA fulfill, Mr. Gould, why did the
VA fulfill----
Mr. Gould. --which they have not had adequately at VA.
Mr. Johnson. Mr. Gould, I am asking the questions. Okay?
Mr. Gould. Go ahead.
Mr. Johnson. Why did the VA only fulfill three percent of
its August 2012 single patient one to five day order contracts
that cost between $3,000 and $24,999? You got any idea?
Mr. Gould. Perhaps, Mr. Johnson, you do.
Mr. Johnson. No. I am asking the questions. You are
supposed to have the answers. This is a program that you say is
working so well. Why did VA only fulfill three percent of its
August 2012 single patient one to five day order contracts that
cost between $3,000 and $24,999?
Mr. Gould. Mr. Johnson, our goal is to make small
businesses----
Mr. Johnson. Do you have an answer? How many?
Mr. Gould. --have an opportunity----
Mr. Johnson. That is a number.
Mr. Gould. --to particulate.
Mr. Johnson. How many? I am not worried about what your
goal is. I know what your goal is.
Mr. Gould. We do----
Mr. Johnson. How many?
Mr. Gould. --$17 billion worth of transactions a year.
Mr. Johnson. How many did you fulfill?
Mr. Gould. You would like to know specifically----
Mr. Johnson. Yeah. I want to know how----
Mr. Gould. --how many transactions under $3,000 were----
Mr. Johnson. How many----
Mr. Gould. --performed less than five----
Mr. Johnson. Why did the VA only fulfill three percent of
its August 2012 single patient one to five day order contracts
that cost $3,000--between $3,000 and $24,999?
Now, I can only assume, Mr. Chairman, that he does not
know. And with that, I yield back the balance of my time.
The Chairman. And, Mr. Secretary, if you will take it just
for the record.
Mr. Gould. We would be glad to.
The Chairman. And we will move to Mr. Walz.
Mr. Walz.
Mr. Walz. I will yield my time to the deputy secretary if
he wanted to finish where he was at before.
Mr. Gould. Thank you so much, Mr. Walz.
This is a commitment we have to open up a business
opportunity at VA. It starts with a simple idea and a standard
that small businesses and small businessmen and women across
America have a challenge knocking down the door and doing
business with the VA.
So Secretary Shinseki established a goal early in the year,
$34 out of every $100. We saw over the course of the year
slight under-performance. We were 33.6 percent last year, $5.9
billion. We wanted to be that good or better this year
following a continuous improvement approach.
And we issued memos and took action to make sure that our
folks in the field knew and appreciated how much we were
committed to achieving that goal.
Thank you.
Mr. Walz. Yeah, I appreciate it.
And I would like to just follow-up on one thing. Dr. Roe,
as he said, he initiated the Invisible Wounds Caucus and trying
to bring all of us that we are all on the same team attitude.
And it was very enlightening to me.
And there was the clinician's perspective with Dr. Rudd who
has testified here before and has extensive knowledge, I
thought brought up a really interesting point. And I say this
more as a statement to all of us as a question.
Talking about how we talk about the suicides and things as
this incredibly complex issue that cannot be solved. He said,
in fact, it is not all that complex from a clinical perspective
at all. The issue is cultural. The issue is access to the care,
of asking for it and getting it.
Once you get someone in front of a clinician or in front of
someone who is there, we have very high success rates in
elimination of that. So I think all of us need to go back and
take a look at this.
Mr. Deputy Secretary, I thought you brought up a very good
point on this. We need to keep in mind that mental health
parity, the Wellstone-Domenici Bill that was passed five years
ago, HHS has yet to implement the rules on that.
We are not implementing that on the civilian sector side
and if we really want to get at the heart of this, the
complexity lies in the bureaucracy and the culture of the
delivery to the warriors as much as it is in those clinicians
being there.
So somehow we need to help to figure this out. And I think
it is a fair point to be said we may add as many clinicians as
you can possibly hire and we might not get to where we are
going because of that part. And that troubles me in terms of
caring for the warriors, but it troubles me in the money that
we are going to spend.
Are we attacking it from the right way? And I do not
necessarily expect you to--it is more of a comment, Mr. Deputy
Secretary, but if you have any insights on to that, I--because
all of our goal is very clearly here reduce the number of
suicides and provide opportunities for our veterans. Whatever
it takes to get there, I am on board.
And so this one really troubles me that I am not sure the
facts support the way we are heading. So----
Mr. Gould. Mr. Walz, thank you.
We all are seized by the notion that one single person that
commits suicide is too many both in the military and among our
veteran community and the civilian community as a whole.
Secretary Shinseki and Secretary Gates held the first ever
integrated mental health conference. Suicide was a component of
that. We are working hard together, closer than we ever have
before.
What we have to get into the fight in my view is the
highest quality mental health system, integrated mental health
system in America with over 20,000 folks turning up every day,
great people who want to figure this out.
We do understand that we do not have all the answers to
your point. We have got to embrace research and development in
this area. We have committed funds to that. We have got to be
open to new ideas and we have got to make sure that we are
working with our private sector providers to be able to augment
our own care and capability.
Mr. Walz. I think that is a great point. I think part of
our responsibility is, we got folks, our veteran service
organizations are deeply concerned that the core mission of the
VA is maintained. And so when we start talking about this, it
gets to be a little bit of scary territory for all of us as we
are starting to talk about reaching out in new ways.
But I do not see that traditionally the way we are going
that we are going to get to where we want to go without that.
And I think this is a place where we lead the civilian sector.
This is a place in many cases where we go forward and start to
show them how to deal with this.
And I would just leave again with one comment. Thank you
for all you are doing. I think I have said it time and time
again. You just said it, Mr. Secretary. This is a zero sum
proposition to our veterans, very, very difficult. We are not
talking Six Sigma here. We are talking infinity on it because
we cannot have one mistake. And that is just the nature of it.
And I thank all of you who do this. And I have said it time
and again, I will be your staunchest advocate, but your
harshest critic when the time is due.
The one thing I would just say from my perspective on this,
and I think you have heard it echoed, anything you can do to
try and provide the information in a more timely manner is
helpful to us.
If there is anything in Congress, this Committee takes its
oversight responsibility very seriously and we also, I think,
guard that legislative pejorative away from the Executive
Branch. That separation of power is very important to the
Members that are here.
And I think that intentions get misconstrued when the
information is not here regardless of what turns out in that
information. Just a thought because I know it is helpful to me
when I get it. And I know that the people are working very hard
over there, but anything you can do to help with that would be
helpful to us.
Mr. Gould. Thank you, sir. I will do that. I appreciate
that sentiment.
I just want to comment personally that every day I come to
this job, it is an honor and a privilege. I feel grateful for
being in this role and grateful for 320,000 employees at VA who
respond to those requests for information and are working hard
to get it here. We have got to do better. We will. At the end
of the day, it is our veterans that matter. That is why we are
here.
Mr. Walz. Thank you.
The Chairman. Dr. Benishek.
Mr. Benishek. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am just a little bit concerned about this mental health
problem and I just want to delve into it a little bit more. I
do not quite understand some of the numbers. You mentioned that
there was 13,000 people in the mental health staff and now
there is 20,000.
But in looking through the numbers, it seems to me that the
VA had decided to hire 1,900 new personnel for mental health
above the 1,500 that there are already vacant staffing
positions and that according to this IG report that there was
890 new mental health hires and there is still an estimated
3,800 existing mental health vacancies within the VA.
So what is the plan? I mean, is there an overall plan of
hiring and, you know, is there a plan for, you know, finding
places for these people to be at?
And I wish you would just give me a quick overview of what
the plan is because it seems to me that you have not achieved
any of these goals. And, you know, you talk about all these
goals, but not achieving them does not seem good. What's the
plan?
Mr. Gould. Thank you for that question.
I am really pleased to be able to say that since that IG
report came out, I do not dispute the facts, you know, that VA
concurred in the recommendations and analysis. Based on that,
our internal review and analysis supplemented by the IG's
analysis, we went out and put a plan in place.
We are proceeding on plan to be able to hire those
individuals.
Mr. Benishek. All right. Okay.
Mr. Gould. And we also included the vacancies to which you
are referring.
Mr. Benishek. Could you please forward the plan to the
Committee so we can take a look at it?
Mr. Gould. Sir, we would be happy to do that.
Mr. Benishek. All right. I also have some other information
here that recently there was a VA follow-up study of the
national cohort of Gulf War and Gulf War era veterans that was
done and apparently did not have a mental health professional
on the survey team. And, you know, some people who are
identified to have mental health problems, you know, they were
not followed up upon.
So I would like you to, and I am sure you do not know the
answer to that today, but could you please provide us with
that----
Mr. Gould. Certainly.
Mr. Benishek. --answer as well to the Committee? Do you
have a time estimate to determine when you think you are going
to have all these hires done?
Mr. Gould. Yes. As you have seen, the President's Executive
Order has come out, tasked us with additional hiring. We are on
track to have these individuals hired by the end of the year.
And so as we----
Mr. Benishek. There is 3,800 existing mental health
vacancies that will be filled by the end of the year?
Mr. Gould. The 1,900 to which the Chairman referred, 1,600
mental health and 300 support staff, those 1,900 will be hired
by the end of the year. We are confident of that. We are on
track.
As I mentioned earlier, 75 people being hired per week. We
think that that will happen. We are committed to that. We will
report to this Committee on that issue. We are confident that
we will meet that requirement.
Mr. Benishek. So you think this number is adequate then
because I understand that you have to evaluate a veteran within
14 days?
Mr. Gould. As I said earlier, this is a demand driven
system. So we have evaluated that demand has grown and we are
adding additional people into the fight.
Do I know if more people will show up and we will need
more? We may. And we are prepared to make that investment and
required.
What matters here most is making sure that our veterans get
the mental health care that they need.
Mr. Benishek. All right. What is the main obstacle to
reducing veterans' homelessness?
Mr. Gould. That is a great question. It is certainly true
that the causes of veterans' homelessness are many and
intertwined. I would say that the biggest causes are substance
abuse and a loss of a job. There are many, many other factors.
Our homeless team has deployed in such a way that we are
successfully reducing the amount of veteran homelessness in the
country. Twelve points last year on the HUD point in time count
clearly shows that we are heading in the right direction and we
are deploying the enormous resources that we have to do two
things.
One is rescue people who are homeless now. That is terribly
important. We see individuals on the street every day. We know.
Our hearts go out to them. We want to rescue. But our role is
to also prevent.
And our system is such that when someone is on the edge, we
have the ability with respect to health care, mental health,
economic support, training and education, voc rehab to pull
that person back from the brink.
And that idea of preventing homelessness is foremost in our
mind. We are going to continue to need to do it after we
eliminate veterans' homelessness in 2015.
Mr. Benishek. Mr. Gould, I look forward to your future
responses. Thank you.
Mr. Gould. Thank you very much.
The Chairman. If I could ask one question because I am
confused on the number of mental health providers. The number
that the President referred to was 1,900 additional and you
said, I think, 1,600 were clinicians, support 400 or whatever
the number.
Is that in addition to the 1,500 that were already vacant
at the time because I was led to believe through testimony, and
I am trying to find it now, that the answer was yes which would
mean that we had a deficit at that point of 3,500 or whatever
the number? So which is it? Is it 3,500 or less than that?
Mr. Gould. No, Mr. Chairman, your understanding is correct.
It is two things happening at one time. There are vacancies in
the system and this turn in the system, in fact, people
transferring from one place to another.
We obviously would not want to count that as a new hire.
That is somebody moving from, you know, Massachusetts to
Florida. All right? So it would be inappropriate for us to kind
of double count those.
And we have the specific positions that we published,
listed, and are tracking on a spreadsheet. That is the 1,900,
300 administrative support, 1,600 mental health professionals.
We want the time of those mental health professionals to be
leveraged. They should not be doing the scheduling and admin
support. So those two together comprise the 1,900.
We are tracking the 1,900. We are going to fill those on
time, on budget consistent with our commitment here, and we are
also looking to hire and fill these additional positions.
Mr. Chairman, the net effect of that will be many more
mental health professionals hired than just the 1,600 that I
mentioned. But for tracking purposes, we want to keep those
separate.
The Chairman. So you are tracking the hires but not the
vacancies or at least the numbers you are providing now are the
hires?
Mr. Gould. We are tracking both and, sir, we thought your
interest was focused on the 1,900.
The Chairman. It is, but----
Mr. Gould. So we are able to report on that. If you want us
to report on the other----
The Chairman. Can you tell me?
Mr. Gould. --we can do that.
The Chairman. Do you know what the vacancies are? I have a
number here and it is a little staggering, but can you give me
what your number is, see if it----
Mr. Gould. Sir, I would be glad to provide you----
The Chairman. Here is the number that I have and let's see
if it matches, but 3,833 existing and new mental health
vacancies. And, again, that is a number that I have.
Can you help me quantify that number? And you do not have
to do it now because Ms. Brown has some questions. But if you
would take that for the record.
Mr. Gould. We will be glad to do that.
The Chairman. We do have an idea because, I was concerned
at one time there may be double counting, that you were
counting new hires that were creating a vacancy. And, again, I
do not know if that is occurring or not.
But I think the important thing is that, if you are talking
about 75 persons a week, but if you have a natural attrition
of, 20 a week or whatever that number is, we are sliding
backwards again in our total number. So if you can just take
that for the record.
And let me go ahead and yield to Ms. Brown for her
questions.
Mr. Gould. Sir, we will do that, provide the information. I
think you will be happy to know the management team is focused
on the combination of those two numbers, the 1,900 plus these
vacancies together, a very big number, very aggressive. We will
be pleased to provide that information to you. And as I said,
we believe we are on track.
The Chairman. All right. Thank you.
Ms. Brown. Mr. Gould, first of all, I want to thank you for
your service and let you know that all the Members, if you have
anything that you wanted to say, I want to give you an
opportunity to say it before I ask my questions, when you were
interrupted.
Mr. Gould. Ma'am, I so appreciate that. Again, I say, and I
think, really, is coming out here at this hearing, an
opportunity for a balanced presentation of our many
accomplishments even as we acknowledge how much more work we
need to do, just at a very high level how proud we are about
the 800,000 new people who are in school. When you think about
that, that is eight years of the student population of all the
students at Florida State University, Ohio State University,
Virginia Tech. It is an enormous number. It is $21 billion into
the education industry. Pretty significant.
Ms. Brown. Sir, let me just tell you I want to thank you.
When we passed that program, I was so impressed. And then I
was home and I was watching the television and the veterans was
complaining about the program. I thought we were going to get
all hugs and kisses, but we got that program up in operation
and people are happy now.
But initially we had not gotten our payment. We have not
gotten our housing. But it was something that had to be worked
out with the universities and the VA.
And thank you so much for getting it done.
Mr. Gould. Yes, ma'am. Thank you.
I think this is our next greatest generation. This package
is like the World War II era and there is a million people in
school, 800,000 on GI Bill. They are going to be our future
doctors and lawyers and engineers and accountants and they are
going to make this country grow.
Ms. Brown. I have a letter. I went to California and I
visited the units that we did jointly with California. It is
four units, 100 per unit, 400 units of housing that is brand
new, fabulous facility, and sitting there empty. And I have a
real concern. I know that we built it. Sixty percent of our
money. Taxpayers cannot figure out, well, this is not the
Federal Government. This is the state.
And in the letter that you sent me back or somebody sent me
back saying, well, it is California. But if there is any way
that we can work it out, if we need legislation, because
basically 400 units should not be sitting a couple of years
waiting for California to get money to operate it. It should be
some way that we could partner with somebody to get--I mean,
400 brand new units and we are talking about the homeless. It
does not make any sense to me.
Mr. Gould. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Brown. And government should work for the people. It is
all taxpayers' dollars.
Mr. Gould. And just a pragmatic view about if you have got
400 units of housing ready to go, let's see how we can make
that final, get that final yard. Often we find ourselves in a
situation where we will have grant money and a state given the
economic downturn will not be able to meet that. That is
happening in several locations.
There is also a program that this Committee knows well, the
Enhanced Use Lease Program which we desperately want. You know
that we lost that authority in the prior year. It created 4,000
beds for homeless. In the system, we would very much like the
Committee to consider taking that up and working to make that
happen. It was a wonderful tool and we have lost it.
Ms. Brown. Yes, sir. And the other question, one of the
Members asked about being able to go on-line and get their
information. As you develop a system, I know the safeguards we
have to put in with the technology. I am not a technology
person, but we have had some incidents where people have even
gone into banking and stolen identities.
So as we develop this complicated system, we have got to
ensure that we protect our supporters, the people we are trying
to get the information to.
Mr. Gould. Yes, ma'am. One of the key components of our IT
architecture at VA is cyber security and being able to protect
personally identified information. That system from various
sources like all agencies in government is under attack.
We now have visibility down to the desktop level and the
device level to be able to prevent those kinds of intrusions.
Our CIO, Roger Baker, is working hard on that and we are very
committed to making sure that we protect our digital
information.
Ms. Brown. And the last question pertaining to minority and
women-owned businesses and you were talking a little bit about
how you are going to make sure that minorities and female-owned
businesses get included. In addition, when we put out that RFP,
why don't we make sure we include hiring of veterans?
Mr. Gould. Yes, ma'am. As I said earlier, we are trying to
open up the number of people who can participate and that those
dollars get right into the economy. They build small businesses
where 50 percent of the jobs are in America. Our secretary is
committed to make that happen.
The memo that I signed that Mr. Johnson mentioned was an
effort to make sure we met our commitments. It does not prevent
big business from doing business with VA. That is the other,
you know, 65 percent of the dollar flow, but it does make that
concrete, measurable, and specific effort to welcome into our
business opportunities small businesses, veteran-owned service-
disabled.
That is what we are about. We have just got to be able to
do that. And that is why we have worked so hard in the final
months of the fiscal year to make sure that we got every last
step of the way.
Ms. Brown. Well, once again, thank you for your service and
thank the VA for the job that they do.
Mr. Gould. Thank you, ma'am.
The Chairman. Piggybacking on what Ms. Brown just asked,
and you may have the answer, you may not, this is kind of
outside a lot of what we are talking about today, but at
Orlando, we know there are some delays with the construction of
the hospital. But there are some buildings that are complete.
When we did a field hearing down there a few weeks ago,
questions were asked in regards to the ability to activate the
domiciliary and the nursing home and the facilities that were
ready to go. We were told that we would look at those. There
was a way that it could be done.
Do you have a status for the Committee and if you do not,
if you could take that for the record too?
Mr. Gould. Mr. Chairman, I will take that for the record. I
can tell you that we appreciate your leadership on this issue.
One of our, you know, requirements is that we get value and
we do it in a transparent way. We have worked hard with this
vendor. We believe that we can still have that facility
delivered by summer of 2013. Our third-party advisors tell us
that that is possible.
We just need to see hammers swinging and folks showing up
to make this happen. It is incredibly important for our
veterans in the Orlando area. We want to get it done. And I
will be glad to provide additional information to you, Mr.
Chairman, that can flush out where----
The Chairman. I think this Committee would want to see any
facility that is complete activated as quickly as possible. And
I know that that would be a goal of yours too.
I would ask in all respect for transparency that in regards
to the timeline that you think that the facility can be
completed, if you would share the information, how that was
determined with the contractor that exists now.
I have heard comments from them that they are not being
afforded the ability to double check those numbers and see how
they were made. I think everybody is trying to fix an existing
situation and as long as communication lines remain open, I
think that we are going to see a fabulous facility when it is
finally completed.
And, again, if you would do that as well.
And with that, I would recognize Mr. Huelskamp.
Mr. Gould. Mr. Chairman----
The Chairman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Gould. --I will do that. And, sir, I would like to just
qualify that. Since we have issued a cure notice, there are
some set of legal restrictions that may impede my ability to
share that with you immediately, but we will certainly do that
and respect your request.
The Chairman. Is that the original cure notice or an
additional cure notice?
Mr. Gould. The original cure notice.
The Chairman. Okay. That's still hanging out there?
Mr. Gould. Well, once the cure notice is out, there are
certain things that the vendor has a chance to do and/or
produce. We have certain restrictions on what information we
can share the other way. It gets a little bit of an arm's
length process. You can understand transparent focus----
The Chairman. But you do understand, and I thank you, but
you are before this Committee making commitments that you feel
like the facility can be finished by the summer of next year.
Mr. Gould. Yes.
The Chairman. And, again, obviously the contractor is not
here to be able to defend their position as well. We all want
it to be finished as quickly as possible, but I think it is
only fair that if you are going to make public statements
regarding the completion of that project and you are going to
say that the contractor should be able to finish it based on a
timeline that they did not develop, now you are going off a
third-party vendor.
I understand the Army Corps is now looking at the timeline
as well or were being asked to do that. And I understand. And,
again, I am a little confused on the cure situation because I
thought we were passed that. Obviously you are saying that we
are not.
But, Mr. Huelskamp.
Mr. Gould. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Huelskamp. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, Mr. Gould, I would like to talk a little bit about VA
spending. In your testimony, you did mention there has been at
least one recent concern where it was called into question. Of
course, there are a number of other instances as well beyond
the HR conferences in Orlando last summer.
You have got some of the issue about senior VA employees
receiving thousands of dollars in bonuses, national golden
games issue in Hawaii last year which is more than double or
triple the cost of games in previous years.
And obviously when we are looking at our Nation and some
pretty dire straits financially, we want to make certain every
single spare dollar at the VA goes to veterans' care and not
some of these other spending issues.
I did send you a request for some information about last
year's VA conferences more than five weeks ago. When do we
expect a response on that?
I know in your testimony, you talk about delivering data by
the forklift. All we wanted is a very limited set of
information from last year. When we will get a response? I know
the Committee has asked for some information as well.
Mr. Gould. Sir, I would be glad to provide that information
for the record. We have got your request and we will certainly
respond to it.
Mr. Huelskamp. The question is when? It has been five
weeks. The data is over a year old. The data is spent. The
money has gone out the door. The question is how much did you
spend on those conferences and when will I expect a response?
Mr. Gould. If you will allow me to go back and find out the
answer to your question, I will do that, sir, and get you a
firm date.
Mr. Huelskamp. And that is what bothers me is we do not
have the information. We do not have a firm date. You have your
CFO right there. This is dollars that were already spent. You
have already put the dollars out the door. How much did we
spend on that conference?
And, Mr. Grams, maybe you can share what is the problem
finding the data? Is there mismanagement? Is the data not there
yet? Is it not in the system? And that is what is troubling.
Mr. Gould. And I do apologize. I am sorry. I thought you
were asking me a question about--at one point, you asked about
SES bonuses. But your question is actually to conferences at
Orlando. And I agree with you that Mr. Grams would be a great
resource to answer that question.
Mr. Grams. Congressman, my understanding is that what you
are talking about, the conference cost has been submitted to
the Committee. So we have got a communication issue here. I
need to go back and check on that. I came up here today
believing you had that information.
I know last year, we talked here at the Committee. We spent
last year about $100 million on conferences. I believe you had
asked for a further breakout of that figure. And as I said, we
came here believing you had that information. But we will go
back and find out where it is.
Mr. Huelskamp. Well, in addition to the----
The Chairman. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Huelskamp. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Real quickly because I asked. I wrote a
letter to the Secretary along with the Ranking Member, Mr.
Filner, in August, August 16th. We have not received a response
from that particular inquiry.
And, again, within that letter, there was the conflict
between the original testimony of $20 million a year and then
subsequent testimony that you provided that was $100 million.
We were asking for, help us rectify those two numbers and bring
them together. But we have not received that I am aware of any
response in regards to those numbers.
Mr. Grams. If it would help, can I explain that difference
now?
The Chairman. Yes.
Mr. Grams. Okay.
The Chairman. And if you would, freeze the clock.
Mr. Grams. Sure. The difference between the $100 million
and the--I mentioned the $100 million to you when I was up here
last November. My understanding is you were then submitted a
figure of $20 million a few months after that.
As a general rule, it does not apply to every conference,
but as a general rule in the VA, about 80 percent of the cost
of an average conference is for travel to take the employees to
that conference so that they can attend.
The difference is that the $100 million figure I gave you
is all inclusive. You asked me how much we spent, so I gave you
a number that reflected what I believe was all the costs
involved in the conferences that we did last year.
The $20 million figure you were given was a different
interpretation of the core costs of the conferences which
excluded travel. And that is roughly that 80 percent difference
for most conferences that goes to travel.
Mr. Huelskamp. I appreciate that. I also had requested a
list of all the attendees. Obviously that clearly has not been
received of who attended that conference.
I also asked you more recently some information about the
golden games. It is interesting you mention 80 percent of the
cost of events is travel. There is a $1 million expenditure for
an event planner and for the golden games in Hawaii. It is
interesting the golden games in Hawaii according to the
information on a governmental Web site, it was double or triple
the cost of previous golden games in the mainland.
And when do I expect an answer for those questions,
especially that $1 million cost for an event planner because I
thought you did that in-house? So your response on that?
Mr. Gould. Sir, if I might, the issue to which the
congressman is referring is the world's largest rehabilitative
event. I am sure some of you have been to see these before. You
know what goes on there. They are extraordinary opportunities
for rehabilitation. They are opportunities for individuals to
demonstrate to others who thought they might never walk again
or compete again to do so, 55 and over.
Several years ago in 2007, we received a request from the
governor of Hawaii, Linda Lingle, and also Senator Akaka who
had his last Chairman's meeting just the other day in the
Senate both wrote letters to VA, expressed a desire to hold the
games there.
What we saw was an opportunity since these are largely
Vietnam veterans to bring them through the point of debarkation
for the Pacific where they fought and served our country for--
--
Mr. Huelskamp. Mr. Gould, I am about out of time. When can
I expect a response, especially given that----
Mr. Gould. We certainly can----
Mr. Huelskamp. --Hawaii golden games and then you hired
somebody in Alaska for $1 million as the event planner?
Mr. Gould. Yes.
Mr. Huelskamp. And so I appreciate a response. And quickly
on that in reference, this is financial data that is over a
year old in some of the questions from the Chairman. And that
data should be readily available and should be made readily
available, I think, to the Committee and to myself as well.
So thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you. Thank you very much.
I have a couple more questions that we will just go ahead
and submit for the record. Thank you for your time.
I would like to briefly touch on the Haley Medical Center
issue in regards to the taping of a patient and their family in
a room without their consent using a covert camera. And it
appears that we at the Committee are loggerheads now legally
with the interpretations that are being provided.
My question is, do you think that it is appropriate to
videotape somebody in their private hospital room without their
consent because that is what happened at Haley?
I know what the background is, but this was not a camera
that is like any of these cameras in this room. This was a
camera that was disguised as a smoke detector. And so I would
like to know if you have any information that you can provide
in regards to where we are at this point.
Mr. Gould. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
We obviously place the highest priority on delivering high-
quality, safe medical care to our veterans. We have actually
two kinds of observation systems in VA. One is a traditional
surveillance system. We cover nurses leaving parking lots late
at night to get their car, main areas----
The Chairman. I understand and the Committee understands. I
want to talk specifically about a video camera that was hidden
inside of a smoke detector.
Mr. Gould. We do not believe that the camera was hidden. We
believe that the family was informed. A sign was placed in the
room and posted.
This patient who was comatose and on a ventilator had to be
watched, a medical standard of direct line of sight. We could
not have a nurse sit in the room with that individual. Imagine
the impact on privacy there.
What we had was a nurse monitoring a camera----
The Chairman. But you do----
Mr. Gould. --in the room.
The Chairman. Excuse me. You do do one-on-one patient
monitoring; do you not?
Mr. Gould. Where it makes sense to do so, we do.
The Chairman. Where does it make sense to do so? With a
comatose patient, that would not make sense?
Mr. Gould. So imagine a comatose patient how unusual any
movement would be. They are completely unable to communicate or
talk with their care provider. What you need to see is a----
The Chairman. If the patient cannot communicate, then who
does communicate, their family. Okay.
Mr. Gould. That is correct.
The Chairman. So here are the facts as I understand them. A
covert camera, hidden inside of a smoke detector and that is
not disputed, that is exactly what took place, was installed
without notice or consent of the family of the patient.
Now, claims have been made that notice was given after it
was installed. That is what was told to me by the director
herself of the center. But there was no requirement for
consent. And subsequent to that, we have now found out that it
was not just monitoring. It was also taping what was going on
in the room.
And so my question is, where are we now because I have been
told that VA is now coming up with a policy how to deal with
that?
I also understand, and if it is your testimony that that is
an appropriate way to monitor a patient, why was the camera
taken down because it is not there?
Mr. Gould. Well, the patient has transferred to another
facility at this point.
The Chairman. I know they have been transferred, but prior
to the transfer, the camera was removed.
Mr. Gould. There is no doubt in my mind that front-line
staff were under extraordinary stress, that relationships
between the family and the front-line medical staff were
strained.
I can imagine that all kinds of emotional content were
involved in this set of decisions. But as physicians, as
medical care providers, what our absolute number one priority
is, is the security and safety of our patients.
To accomplish that in this instance, we believe that having
a camera placed on a comatose patient with a ventilator was the
appropriate way to render care safely and securely in that
environment.
In my belief, it eliminates the possibility that a nurse is
going to leave the room. It allows for that seven by 24 hour
care.
And, Mr. Chairman, I also understand that we have a large
amount of information that has been delivered to your
Committee, to the staff on this issue. We are ready to
disclose, provide what information is needed to get to the
bottom of this.
But my position is here in testimony that our number one
priority is safety and security of patients. We accomplished it
with that camera. And that is how this patient was cared for
during the time that they were comatose, unable to respond or
communicate their desires to our staff other than having that
seven by 24 hour observation device on them.
The Chairman. Okay. We will agree to disagree because I
guess common sense where I come from would say just put up a
camera. If you are going to put a camera up, just put a camera
up where people can see it. For some reason, somebody made the
decision to hide the camera. It was installed without notice.
It was installed without consent.
What is interesting to me, and I am not an attorney, is
that there is a claim that consent is not required within a VA
facility. And, again, the family tried many times to draw
attention to the fact that they did not give consent.
And while this is small in comparison to a $140 billion
budget, it is not to the family nor to the patient. And we will
continue to move forward.
I just thank you for the update. I did receive the update
that the patient had been transferred and I know that that was
something that the family had desired to move him closer to
their own home facility.
And with that, Mr. Stutzman.
Mr. Stutzman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Mr. Gould, for being here and your service
as deputy secretary.
My question is regarding oversight of contractors. And my
understanding is that the VA inspector general works to provide
oversight with regard to these contractors and has reviewed
hundreds of CBOC clinics resulting in important corrective
actions.
My question relates to the bad actors or contractors
providing care to our veterans in a clinic who may have
systematic deficiencies that result in poor care.
What do VA contractor officers do in review of bids to
determine if a bidder has these systematic problems?
Mr. Gould. Thank you.
Obviously we reach out and get a lot of our services and
products from the private sector, about $17 billion. One of the
things that our contractors do is when they award on a
competitive basis, they do something called evaluating prior
performance.
So in a folder, and they call folks when they evaluate
prior performance and other agencies and say how did this
person do, they look to evaluate electronically whether they
performed their duties appropriately and that is a factor that
goes into the qualification of a contractor in rendering
services.
We do not always get it right and sometimes contractors
work to hide that information from the VA, but our folks are
committed to making that kind of assessment and make sure we
have got good quality providers working in VA.
Mr. Stutzman. So if a bad actor seeks a bid in a new VISN
where it is not currently operating, what steps, if any, does
the VA contractor officers take to research the bidder against
the inspector general's reports, media reports, or VSO reports?
Are contracting officers supposed to check to see if the VA IOG
has significant concerns regarding the CBOC contractor?
Mr. Gould. We are working to make sure that that process
works properly in several different ways. One is making sure
that the individuals who are making that decision are trained
and certified to do it. And we put an enormous amount of energy
and effort in making sure that that has happened over the last
three years.
New technology, the Electronic Contract Management System,
so called ECMS, and lastly an enterprise data system that
allows us to for the first time understand who has purchased
what for what purpose and where in our organization for 95
percent of our buy in a day's time.
So the monitoring systems that we have strengthened go
directly to your issue of making sure that information is
shared, that things like prior performance are known.
Mr. Stutzman. Do you have any report on the monitoring
process or what results you are seeing?
Mr. Gould. I would be glad to provide that information for
you on the record, sir. If you are aware of any report or
additional information that you would like to bring to my
attention, I would be pleased to----
Mr. Stutzman. Okay. If you could provide an update, that
would be helpful.
Mr. Gould. Thank you.
Mr. Stutzman. All right. With that, Mr. Chairman, I will
yield back the balance of my time.
The Chairman. Mr. Turner.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I can only say as a veteran and my brief work here on the
Veterans' Committee, I think the VA does a pretty good job. Our
job here, as you know, is oversight and to find fault. And we
will continue to do that. And you continue to do a good job and
we will meet in between.
Thank you. Yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Mr. Gould. Mr. Turner, on behalf of the 320,000 employees
at VA, thank you for that comment.
The Chairman. Ms. Brown, any questions?
Ms. Brown. No. I am finished for today. Thank you very
much.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Mr. Gould, thank you.
Mr. Grams, thank you very much for being here.
All Members will have five legislative days to revise and
extend their comments.
And with that, this hearing is adjourned.
Mr. Gould. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11:54 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
Prepared Statement of Chairman Jeff Miller
Good morning, and welcome to today's Full Committee hearing
Entitled, ``Veterans Affairs in the 112th Congress: Reviewing VA's
Performance and Accountability.''
VA is to be commended for some of the areas we will examine today.
For example, the number of homeless veterans is declining. VA reports
that on any given night, the number of homeless veterans has fallen
from 76,000 in 2009, to 67,500 in the latest report in 2011. We have to
sustain that effort and address root causes of homelessness, but at
present, I am pleased that the goal of ending homelessness by 2015 is
within reach.
Also on the Positive side, the default rates on VA guaranteed loans
continue to be lower than non-VA backed loans. Given the turmoil in the
housing market, the success VA has had in keeping veterans in their
homes is laudable.
Finally, I would like to congratulate VA on the aggressive manner
in which it prepared for and promoted the Veterans Retraining
Assistance Program, or ``VRAP,'' part of our effort to reduce veteran
unemployment. With the VOW Act's goal to retrain 99,000 veterans using
the Montgomery GI Bill, as of Tuesday, VA had received 58,432
applications and approved 45,205.
So, VA, keep up the good work.
Despite these successes, progress isn't being made fast enough, or
at all, in other key areas. On the important issue of mental health
care, too many veterans either do not seek assistance or are unable to
get VA care in a timely manner. As a result, access to mental health
care is in crisis.
In April, the VA Inspector General released a report finding that
more than half of the veterans who seek mental health care through VA
wait fifty days - that's five-zero days - on average - to receive an
evaluation. These are men and women who have taken the brave and
difficult step of seeking help - and they are waiting too long to
receive it.
Interestingly, just days before the IG report was released, VA made
a surprise announcement that it would be increasing mental health staff
by 1,900. It is undoubtedly important to ensure proper staff are in
place to meet the increasing demand for mental health care.
But, here's the problem: there are already almost 1,500 mental
health professional vacancies in the VA system which means that 1,900
new hires equates to a net gain of 400. As of mid-July, VA had hired
less than 900 employees as part of this effort. Follow-up requests by
Committee staff for additional information have gone unanswered.
Meanwhile, data continues to show that eighteen veterans per day
commit suicide, and five of those were receiving VA care at the time of
their death.
We must do much better.
Another area of continued concern is the backlog of disability
claims. Notwithstanding pledges by VA officials that we're about to
``turn the corner,'' the backlog has steadily increased throughout the
past two years. At the beginning of this Congress, the number of
pending claims was 764, 476, with 39.4% pending for more than 125 days.
As of this month, that total number of claims pending increased to
897,767, with 66.4% pending over 125 days.
The Department's refrain has been that overall production is over
one million claims annually, and that the Agent Orange claims presented
a challenge, but the simple fact remains that more claims continue to
be filed than processed with no end in sight. Although this
administration has promised that the backlog will be eliminated by 2015
and that claims will be processed with 98% accuracy by that time, quite
frankly, I am worried about whether this goal remains realistic.
In addition, the Committee has frequently been told that VBA's
transformation plan is the answer to these problems. Although we
certainly commend VA for realizing that comprehensive changes are
required to bring VBA into the 21st century, the Committee has yet to
see an actual plan, in writing, with clear benchmarks and deadlines. We
have yet to see this plan despite making three separate requests, both
during hearings and in writing, which have all gone unanswered. I would
like to continue working with the Department on bringing VA into the
21st century, and we will best be able to do so by being provided with
a written copy of the transformation plan.
Finally, although VA has been more fortunate than other agencies in
the resources it has received in this tight economic climate, the
bureaucracy has helped itself to those resources rather than channeling
them to direct services for veterans.
VA's Senior Executive Service (SES) bonus program continues to
average nearly $4 million in annual payouts, with no apparent
correlation between these bonuses and agency performance.
The Committee is also addressing the issue of lavish conference
expenditures. I and Ranking Member Filner sent a letter to VA over a
month ago asking for detail of how over $100 million dollars was spent
in 2011 on conferences, and we've received no response.
The government was on the verge of both a shutdown and default last
year. Thus, the fact that VA cannot describe how over $100 million
dollars was spent is outrageous. Despite promises of better fiscal
stewardship from the administration, these are glaring examples of
serious shortcomings that need to be fixed.
There is more I could have touched on in this statement, but I'll
wait for questioning. We have a lot of ground to cover today, and we
look forward to hearing from the VA panel on these important topics.
Prepared Statement of Hon. Corrine Brown,
Acting Ranking Democratic Member
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you holding this hearing on the VA's
performance and accountability during the 112th Congress.
I look forward to finding out from the VA the progress it has made
in addressing concerns raised by this Committee. I also look forward to
hearing from the Deputy Secretary how, in his view, the VA has become
able to meet its responsibilities to provide health care and benefits
to our veterans.
I believe this is an important point that we should not forget: for
all the faults we find with how the VA operates, at the end of the day
it is providing services and benefits to millions of veterans and their
families. Because the VA generally does a good job, it makes it even
more important that it proactively address problems that arise the
hinder the VA's ability to assist veterans.
Sometimes it is easy to forget that our role is to provide needed
oversight to the VA. In the final analysis, we are all in this
together, working hard to take care of our veterans.
So I look forward to the Deputy Secretary's update on how the
oversight concerns raised by this Committee have been addressed, how
the VA is better today than it was yesterday, and what improvements and
actions we should look forward to in the future.
Prepared Statement of Hon. Russ Carnahan
I would like to thank Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Filner, and
Members of the Committee for holding this hearing. I want to begin by
recognizing the efforts of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and
congratulating them on their successes in the past year. Two VA
campaigns, The Veterans Crisis Line and Make the Connection, have been
particularly noteworthy, consequently earning forty-three awards for
excellence. Another case between the VA and the Department of Housing
and Urban Development reduced veterans' homelessness by 12% and won the
distinguished Samuel J. Heyman Citizens Service Medal. The VA has even
committed $28 billion to finding homeless veterans homes that they have
a chance at keeping, affecting 25 states across the Nation, including
my home state, Missouri.
In summary, we have done well for our veterans, but now, sixty
years after the establishment of the VA, we must renew our commitment
to provide the men and women who have served our country in uniform
with the health care services they have earned. Our troops are
committed to protecting our freedom, and our commitment to them does
not end when they return home.
The VA offers health care treatment and services to our Nation's
veterans who suffer from service-related physical or mental
disabilities. While the diagnosis of physical injuries typically is
made before or shortly after separation from the military, mental
illnesses may not manifest themselves until years later. As the United
States military and the VA continue to improve treatment for those who
have served, there remains a gap for veterans struggling with mental
illnesses.
The frequency of possible diagnosis for mental health disorders is
estimated at 43.7 percent of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi
Freedom veterans who have received Veterans Administration treatment. I
encourage you to protect veterans' rights to mental health care
treatment and services by supporting the Veterans Mental Health
Accessibility Act.
Currently, Afghanistan and Iraq veterans face a five year window in
which they must seek treatment for mental illnesses before losing their
higher priority status. Veterans from previous wars face harsher
bureaucratic obstacles. The Veterans Mental Health Accessibility Act,
which I introduced last March, would eliminate the five year window and
give veterans who served in combat from all military operations the
ability to seek treatment for service-connected mental illnesses,
regardless of when their conditions manifest themselves. This bill
would make the services and treatments that are available to
Afghanistan and Iraq veterans available to all veterans who have served
in combat in previous military operations such as the Second World War,
the Korean War, and Vietnam. I urge the members on this Committee who
are not already cosponsors of the bill to take action now.
It is our responsibility to care for the veterans who have defended
our Nation, and our continuing duty to prepare for the return of our
soldiers still abroad.
I hope today's hearing will shed some light on ways that we can
work together to guarantee our service men and women have the support
they need and deserve.
Prepared Statement of Hon. W. Scott Gould
Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Filner, and Distinguished Members
of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs: thank you for the
opportunity to be with you today to discuss the Department of Veterans
Affairs' (VA) accomplishments and challenges.
I am accompanied by W. Todd Grams, Executive in Charge for the
Office of Management and Chief Financial Officer. I want to thank the
Committee for its ongoing partnership in our common commitment to serve
our Nation's Veterans. We appreciate your support - especially the
continued robust funding that is required to meet the growing needs of
our Veterans. Our highest priority is to care for those who have borne
the battle, their families, and their survivors.
As the 112th Congress draws to a conclusion, we welcome the
opportunity to report on the challenges we have faced, the lessons we
have learned, and the great things that we have accomplished, all
within context of the vast array of services and benefits we provide to
Veterans across the globe, the number of Veterans we serve, and the
complex nature of what we do.
VA is second only to the Department of Defense (DoD) in personnel,
with 320,000 employees who directly touch the lives of nine million
Veterans and their families.
We have the largest integrated health care system in the country.
It includes 152 hospitals, over 800 clinics, 300 Vet Centers, more than
130 community living centers, and dozens of research facilities and
more. Since the start of this Administration, VA has handled more than
358 million medical encounters.
VA has issued over $21 billion in Post-9/11 GI Bill benefit
payments to over 802,000 individuals and their educational institutions
since the program's inception in August 2009. VA's life insurance
products help protect seven million clients. And, just since the start
of this Congress, VA has guaranteed over 756,000 home loans for
Veterans and Servicemembers. We are gratified that more Veterans are
coming to us for the benefits they have earned. That success also
creates the challenge of meeting increased demand.
In 2009, we settled on three key priorities, which remain unchanged
today:
A commitment to increase Veterans' access to VA benefits
and services;
A commitment to eliminate the benefits backlog in
compensation claims--in 2015; and
A commitment to end Veteran homelessness--also in 2015.
My testimony today, consequently, will be organized around the
challenges and achievements and challenges in these three areas: (1)
increasing Veteran access, (2) improvements in claims processing; and
(3) ending Veteran homelessness.
VA is proud of the progress it has made in increasing access to
quality health care for Veterans. Our goal is not just easier
availability, but access to the highest quality healthcare in the
United States. We continue to innovate to provide better health care
that is closer to the Veteran. VHA's ASPIRE program offers Veterans,
their families, and the public the opportunity to examine detailed data
on any VA medical center's performance in safety, effectiveness,
efficiency, timeliness, and other areas.
VA has taken this a step beyond the usual level of performance
reporting, in that we do not simply accept being better than others in
many metrics as satisfactory; rather, we aspire to the highest level of
performance, especially when it comes to patient safety. The robustness
of our performance measures allows VHA to identify practices that help
improve outcomes versus those that do not, and to transfer these best
practices across the system to improve the care we deliver as a whole.
Awareness of performance inspires leaders at all levels to constantly
improve by instilling a sense of excellence among peers, and providing
the best possible care to Veterans is a powerful motivation for all VHA
employees.
Access also means more points of service. Since 2009, VHA has
funded the opening of 51 new community-based outpatient clinics (CBOC)
located in rural areas nationwide and supported the opening of 40 new
outreach clinics that, at a minimum, provide primary care, on-site case
management, and access to specialty mental health care. We will always
do everything in our power to find ways to reach out to Veterans in
need.
VHA has dedicated great resources and innovative thinking to
improving access to quality health care in rural areas. It is a
national leader in establishing telehealth capabilities. In FY2011,
clinical video telehealth, home telehealth, and store-and-forward
telehealth provided care from more than 150 VA Medical Centers and 750
CBOCs to more than 380,000 Veterans. We expect this number to increase
by an additional 100,000 in FY2012. Telehealth provides access to more
than 35 areas of specialty care, reduces the need for travel, and
provides high levels of patient satisfaction. VA and Veterans further
benefit by reducing the number of bed days of care and reducing travel
costs. VA has established three regional centers for post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD) telemental health to augment services among
facilities and networks. VA has also been involved in the launch of the
PTSD Coach smartphone application, the first in a suite of mental
health applications for mobile devices.
We are very proud of the VA Primary Family Caregiver Support
Program, which has been accepting applications since May 9, 2011.
Congress put forth a major effort to create this program, which is a
significant new benefit for families who are sacrificing to provide
seriously injured Veterans with care day-in and day-out. As of August
30, 2012, there are over 5,900 primary family caregivers - and the
Veterans they care for - who are benefiting from this important new
source of support.
Access to quality mental health services is a vital priority. In
2005, at the height of operations in Iraq, we had 13,000 mental health
professionals handling the health care needs of our Veterans. Today,
there are more than 20,000, and we recently announced our plans to hire
1,600 more clinical staff, bringing our total mental health staff up to
approximately 22,000 professionals - to address the growth in mental
health requirements spawned by the burdens of a decade of combat
deployments shouldered by our all-volunteer force and their families.
One of our most successful outreach efforts is our Veterans' Crisis
Line. DoD knows it as the Military Crisis Line--using the same phone
number and the same trained VA mental health professionals to respond
to calls, with no cost to DoD. Since 2007, over 640,000 people have
called in, including over 8,000 active-duty Servicemembers. We have
made over 99,000 referrals for care and rescued over 23,000 from
potential suicide. Younger Veterans may be more comfortable with
chatting and texting, so in 2009 we added on-line chat, and in 2011, a
texting service. We know that when we diagnose and treat, people get
better. Among the 8.6 million Veterans enrolled in VA health care, the
total number of Veterans receiving mental health treatment has increase
from 897,643 in FY 2005 to 1,338,482 in FY 2011.
At the same time, for Veterans receiving VA treatment, suicide
rates are down because treatment works. In FY 2009, the suicide rate
among individuals with mental health or substance use disorder was 56.4
per 100,000, as compared to 23.5 among patients without these
disorders. This continues a steady trend of lowering rate ratios
observed since FY 2001, when the rate among patients with mental health
or substance use disorder diagnosis was 78.0 as compared to 24.7 among
patients without these diagnoses.
Vet Centers are a very successful way we are reaching Veterans and
families with support and counseling. In FY 2011, Vet Centers provided
189,811 Veterans and families with 1,377,028 visits, a 9 percent
increase in direct counseling services from fiscal year 2010. This
included providing 18,553 Veteran families with 91,716 visits.
Another area of increasing progress is access to quality health-
care that meets the needs of women Veterans. Women make up 15 percent
of today's active duty military forces, and about 337,000 are currently
using the VA health care system. The population of women Veterans using
VA is increasing at a rapid pace--doubling in the last decade. To meet
the needs of this growing Veteran community, VA is enhancing care and
access for women Veterans by implementing Comprehensive Primary Care
and designating a staff member as the women's health liaison at each
CBOC. VA also applauds the Congress' recent enactment of a measure that
allows us to establish a child-care pilot that is serving as a great
help to Veterans by on-site child-care at select VA medical centers,
making use of their health care benefits that much easier. That law
also allowed VA to provide a period of care for newborn children of
Veterans receiving maternity care.
Mr. Chairman, I believe that access includes to job opportunities,
and to all the tools VA can offer to help those making the transition
from military service. In August 2011, the President directed DoD and
VA to lead the Veterans Employment Initiative (VEI) Task Force and
provide recommendations to maximize the career readiness of all
Servicemembers.
I would like to applaud this Congress for passing the ``VOW to Hire
Heroes Act of 2011,'' which included steps to improve the existing
Transition Assistance Program (TAP) for Servicemembers. Among other
things, the VOW Act made participation in several components of TAP
mandatory for all Servicemembers. VA and DoD have made progress in
implementing VEI Task Force recommendations and preparing for the
requirements of this law.
The VOW Act also created the Veterans Retraining Assistance Program
(VRAP) for unemployed Veterans between the ages 35 and 60 years old.
VRAP provides up to 12 months of training assistance towards an
associate's degree or certificate in a high-demand career field for up
to 99,000 Veterans. As of September 7, 2012, over 55,000 Veterans have
applied for the program. It also provides tax incentives to companies
that hire Veterans, and extended VA's special employer incentives under
our Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment program.
VA is proud to have partnered with the First Lady's ``Joining
Forces'' initiative and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's ``Hiring Our
Heroes'' campaign. The President challenged private companies to hire
or train 100,000 Veterans and military spouses by the end of 2013. To
date, 2,100 companies have committed to 175,000 hires, and 125,000
Veterans and spouses have already been hired. VA held its own hiring
fairs in Washington, DC, and Detroit, Michigan, earlier this year. Over
12,000 Veterans participated, and over 8,000 interviews were conducted.
More than 1,700 job offers were made on the spot, and participants
continue to receive offers.
VA also conducted two Veteran-owned small-business training
expositions in the past 12 months--our opportunity to educate Veteran
small business owners on our procurement requirements and allow the
3,500 who showed up to demonstrate their capabilities and improve their
preparation of competitive proposals for government contracts. The
bottom line is this: Veterans hire Veterans. So the more successful
Veteran entrepreneurs we cultivate, the better the opportunities for
Veterans employment.
Access also means affording Veterans opportunities in federal
contracting. Under the Veterans First Contracting Program, VA greatly
expanded opportunities for service-disabled Veteran-owned small
business (SDVOSB) and Veteran-owned small business (VOSB). In FY 2011,
preliminary data indicate that VA's total award to small businesses was
nearly $5.9 billion, or 33.3 percent of all VA procurements. This far
exceeded the national goal of 23 percent for small business
procurements. Additionally, VA surpassed the government minimum of 3
percent for SDVOSBs, and its own internal goal of 12 percent for VOSBs
and 10 percent for SDVOSBs, with 20.5 percent going to VOSBs and 18.2
percent going to SDVOSBs.
Access for VA also means ensuring that Veterans have every
educational opportunity available they have earned through their
service. As of September 10, 2012, VA issued over $21.4 billion in
Post-9/11 GI Bill benefit payments to over 802,200 individuals and
their educational institutions since inception in August 2009. Since
the program's enactment, VA has implemented multiple legislative
changes to the Post-9/11 GI Bill, without disrupting the flow of
benefits to students. These changes included expanding Veterans'
educational options under the Post 9/11 GI Bill to include technical
on-the-job training and apprenticeship programs. This expansion makes
Post 9/11 GI Bill educational offerings consistent with those under
other benefits programs and allows beneficiaries to pursue shorter-term
training prior to entering the job market. VA has also developed a
processing system that automates components of the education claims
process and continues to focus on timely benefits delivery. Full
automation of a subset of claims is expected this Fall.
VA also is taking steps to support Veterans on campus. The
Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (VR&E) VetSuccess on Campus
(VSOC) program is designed to provide on-campus benefits assistance and
adjustment counseling to Veterans. The program encourages Veteran-
students to complete a college education and prepare to enter the labor
market in viable careers. As of September 10, 2012, 28 VSOC sites were
established at campuses throughout the country that provide outreach,
counseling, and benefits assistance to Veteran-students and their
families.
Access also means the honor of interment at one of VA's 131
national cemeteries. NCA has opened six new national cemeteries since
2009, and lowered the Veteran population threshold to allow improved
access for more Veteran families to better avail themselves of benefits
those Veterans have earned. In addition, since 2009 VA has awarded
grants to support the opening of 15 new State Veterans cemeteries and
four tribal Veterans cemeteries. Since 2009, VA has helped expand
existing State cemeteries and assisted them in achieving higher
standards and appearance and service through $65.9 million in grants to
28 cemeteries. NCA continues its extraordinary record of customer
service, receiving 94 points out of 100 on the American Customer
Satisfaction Index in 2010- the highest in either the federal
government or the private sector. NCA was also awarded the Achievement
in Excellence Award by the State of Virginia, the highest award given
by the state in 2011.
A critical aspect of access is making VA and DoD work together as
never before to serve those men and women making the transition from
Servicemember to Veteran. Providing a `seamless' transition between VA
and DoD is a complex and multi-faceted challenge, but it is vital to
ensuring care for those who have served this Nation. As Secretary
Shinseki and Secretary Panetta stated in testimony before this
Committee in its joint hearing with the House Armed Services Committee
in July, we have brought our Departments closer together than ever
before.
As we highlighted in that hearing, DoD and VA have increased the
number of Servicemembers and Veterans whose electronic data is shared
between the two Departments by 1.1 million. That 1.1 million increase
includes the increased sharing of:
23 million more laboratory results;
3.6 million more radiology reports; and
24 million more pharmacy records.
As this Committee knows, the Integrated Electronic Health Record -
or iEHR--is an ambitious effort that will take some time, but VA and
DoD have committed to a fully operational iEHR no later than 2017, with
clinical capabilities deployed in Hampton Roads and San Antonio in
2014--a significant challenge, but one that is critical to achieve for
our Nation's Veterans and Servicemembers. The result will be a single ,
standard open architecture and modular electronic health record system
that will improve quality and lower total costs for VA and DoD.
In the July joint hearing, VA highlighted progress in getting
Veterans access to their benefits information through online tools such
as Blue Button and eBenefits. The Blue Button is a joint program
between the Department of Health and Human Services, DoD, and VA that
provides Veterans on-demand access to personal health information at
the click of a button, delivered in a format that is easy to read and
accessible without any special software. President Obama announced this
in the summer of 2010 and it was officially launched that October.
Today, [nearly?] one million Servicemembers and Veterans have
downloaded electronic copies of their personal health records.
VA and DoD also have shown concrete results in the eBenefits
portal, the joint VA/DoD client-services portal for life-long
engagement with Servicemembers, Veterans, and their families. Thanks to
DoD leadership, Servicemembers now automatically sign up for eBenefits
when they enter service. eBenefits enrollment now exceeds 1.8 million
users, and VA expects enrollment to exceed 2.5 million by the end of
2013. The eBenefits portal provides over 45 self-service features to
check the status of a claim or appeal; review the history of VA
payments; request and download military personnel records; secure a
certificate of eligibility for a VA home loan; and numerous other
benefit actions. We aggressively continue to expand and update online
self-service and access capabilities. We are engaging our Veterans
Service Organization partners in registering Veterans for eBenefits
accounts. In the coming months, Servicemembers will be able to complete
their Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance applications and
transactions through eBenefits. Recent enhancements allow Veterans to
view their scheduled VA medical appointments. They will soon be able to
file benefits claims online and upload supporting information that
feeds our paperless process.
VA and DoD completed implementation of the Integrated Disability
Evaluation System (IDES) at 139 sites globally on September 30, 2011.
IDES is aimed at achieving an integrated process for wounded, ill, and
injured Servicemembers who face potential medical separations. We have
improved transparency and consistency of outcomes, while reducing
processing times between a Servicemember's referral for a fitness
determination and receipt of VA benefits. As of August 26, 2012, we
have reduced the processing time under the separate DoD and VA legacy
processes from about 540 to 395 days. Our goal is 295 days. Total
processing time for the month of August, as of August 26, was down to
375 days. VA's portion of this goal is 100 days, and we have been as
low as 105 days before responding to surges in military departures. In
the month of August, as of August 26, VA processing time was 114 days.
Turning from access to VA benefits and services to the second of
VA's three top priorities, eliminating the claims backlog is perhaps
our largest and most complex challenge. We are aggressively tackling
this challenge on multiple fronts. The disability claims workload from
the newest generation of returning Veterans, as well as from Veterans
of earlier periods, continues to increase. VBA's annual claims receipts
increased 48 percent over the last four years, from 888,000 in 2008 to
1.3 million in 2011. The growth in disability claims volume is driven
by a number of factors, including:
Additional presumptive disabilities associated with Agent
Orange exposure,
New regulations for processing certain claims related to
Gulf War service, traumatic brain injuries, and post-traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD);
Growth in the average number of medical conditions for
which each claimant files;
Improved access to benefits through the joint VA and DoD
pre-discharge programs such as the Integrated Disability Evaluation
System (IDES);
Ten years of war with increased survival rates;
Successful extensive use of VA of outreach programs
encouraging more Veterans to submit claims; and
Post-conflict downsizing of the military.
Several of these factors, including the addition of presumptive
disabilities associated with Agent Orange and regulatory changes, were
the result of VA decisions to expand benefits during this
Administration. These decisions - the right ones to make for our
Veterans - dramatically expanded access to benefits and services. In
the face of an increasing workload, VBA must deliver first-rate and
timely benefits and services - and they must be delivered with greater
efficiency. These decisions make it critical that we dedicate the right
resources, technology, and innovation to eliminating the backlog.
VA also is pursuing its Transformation Plan, a series of tightly
integrated people, process, and technology initiatives designed to
eliminate the claims backlog and achieve our goal of processing all
claims within 125 days with 98 percent quality in 2015.
Through people-focused initiatives, we are strengthening the
expertise of our workforce by changing the way we are organized and
trained to do the work. We are also increasing the productivity of our
workforce and the quality of our decisions through national training
programs and standards. We estimate that these ``people'' initiatives
will contribute to a 15-20 percent improvement in productivity and four
percent improvement in quality when fully implemented in all regional
offices.
Through process-improvement initiatives, we are rapidly developing
and testing streamlined processes, focusing on eliminating repetition
and rework in the claims process while delivering optimal service. We
expect our process initiatives to contribute to a 15-20 percent
increase in productivity and a minimum four percent improvement in
claims quality when fully implemented nationwide.
These increases in productivity cited above due to people, process,
and technology improvements are additive.
Through technology Initiatives, we are deploying solutions that
improve access, drive automation, reduce variance, and enable faster
and more efficient operations. Our new paperless claims processing
solution, the Veterans Benefits Management System (VBMS) is a key
component in eliminating the backlog. Our technology initiatives aim to
improve access and increase efficiency, with goals to contribute to an
additional 15-20 percent increase in productivity and a four to six
percent improvement in claims quality.
VBA has implemented the Transformation Organizational Model (TOM)
at 18 regional offices to date. Thirty-eight regional offices will
implement TOM by the end of December 2013. VBMS, a key component of our
technology solutions, is currently being piloted at four regional
offices and will be deployed to all stations by the end of 2013.
Our third top priority is to use all the tools at our disposal,
including partnerships with other Federal agencies, States, community
providers, and volunteers to end Veterans Homelessness. VA offers a
comprehensive continuum of homelessness services which are coordinated
with community efforts. We want to thank the Committee for its
partnership and commitment in this effort - it is truly appreciated.
When HUD, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, announces
its 2012 Point-in-Time estimate of homeless Veterans, we expect
additional progress to be made and to stay on track to end Veterans'
homelessness in 2015. Between the 2010 and the 2011 point in time
counts, veteran homeless has decreased nearly 12 percent.
VA's Loan Guaranty Program has also played a part in this effort.
Since January 2011, VA has helped over 119,000, or 82.5 percent of,
defaulted VA borrowers avoid foreclosure. This foreclosure avoidance
assistance translated into an average estimated $4.2 billion in
foreclosure claim payments avoided. In many cases, VA intervened,
working with Veterans' financial institutions to lower interest rates
and payments or modify loan repayment terms to keep Veterans and their
families in their homes.
In addition, VA's National Cemetery Administration has implemented
a new Homeless Veterans Apprenticeship Program in collaboration with
VHA and VA Learning University. This program will create paid
employment positions as Cemetery Caretakers - successful completion of
twelve months of training will result in permanent full-time
employment.
Leadership
We cannot talk about achievements and challenges without talking
about the leadership, management, and organizational structures
required to make change happen. Good will and dedication are not
enough, and we owe it to Veterans and taxpayers to provide the best
return on every dollar appropriated to meet the Nation's debt to our
Veterans.
In 2009, the Department of Veterans Affairs faced significant
internal and external challenges. Despite a cohort of dedicated,
caring, and committed employees, the organization was experiencing
problems. President Obama seized the opportunity to initiate a sweeping
transformation of VA, with the goal of creating a more effective and
efficient organization. He charged Secretary Shinseki to transform VA
into a high-performing 21st century organization. VA launched a
transformation effort that emphasized:
Cultural Change: This critical facet of the
transformation binds all transformation initiatives together, enabling
VA to change its relationship with Veterans fundamentally--treating
them as clients and continually emphasizing new and better ways to
serve them. To that end, Advocacy is a prominent value among the five
core values that imbue our work at VA with purpose including:
Integrity, Commitment, Advocacy, Respect, and Excellence.
Modernization and Innovation: VA facilities, systems,
programs, and business processes required updating and cutting-edge
technological solutions.
Integration and Collaboration: Critical to the
transformation was the integration of disparate support services,
including Information Technology (IT), Human Resources (HR),
Acquisitions and Logistics, and Financial Management. Additionally,
serving Veterans necessitated an enhanced collaborative relationship
with the DoD and other federal entities. To that end, the Secretaries
of VA and DoD have met an unprecedented 10 times since 2009, and for
the first time ever, testified before a joint hearing of this Committee
and the House Armed Services Committee in July 2012 to report on our
collaborative efforts..
Disciplined Decision Making Based Upon Data, Metrics, and
Performance Monitoring: VA has developed and deployed a comprehensive
performance management system. Program planning is informed by
evaluation of program efficiency and effectiveness supported by new
measures of critical success factors.
Access and Responsiveness: To become a more accessible
and responsive organization, VA needed to expand and enhance its
connections with Veterans, and emphasize accountability and
transparency through improved outreach, use of new media as well as
traditional field visits.
VA's transformation also required fundamental changes in management
infrastructure to coordinate operations across business lines and hold
managers accountable for effective delivery of services. This required
closer integration of four major organizational components of VA: VBA,
VHA, and NCA, as well as the VA Central Office (VACO) policy and
program staffs. New and more robust business systems support unity of
action through better oversight, consolidation of support services, and
enterprise-level efforts aimed at serving Veterans in a more
comprehensive and holistic fashion. For example, eliminating Veteran
homelessness required budget allocations and project management support
from VACO, as well as health professionals from VHA; housing and
employment specialists from VBA; and IT systems to integrate, track,
and unify the effort. As an example of utilizing all of VA in this
integrated effort, NCA is offering job apprenticeship opportunities for
Veterans who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.
Public outreach was coordinated with members of Congress, our
Veterans Service Organizations, and the media. That outreach also
helped galvanize the activities of State and local governments, as well
as non-profit and faith-based organizations on whom our success
depends.
Tighter integration also requires leaders to work within a more
transparent governance process so that senior leadership can achieve
their respective transformation objectives by leveraging three
resources:
People--Human resources for strategic management and
staffing;
Money--Sufficient budgetary resources for the right
programs; and
Things--Modern and innovative IT systems as well as our
extended supply chain for goods and services, and other enabling
technologies.
As a result of the focus on these management drivers, VA has
reduced the average time to hire VA employees from 102 to 87 days;
trained 300,000 employees through the VA Learning University (VALU);
implemented the Project Management Accountability System (PMAS),
increasing VA's accountability for IT projects with on-time delivery to
over 80 percent; established the Strategic Acquisition Center (SAC) to
leverage VA's spending power and improve contracting and procurement
activities; produced a long-term strategic investment plan to identify
gaps and optimize utilization of capital resources; developed and
deployed over 20 dynamic performance dashboard views to support
executive decision making; and issued security access cards known as
Personal Identity Verification (PIV) cards to nearly 100 percent of VA
employees, contractors, and affiliates. These changes in internal
capabilities have enabled more effective and efficient delivery of
services and benefits to Veterans.
I want to address the issue of training conferences, as there was
one recent well-publicized instance that called into question VA
stewardship of taxpayer dollars. This particular conference occurred
before VA had taken significant steps to establish tighter controls and
more accountability for conference expenditures. I will make two points
- first, that VA is redoubling its efforts to prevent instances of
misuse of funds or wasteful spending. At the same time, we must be very
cautious not to curtail conferences that have demonstrated value in
training our employees and developing innovative approaches that
ultimately save money and serve our Veterans better. Hopefully, you
will see that VA's transformation efforts are providing value to the
Nation and profoundly changing our services to Veterans.
These actions will ensure real lasting progress on the Secretary's
three priorities: better access to quality health care, services, and
benefits, eliminating the claims backlog, and ending Veteran
homelessness.
Our team and our dedicated employees have achieved the following:
The number of Veterans receiving VA disability
compensation has increased by 21 percent from FY2008 to August FY2012;
Vocational Rehabilitation (Ch 31) participants increased
by 15 percent from FY2008 to August of FY2012;
The number of Veterans compensated for PTSD increased by
64 percent from FY2008 to August of FY2012;
Created an automated system, provided GI Bill benefits to
nearly 800,000 individuals since 2009- comprising nearly half of all
Veterans (or their eligible family members) who have served since 9/11
- over 800,000 individuals. The number of education beneficiaries
increased by 63 percent from FY2008 to August of FY2012;
Delivered average pensions of $11,000 into the hands of
more than 300,000 Veterans living at the poverty level, and $6,500 per
year to 250,000 of their survivors - caring for over half a million
elderly Veterans who otherwise might be destitute and potentially
homeless;
Through the VA Home Loan Homeless Prevention program,
kept over 83,000 Servicemembers, Veterans, and survivors in their homes
in FY2011 alone;
Life Insurance coverage for disabled Veterans increased
by 31 percent from FY2008 to August FY2012 ;
Created an internet eBenefits portal that is a ``place to
go'' for Veterans and Servicemembers for health care, employment,
insurance, disability compensation, and GI Bill information, and added
over 45 new capabilities;.
Built and piloted a paperless claims processing system
that will be the core of our effort to eliminate the claims backlog and
that lowered the average processing time from 250 to 115 days;
Expanded access to allow almost 700,00 more Veterans to
enroll in VA health care;
Delivered high quality health care to an additional
600,000 Veterans between FY2008 and FY2012;
Recruited over 150,000 Veterans in a cutting-edge study
evaluating genomic medicine;
Treated 12 percent more unique patients in VA Health Care
facilities increased from FY2008 to FY2012;
Opened the first new state-of-the-art medical center in
17 years in Las Vegas, as well as more than fifty CBOCs to deliver high
quality primary and mental health care to more than 215,000 Veterans
closer to home;
Trained over 4,000 mental health providers in evidence-
based psychotherapies for PTSD and other mental health conditions;
Identified locations for the development of five new
national cemeteries that will provide burial access to an additional
500,000 Veterans and their eligible family members. In total, VA plans
to provide 95 percent of the Veteran population - approximately 21
million individuals - with access to a burial option in a national or
state Veterans cemetery within 75 miles of their homes by the end of FY
2015;
Identified locations for the development of five new
national cemeteries and five new columbarium in urban locations;
Identified eight rural National Veterans Burial Grounds
to serve low-density Veteran populations; and,
Began our work with DoD to create the single electronic
medical record system that will serve over 15 million patients under VA
and DoD health systems every year;
As we have detailed here, these are big challenges that are
requiring our best minds and most determined and talented employees to
take on, and there is much work to do. I am grateful that Congress has
been both our partner and our constructive critic as we've forged
ahead.
Mr. Chairman, I will be glad to answer any questions you or the
other Members of the Committee have.
Questions For The Record
Responses from the Department of Veterans' Affairs
Question 1. An explanation of why there are more than 98 metrics in
the attachment for FY2012.
Response: Performance metrics span all business lines and vary from
year to year depending on current priorities. VBA issues Director
Performance Plans at the beginning of each fiscal year (FY) that
outline the performance metrics which they will be evaluated on at the
end of the FY. Because priorities and business lines vary by RO, the
number of metrics can change from year to year and be different from RO
to RO.
Question 2. The document/language that Diana mentioned explaining
the EOY evaluation process.
Response: Please see attached methodology for the FY2011 Director
Performance Rankings. The Office of Field Operations is currently
revising the methodology for FY2012. OFO is happy to have another call
to discuss the methodology if more explanation is needed.
Attachment
FY11 Director Ranking Methodology
October 2011
The FY11 Director Performance Ranking was done based on the
Organizational Performance element. A weighted method was used, meaning
each business line was assigned a specific weight within the
performance element, and each performance metric was assigned a weight
within its specific business line. Stations were rated on a five-point
scale, and then ranked on the number of points earned out of the
potential five points.
For example, Atlanta is a station with four business lines
(Compensation, Vocational Rehabilitation, Loan Guaranty, and
Education). Each of these business lines is weighted, and contributes
to the potential five points Atlanta can earn as a station.
Next, additional points were added to station totals based on that
station having extenuating circumstances affecting their FY11
performance, such as a D1BC or DRAS. Lastly, stations were split into
those having SES or GS-15 Directors, and ranked as ``Outstanding'',
``Excellent'', or ``Fully Successful''.
Organizational Performance Element
The Organizational Performance elements are weighted dependent upon
how many business lines the station has. Compensation is given the
largest weight, with the remaining weights being divided equally among
the additional business lines.
1 Business line = Compensation 100%
2 Business lines = Compensation 75%, Second 25%
3 Business lines = Compensation 65%, Second, Third 17.5% each
4 Business lines = Compensation 55%, Second, Third, Fourth 15% each
5 Business lines = Compensation 50%, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth
12.5% each
Business lines considered: Compensation, VR&E, Pension, Loan
Guaranty, Education, Call Center, IRIS
Element Point Values:
1. Each performance metric has a maximum value of 5 points
2. Points 1-5 are awarded based on the performance of each given
metric, as follows:
a. Outstanding (25% or better) = 5 points
b. Excellent (15% or better) = 4 points
c. Fully Successful (achieved target) = 3 points
d. Minimally Successful (15% below target) = 2 points
e. Unsatisfactory (25% below target) = 1 point
3. A performance improvement factor is also considered for stations
that were ranked below ``excellent''
a. Exceeding FY10 performance by 15% is awarded 1 point
b. Exceeding FY10 performance by 25% is awarded 2 points
4. A business line may not exceed 5 points total.
Once a point value is awarded, the weighting of the specific
performance metric within the business line is applied as follow:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I. Organizational Performance Weight
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Compensation (1 Business Line) 100.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Compensation (2 Business Lines) 75.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Compensation (3 Business Lines) 65.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Compensation (4 Business Lines) 55.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Compensation (5 Business Lines) 50.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homeless ADP 5.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rating Inventory 3.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rating Production 12.5%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rating Accuracy 12.5%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Authorization Accuracy 12.5%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiduciary Accuracy 12.5%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DOC Accuracy 3.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Backlog Inventory 3.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rating ADC (FYTD) 3.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rating ADP 3.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cycle Time Indicators 3.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOD ADP 3.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Form 9 ADP 3.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Remand Rate 3.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOD Inventory 3.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Non-Rating ADP 3.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FidBen Appt Pending 2.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FidBen Appt Processed 2.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IA Pending 2.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IA Processed 2.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Acct. Reviewed 2.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Acct. Not Seriously Delinquent 2.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Weight 100.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VR&E (2 Business Lines) 25.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VR&E (3 Business Lines) 17.5%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VR&E (4 Business Lines) 15.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VR&E (5 Business Lines) 12.5%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rehab Rate 20.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SEH Rehab Rate 20.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Outcome Accuracy 10.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Days to Entitlement 6.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Interrupted Status 6.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Evaluation and Planning 6.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal Accuracy 10.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EPRSA Accuracy 15.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Employment Rehab Rate 6.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MRG Accuracy 1.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Weight
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Weight 100.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pension (3 Business Lines) 17.5%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pension (4 Business Lines) 15.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pension (5 Business Lines) 12.5%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rating Inventory 6.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rating Production 15.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rating ADP 10.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Non-Income ADP 10.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EP 155 ADC (FYTD) 5.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EP 150 ADC (FYTD) 5.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EP 190 ADC (FYTD) 5.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IVM Completed/Controlled 5.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Authorization Accuracy 15.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rating Accuracy 15.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOD ADP 3.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Form 9 ADP 3.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOD Inventory 3.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Weight 100.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loan Guaranty (3 Business Lines) 17.5%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loan Guaranty (4 Business Lines) 15.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loan Production Full Reviews 8.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loan Production Timely Reviews 8.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LAPP Reviews 8.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SAPP Reviews 8.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
C&V Field Reviews 8.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Initial SAH Reviews 8.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AOS Timely 8.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Non-Routine ACQ Timely 8.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loan Production Accuracy 9.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
C&V Accuracy 9.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SAH Accuracy 9.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loan Administration Accuracy 9.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Weight 100.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Education (3 Business Lines) 17.5%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Education (4 Business Lines) 15.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Original ADC (month) 30.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Supplemental ADC (month) 30.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Payment Accuracy 40.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Weight 100.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IRIS (3 Business Lines) 17.5%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Accuracy 0.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Timeliness 100.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Weight 100.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Call Centers (3 Business Lines) 17.5%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Call Centers (4 Business Lines) 15.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Call Centers (5 Business Lines) 12.5%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quality Call Review 7.5%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Average Wait Time 7.5%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Client Satisfaction Index 50.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Agent Availability Rate 35.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Weight 100.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Potential Number of Points Per Station:
1. A station's potential point value is determined by the number of
business lines at that station, and the weights for those business
lines. Stations ranged from a maximum of 10.03 points available to a
minimum of 2.225.
% of Points Earned:
1. Once a total weighted point value is calculated, it is compared
to the total potential point value for the station.
2. Stations are ranked based on the percentage earned of the total
available points.
Adjustment Points:
1. Once stations were ranked on a % basis, point adjustments were
made based on Area Director discretion, to account for extenuating
circumstances that RO faced during the FY.
a. Stations with D1BC = 3 points
b. Station with partial year D1BC = 1 point
c. Nehmer brokering support = 1 point
d. DRAS stations = 2 points
e. DRAS support = 1 point
f. Quality Review Teams and Fully Integrated Teams
implementation = 3 points
g. ILAB = 3 points
h. Extensive brokering = 1 point
i. Extensive involvement in mid-term bargaining = 1 point
Final Ranking:
Final ranking based on percentage of station points earned, with
the Area Director adjustment factored in. Stations were split into
those having SES or GS-15 Directors, and ranked as ``Outstanding'',
``Excellent'', or ``Fully Successful''.
Prepared by the Office of Field Operations
06/26/2013
Regional Office Director
SES and GS-15
Performance Appraisal Plan
October 1, 2011-September 30, 2012
I. Organizational Performance - (Critical Element)
Weight: 60%
In support of Strategic Goals: 1, 2, 4
In support of Integrated Strategies: 1a, 1b, 1c, 1e, 2c, 2d
The Director leads his or her regional office in the pursuit of
optimum performance in all applicable program areas. Appropriate
emphasis is placed on the Secretary for Veterans Affairs and Under
Secretary for Benefits' priorities assuring that those priorities are
reflected in the regional office's performance. In addition, through
efficient and effective management, ensures that benefits and services
are provided in a timely, objective manner, with respect to speed,
accuracy, customer satisfaction, and employee development. Evidence of
this leadership will be observable in terms of performance against
established targets and goals. The Director assures that national
policy and procedural changes are expeditiously distributed, accurately
communicated, and effectively implemented. Directs and documents
actions taken to sustain sound quality assurance programs, workload
management processes, and internal control systems to effectively
oversee work accomplishments and minimize risks in all program areas.
The Director is also responsible for ensuring that programs and
policies are implemented, assessed through an effective internal
control process, and adjusted as necessary to achieve appropriate
results. Failure to meet any of the following sub-elements means that
the Director will be required to submit compelling mitigating reasons
why the sub-element was not met and to identify those actions that are
being taken to achieve the standard set in the sub-element. The Rating
Official will have the discretion to determine if the Director meets
the sub-element based on management actions taken rather than on actual
performance achieved.
Note: Clients include Veterans and their families. Customers are
defined as organizations inside VA such as administrations and staff
offices. Stakeholders refer to organizations outside of VA such as
VSOs, OMB, and Congress.
Sub-element 1: Transformation
Supports the implementation of VA's Major Initiatives and
Organization-Specific Initiatives, which execute the Department's
transformation in fiscal year 2012.
Initiative/Action Performance Goal: Leads and manages the regional
office which promotes a 21st century VA and ensures that organizational
and individual performance are Veteran-centric, Results-Driven and
Forward-Looking.
Veteran-Centric - Services and products provided by the regional
office are useful and beneficial as measured by achievement of service
delivery targets as outlined in Sub-element 2. Uses feedback to
continuously improve delivery of services and products. Works to
strengthen the relationship between the regional office and the
veterans served.
Results-Driven - Serves as an active participant in supporting
the Department's thirteen Major Initiatives and/or regional office
Initiatives. Communicates the Department's vision and holds self and
subordinate employees accountable for accomplishments through shared
goal setting. The leader works to strengthen the relationship between
the organization and its customers and stakeholders. The leader
supports a transformational approach by collaborating and partnering
with other VA offices and offices outside of VA to accomplish goals.
This approach results in achieving 60% of critical actions/designated
goals specific to mission and organization operating plan
accomplishment by the end of the fiscal year.
Forward Looking - Anticipates future needs of Veterans and VA
and encourages organizational and individual improvement. Demonstrates
commitment to the 21st century VA by ensuring that operating plans are
aligned with VA's Strategic Plan's strategic goals, integrated
objectives, and integrated strategies. Alignment is strong and evident
when the Department's strategic goals and objectives are cascaded down
to the specific goals of the organization. Then, the goals of the
organization must be clearly translated into objectives and performance
standards for each employee.
In support of Sub-element 1: Transformation, the Director actively
supports, promotes and implements official VA and VBA policy as
interpreted by VA and VBA leadership. The Director regularly
participates in activities and projects intended to further the goals
of VBA. These activities typically require the contribution of local
resources. Examples include, but are not limited to:
Projects at the National Level
Special ad hoc efforts
Evaluation Method: The Director's actions and conduct in regards to
policy will be observed. Any failures to actively support, promote and
implement official policy will be documented and communicated to the
Director. The Director may be assigned projects during the course of
the performance year. The Director and Rating Official will agree on
clear expectations for successful completion of the project at the time
of assignment. The size and quantity of these projects will be
considered in light of the size of the Director's regional office.
Fully Successful Performance Evaluation: Meets Performance
Expectations
Performance is acceptable if there is no documented failures to
support, promote, or implement VA or VBA policy, and the Rating
Official determines that completion of projects and innovations is
substantially equal (or equivalent) to agreed upon expectations.
Sub-element 2: Service Delivery
The Director leads his/her regional office in appropriate workload
and human resource management aimed at achieving national and regional
office-specific performance goal/targets.
The following end products will be removed from Veteran Service
Center calculations for regional offices maintaining identified special
missions.
Milwaukee, and St. Paul Regional Offices: 019, 119, 029,
180 series, 120 series, 140 series, 160 series, 165, 190 series, 137,
150 series, 155, 297
Philadelphia Regional Offices: 019, 119, 029, 180 series,
120 series, 147, 160 series, 165, 190 series, 137, 150 series, 155, 297
Winston-Salem and Salt Lake City Regional Offices: 011,
111, 021
Winston-Salem and San Diego Regional Offices: 017, 117,
027
Jackson Regional Office: 012, 112, 142, 022
Louisville Regional Office: Camp Lejeune Water
Contamination claims
Baltimore, Providence, and Seattle Regional Offices:
Disability Evaluations System claims (689)
Evaluation Method: Sub-element 2: Service Delivery will be
evaluated based on the Performance Scale for each individual Service
Delivery performance measure. The Performance Scale indicates the
performance level (Outstanding, Excellent, Fully Successful, Minimally
Successful, Unsatisfactory) for each measure assigned within this sub-
element.
It is important to note that the Performance Scale is specific to
each performance measure in Sub-element 2: Service Delivery, and is not
an indication of the Director's final overall performance rating, or
the aggregate rating for this sub-element.
In order to provide a mechanism that allows for recognizing
regional offices making considerable improvements during the course of
the fiscal year, an Improvement Factor is included. The Improvement
Factor provides for the increase of one performance level for each
performance measure that achieves a 15% improvement from the previous
fiscal year, and the increase of two performance levels for each
performance measure that achieves a 25% improvement from the previous
fiscal year. The Improvement Factor is applied to only to individual
performance measures and allows for the Director to achieve a higher
evaluation, should the regional office achieve considerable
improvement.
An example of the Improvement Factor is as follows:
Regional office A achieved a rating ADP of 265.0 during FY11.
During FY12, the regional office achieved a rating ADP of 198.6.
Although the regional office did not achieve the FY12 rating ADP target
of 180.0, the regional office did improve by over 25%. Therefore,
instead of achieving minimally satisfactory performance for rating ADP,
the regional office will have achieved excellent performance for rating
ADP, due to the application of the Improvement Factor, which increases
by two, the performance level for regional offices attaining 25%
improvement, per measure, from the previous fiscal year. Had Regional
office A only achieved an FY12 rating ADP of 225.3, an improvement of
15% from the previous fiscal year, the Improvement Factor would result
in Regional office A achieving fully successful performance for rating
ADP.
Although not included as a performance standard metric, for which
Directors will be evaluated, regional office-specific rating inventory
indicators are established, which lead to the national target of
840,000.
Additionally, the impact of workload brokering will be considered
as a mitigating factor for regional offices that broker work in to the
Veterans Service Center to address national workload needs.
VETERAN SERVICE CENTER COMPENSATION
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Performance Measure FY12 Target O E FS MS U
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
eBenefits TBD
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homeless ADP 75.0 Less than or 56.4 to 63.8 63.9 to 75.0 75.1 to 93.7 Greater than
equal to 56.3 or equal to
93.8
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homeless ADC (FYTD) 95.0 Less than or 71.4 to 80.8 80.9 to 95.0 95.1 to 118.7 Greater than
equal to 71.3 or equal to
118.8
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rating ADP 180.0 Less than or 135.1to 153.0 153.1 to 180.1 to Greater than
equal to 135.0 180.0 224.9 or equal to
225.0
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rating ADC (FYTD) 230.0 Less than or 172.6 to 195.6 to 231.1 to Greater than
equal to 172.5 195.5 230.0 287.4 or equal to
287.5
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Control Time 7.0 Less than or 5.4 to 6.0 6.1 to 7.0 7.1 to 8.7 Greater than
equal to 5.3 or equal to
8.8
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Awaiting Development 20.0 Less than or 15.1 to 17.0 17.1 to 20.0 20.1 to 24.9 Greater than
equal to 15.0 or equal to
25.0
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Awaiting Evidence 83.0 Less than or 62.4 to 70.6 70.7 to 83.0 83.1 to 103.7 Greater than
equal to 62.3 or equal to
103.8
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rating Decision 15.0 Less than or 11.4 to 12.8 12.9 to 15.0 15.1 to 18.7 Greater than
equal to 11.3 or equal to
18.8
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Awaiting Award 5.0 Less than or 3.7 to 4.3 4.2 to 5.0 5.1 to 6.2 Greater than
equal to 3.8 or equal to
6.3
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Awaiting 2.0 Less than or 1.6 to 1.7 1.8 to 2.0 2.1 to 2.4 Greater than
Authorization equal to 1.5 or equal to
2.5
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rating Accuracy 92.0% Great than or 97.9% to 94.7% to 91.9% to Less than or
equal to 98.0% 94.8% 92.0% 89.2% equal to
89.1%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rating Accuracy B2 Regional 25.0% better 24.9% to 14.9% to 14.8% to 25.0% worse
Errors Office 15.0% better Regional 24.9% worse
office Target
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Authorization 98.0% Great than or N/A N/A 97.9% to Less than or
Accuracy equal to 98.0% 95.1% equal to
95.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiduciary Accuracy 92.0% Great than or 97.9% to 94.7% to 91.9% to Less than or
equal to 98.0% 94.8% 92.0% 89.2% equal to
89.1%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date of Claim 98.0% Great than or N/A N/A 97.9% to Less than or
Accuracy equal to 98.0% 95.1% equal to
95.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rating Production Regional 25.0% better 24.9% to 14.9% to 14.8% to 25.0% worse
Office 15.0% better Regional 24.9% worse
office Target
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Backlog Inventory Regional 25.0% better 24.9% to 14.9% to 14.8% to 25.0% worse
Office 15.0% better Regional 24.9% worse
office Target
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Non-Rating ADP 89.0 Less than or 66.9 to 75.7 75.8 to 89.0 89.1 to 111.2 Greater than
equal to 66.8 or equal to
111.3
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOD Timeliness 182.0 Less than or 136.6 to 154.8 to 182.1 to Greater than
equal to 136.5 154.7 182.0 227.4 or equal to
227.5
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Form 9 Timeliness 320.0 Less than or 240.1 to 272.1 to 320.1 to Greater than
equal to 240.0 272.0 320.0 399.9 or equal to
400.0
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Appeal Control Time 7.0 Less than or 5.4 to 6.0 6.1 to 7.0 7.1 to 8.7 Greater than
equal to 5.3 or equal to
8.8
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Avoidable Remand 15.0% Less than or 11.2% to 12.7% to 15.1% to Greater than
Rate equal to 11.3% 12.8% 15.0% 17.3% or equal to
17.4%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOD Inventory Regional 25.0% better 24.9% to 14.9% to 14.8% to 25.0% worse
Office 15.0% better Regional 24.9% worse
office Target
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SPECIAL MISSIONS COMPENSATION (IDES)
Baltimore, Providence, Seattle Regional Offices
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Performance Measure FY12 Target O E FS MS U
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Claims Devel10.0nt Less than or 7.6 to 8.5 8.6 to 10.0 10.1 to 12.5 Greater than
ADC (FYTD) equal to 7.5 or equal to
12.6
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Preliminary Rating 15.0 Less than or 11.4 to 12.8 12.9 to 15.0 15.1 to 18.7 Greater than
ADC (FYTD) equal to 11.3 or equal to
18.8
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Final Rating ADC 20.0 Less than or 15.1 to 17.0 17.1 to 20.0 20.1 to 25.0 Greater than
(FYTD) equal to 15.0 or equal to
25.1
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rating Production Regional 25.0% better 24.9% to 14.9% to 14.8% to 25.0% worse
Office 15.0% better Regional 24.9% worse
office Target
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Backlog Inventory Regional 25.0% better 24.9% to 14.9% to 14.8% to 25.0% worse
Office 15.0% better Regional 24.9% worse
office Target
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SPECIAL MISSIONS COMPENSATION (PRE-DISCHARGE)
Winston-Salem, Salt Lake City, San Diego Regional Offices
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Performance Measure FY12 Target O E FS MS U
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BDD ADC (FYTD) 72.0 Less than or 54.1 to 61.2 61.3 to 72.0 72.1 to 89.9 Greater than
equal to 54.0 or equal to
90.0
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quick Start ADC 138.0 Less than or 103.6 to 117.4 to 138.1 to Greater than
(FYTD) equal to 103.5 117.3 138.0 172.4 or equal to
172.5
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rating Production Regional 25.0% better 24.9% to 14.9% to 14.8% to 25.0% worse
Office 15.0% better Regional 24.9% worse
office Target
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Backlog Inventory Regional 25.0% better 24.9% to 14.9% to 14.8% to 25.0% worse
Office 15.0% better Regional 24.9% worse
office Target
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SPECIAL MISSIONS COMPENSATION (RADIATION)
Jackson Regional Office
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Performance Measure FY12 Target O E FS MS U
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rating ADP 272.0 Less than or 204.1 to 231.3 to 272.1 to Greater than
equal to 204.0 231.2 272.0 339.9 or equal to
340.0
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rating Production Regional 25.0% better 24.9% to 14.9% to 14.8% to 25.0% worse
Office 15.0% better Regional 24.9% worse
office Target
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Backlog Inventory Regional 25.0% better 24.9% to 14.9% to 14.8% to 25.0% worse
Office 15.0% better Regional 24.9% worse
office Target
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SPECIAL MISSIONS COMPENSATION (D1BC)
Philadelphia, Togus, Columbia, Huntington, Roanoke, St. Petersburg, Lincoln, Muskogee, St. Louis, St. Paul,
Waco, Phoenix, San Diego, Seattle Regional Offices
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Performance Measure FY12 Target O E FS MS U
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rating Production Regional 25.0% better 24.9% to 14.9% to 14.8% to 25.0% worse
Office 15.0% better Regional 24.9% worse
office Target
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Backlog Inventory Regional 25.0% better 24.9% to 14.9% to 14.8% to 25.0% worse
Office 15.0% better Regional 24.9% worse
office Target
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SPECIAL MISSIONS PENSION
Philadelphia, Milwaukee, St. Paul Regional Offices
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Performance Measure FY12 Target O E FS MS U
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homeless ADP 75.0 Less than or 56.4 to 63.8 63.9 to 75.0 75.1 to 93.7 Greater than
equal to 56.3 or equal to
93.8
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homeless ADC (FYTD) 95.0 Less than or 71.4 to 80.8 80.9 to 95.0 95.1 to 118.7 Greater than
equal to 71.3 or equal to
118.8
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rating ADP 99.0 Less than or 74.4 to 84.2 84.3 to 99.0 99.1 to 123.7 Greater than
equal to 74.3 or equal to
123.8
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rating ADC (FYTD) 115.0 Less than or 86.4 to 97.8 97.9 to 115.0 115.1 to Greater than
equal to 86.3 143.6 or equal to
143.7
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EP 140 ADC (FYTD) 105.0 Less than or 78.9 to 89.3 89.4 to 105.0 105.1 to Greater than
equal to 78.8 131.1 or equal to
131.2
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EP 190 ADC (FYTD) 131.0 Less than or 98.4 to 111.4 111.5 to 131.1 to Greater than
equal to 98.3 131.0 163.6 or equal to
163.7
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rating Production Regional 25.0% better 24.9% to 14.9% to 14.8% to 25.0% worse
Office 15.0% better Regional 24.9% worse
office Target
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Backlog Inventory Regional 25.0% better 24.9% to 14.9% to 14.8% to 25.0% worse
Office 15.0% better Regional 24.9% worse
office Target
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Non-Income ADP 89.0 Less than or 66.9 to 75.7 75.8 to 89.0 89.1 to 111.2 Greater than
equal to 66.8 or equal to
111.3
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EP 155 ADC (FYTD) 46.0 Less than or 34.6 to 39.1 39.2 to 46.0 46.1 to 57.5 Greater than
equal to 34.5 or equal to
57.8
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EP 150 ADC (FYTD) 111.0 Less than or 83.4 to 94.4 94.5 to 111.0 111.1 to Greater than
equal to 83.3 138.6 or equal to
138.7
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IVM Controlled/95.0% Great than or 99.9% to 96.8% to 94.9% to Less than or
Completed equal to 96.9% 95.0% 90.1% equal to
100.0% 90.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Entitlement Accuracy 98.0% Great than or N/A N/A 97.9% to Less than or
equal to 98.0% 95.1% equal to
95.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Authorization 98.0% Great than or N/A N/A 97.9% to Less than or
Accuracy equal to 98.0% 95.1% equal to
95.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date of Claim 98.0% Great than or N/A N/A 97.9% to Less than or
Accuracy equal to 98.0% 95.1% equal to
95.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOD Timeliness 182.0 Less than or 136.6 to 154.8 to 182.1 to Greater than
equal to 136.5 154.7 182.0 227.4 or equal to
227.5
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Form 9 Timeliness 320.0 Less than or 240.1 to 272.1 to 320.1 to Greater than
equal to 240.0 272.0 320.0 399.9 or equal to
400.0
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Appeal Control Time 7.0 Less than or 5.4 to 6.0 6.1 to 7.0 7.1 to 8.7 Greater than
equal to 5.3 or equal to
8.8
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOD Inventory Regional 25.0% better 24.9% to 14.9% to 14.8% to 25.0% worse
Office 15.0% better Regional 24.9% worse
office Target
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SPECIAL MISSIONS FIDUCIARY
Indianapolis, Columbia, Louisville, Lincoln, Milwaukee, Salt Lake City Regional Offices
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Performance Measure FY12 Target O E FS MS U
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fid-Ben Appts. 90.0% Great than or 97.9% to 94.6% to 89.9% to Less than or
Pending <= 120 days equal to 98.0% 94.5% 90.0% 82.1% equal to
82.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fid-Ben Appts. 92.0% Great than or 97.9% to 94.7% to 91.9% to Less than or
Processed <= 120 equal to 98.0% 94.8% 92.0% 89.2% equal to
days (FYTD) 89.1%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Initial Appts. 90.0% Great than or 97.9% to 94.6% to 89.9% to Less than or
Pending <= 45 days equal to 98.0% 94.5% 90.0% 82.1% equal to
82.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Initial Appts. 92.0% Great than or 97.9% to 94.7% to 91.9% to Less than or
Processed <= 45 equal to 98.0% 94.8% 92.0% 89.2% equal to
days (FYTD) 89.1%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Accountings Reviewed 94.0% Great than or 97.9% to 95.9% to 93.9% to Less than or
within 14 days equal to 98.0% 96.0% 94.0% 90.1% equal to
90.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Accountings not 95.0% Great than or 97.9% to 96.6% to 94.9% to Less than or
Seriously equal to 98.0% 96.5% 95.0% 92.1% equal to
Delinquent 92.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SPECIAL MISSIONS NATIONAL CALL CENTER (NCC, PNCC, ECC)
Cleveland, Philadelphia, Columbia, Nashville, Muskogee, St. Louis, Phoenix, Salt Lake City Regional Offices
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Performance Measure FY12 Target O E FS MS U
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overall Call Qualit82.5% Great than or 90.7% to 86.5% to 82.1% to Less than or
equal to 90.8% 86.6% 82.5% 78.4% equal to
78.3%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Technical Quality 75.0% Great than or 82.4% to 78.7% to 74.9% to Less than or
equal to 82.5% 78.8% 75.0% 71.3% equal to
71.2%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Courtesy/ 90.0% Great than or 97.9% to 94.0% to 89.9% to Less than or
Professionalism equal to 98.0% 94.1% 90.0% 86.0% equal to
85.9%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Avg. Wait Time 240.0 Less than or 180.1 to 204.1 to 240.1 to Greater than
(seconds) equal to 180.0 204.0 240.0 299.8 or equal to
299.9
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Client Sati720.0ion Great than or 899.9 to 827.9 to 719.9 to Less than or
equal to 900.0 828.0 720.0 612.0 equal to
611.9
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Agent Availability 70.0% Great than or 73.4% to 71.7% to 69.9% to Less than or
Rate equal to 73.5% 71.8% 70.0% 68.3% equal to
68.2%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SPECIAL MISSIONS IRIS RESPONSE CENTER
Salt Lake City Regional Offices
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Performance Measure FY12 Target O E FS MS U
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Accuracy 85.0% Great than or 97.9% to 91.4% to 84.9% to Less than or
equal to 98.0% 91.5% 85.0% 78.6% equal to
78.5%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Timeliness 5.0 Less than or 3.7 to 4.3 4.2 to 5.0 5.1 to 6.2 Greater than
equal to 3.8 or equal to
6.3
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION & EMPLOYMENT
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Performance Measure FY12 Target O E FS MS U
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rehab Rate 77.0% Great than or 89.9% to 83.1% to 76.9% to Less than or
equal to 90.0% 83.2% 77.0% 70.8% equal to
70.7%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rehab Rate (San 70.0% Great than or 81.7% to 75.5% to 69.9% to Less than or
Juan) equal to 81.8% 75.6% 70.0% 64.4% equal to
64.3%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
S.E.H. Rehab Rate 77.0% Great than or 89.9% to 83.1% to 76.9% to Less than or
equal to 90.0% 83.2% 77.0% 70.8% equal to
70.7%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
S.E.H. Rehab Rate 70.0% Great than or 81.7% to 75.5% to 69.9% to Less than or
San Juan) equal to 81.8% 75.6% 70.0% 64.4% equal to
64.3%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Actual Rehabs TBD
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Outcome Accuracy 97.0% Great than or 97.9% to Less than or
equal to 98.0% 97.0% equal to
96.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Avg. Days to 45.0 Less than or 33.9 to 38.3 38.4 to 45.0 45.1 to 56.2 Greater than
Entitlement equal to 33.8 or equal to
56.3
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Interrupted Status 11.0% Less than or 10.0% to 10.6% to 11.1% to Greater than
equal to 9.9% 10.5% 11.0% 11.5% or equal to
11.6%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Avg. Days Evaluation 105.0 Less than or 78.9 to 89.3 89.4 to 105.0 105.1 to Greater than
& Planning Status equal to 78.8 131.1 or equal to
131.2
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal Accuracy 92.0% Great than or 97.9% to 94.7% to 91.9% to Less than or
equal to 98.0% 94.8% 92.0% 89.2% equal to
84.6%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EPRSA Accuracy 85.0% Great than or 93.4% to 89.2% to 84.9% to Less than or
equal to 93.5% 89.3% 85.0% 76.5% equal to
76.4%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MRG Accuracy 90.0% Great than or 97.9% to 94.0% to 89.9% to Less than or
equal to 98.0% 94.1% 90.0% 86.0% equal to
85.9%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Employment Rehab 75.0% Great than or 82.4% to 78.7% to 74.9% to Less than or
Rate equal to 82.5% 78.8% 75.0% 71.3% equal to
71.2%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Employment Rehab 70.0% Great than or 76.9% to 73.4% to 69.9% to Less than or
Rate (San Juan) equal to 77.0% 73.5% 70.0% 66.5% equal to
66.4%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EDUCATION
Buffalo, Atlanta, Muskogee, St. Louis Regional Offices
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Performance Measure FY12 Target O E FS MS U
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ADC (FYTD) Ori23.0ls Less than or 17.4 to 19.6 19.7 to 23.0 23.1 to 28.7 Greater than
equal to 17.3 or equal to
28.8
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ADC (FYTD) 12.0 Less than or 9.1 to 10.2 10.3 to 12.0 12.1 to 15.0 Greater than
Supplementals equal to 9.0 or equal to
15.1
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Payment Accuracy 97.0% Great than or Great than or 97.4% to 96.9% to Less than or
equal to 98.0% equal to 97.0% 95.1% equal to
97.5% 95.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LOAN GUARANTY
Cleveland, Manchester, Atlanta, Roanoke, St. Petersburg, Houston, St. Paul, Denver, Honolulu, Phoenix Regional
Offices
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Performance Measure FY12 Target O E FS MS U
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Full Reviews 10.0% Great than or 12.4% to 11.4% to 10.1% to 7.6% Less than or
equal to 12.5% 11.5% 10.0% equal to 7.5%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reviews Timely 95.0% Great than or 97.9% to 96.6% to 94.9% to Less than or
equal to 98.0% 96.5% 95.0% 92.1% equal to
92.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LAPP Reviews TBD Great than or Less than or
equal to equal to
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SAPP Reviews TBD Great than or Less than or
equal to equal to
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10% Field Reviews 95.0% Great than or 97.9% to 96.6% to 94.9% to Less than or
equal to 98.0% 96.5% 95.0% 92.1% equal to
92.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Initial SAH Reviews 90.0% Great than or 97.9% to 94.0% to 89.9% to Less than or
equal to 98.0% 94.1% 90.0% 86.0% equal to
85.9%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AOS Timely 95.0% Great than or 97.9% to 96.6% to 94.9% to Less than or
equal to 98.0% 96.5% 95.0% 92.1% equal to
92.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Non-Routine ACQ 95.0% Great than or 97.9% to 96.6% to 94.9% to Less than or
Timely equal to 98.0% 96.5% 95.0% 92.1% equal to
92.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loan Production 95.0% Great than or 97.9% to 96.6% to 94.9% to Less than or
equal to 98.0% 96.5% 95.0% 92.1% equal to
92.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Constructio95.0% Great than or 97.9% to 96.6% to 94.9% to Less than or
Valuation equal to 98.0% 96.5% 95.0% 92.1% equal to
92.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Special Adapted 95.0% Great than or 97.9% to 96.6% to 94.9% to Less than or
Housing equal to 98.0% 96.5% 95.0% 92.1% equal to
92.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loan Administration 95.0% Great than or 97.9% to 96.6% to 94.9% to Less than or
equal to 98.0% 96.5% 95.0% 92.1% equal to
92.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
INSURANCE
Philadelphia Regional Office
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Performance Measure FY12 Target O E FS MS U
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Client Sati98.0%ion Great than or N/A N/A 97.9% to Less than or
equal to 98.0% 95.1% equal to
95.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RECORDS MANAGEMENT CENTER
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Performance Measure FY12 Target O E FS MS U
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PIES Turnaround Time 25.0 Less than or 18.9 to 21.3 21.4 to 25.0 25.1 to 31.2 Greater than
equal to 18.8 or equal to
31.3
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PIES % over 180 days 5.0% Less than or 3.9% to 4.3% 4.4% to 5.0% 5.1% to 6.2% Greater than
equal to 3.8% or equal to
6.3%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
APPEALS MANAGEMENT CENTER
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Performance Measure FY12 Target O E FS MS U
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Accuracy 90.0% Great than or 97.9% to 94.6% to 89.9% to Less than or
equal to 98.0% 94.5% 90.0% 82.1% equal to
82.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homeless ADP 70.0 Less than or 52.6 to 59.5 59.6 to 70.0 70.1 to 87.4 Greater than
equal to 52.5 or equal to
87.5
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inventory 17,500 Less than or 13126 to 14,876 to 17,501 to Greater than
equal to 14,875 17,500 21,857 or equal to
131,125 21,858
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
% Pending > 2 Years 0.0% Great than or N/A N/A 1.0% to 1.9% Less than or
equal to 0.0% equal to 2.0%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
% Pending > 1 Year 10.0% Less than or 7.6% to 8.5% 8.6% to 10.0% 10.1% to Greater than
equal to 7.5% 11.5% or equal to
11.6%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
% Past Due 8.0% Less than or 6.1% to 6.8% 6.9% to 8.0% 8.1% to 9.2% Greater than
equal to 6.0% or equal to
9.3%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ADP 160.0 Less than or 120.1 to 136.1 to 160.1 to Greater than
equal to 120.0 136.0 160.0 199.8 or equal to
199.9
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ADC (FYTD) 270.0 Less than or 202.6 to 229.6 to 270.1 to Greater than
equal to 202.5 229.5 270.0 337.2 or equal to
337.3
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Congressionals10 Less than or Less than or 10 Less than or Greater than
Pending equal to 7 equal to 9 equal to 11 or equal to
12
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Congressionals 0 0 0 0 2 5
Pending > 30 days
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Production 30,000 Less than or 22,501 to 25,501 to 30,001 to Greater than
equal to 25,500 30,000 37,470 or equal to
22,500 37,471
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
% Control Tim85.0%7 Great than or 93.4% to 89.1% to 84.9% to Less than or
days equal to 93.5% 89.3% 85.0% 80.8% equal to
80.7%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Remand Rate 10.0% Less than or 7.6% to 8.5% 8.6% to 10.0% 10.1% to Greater than
equal to 7.5% 12.5% or equal to
12.6%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
B. Additional Priorities
Additional priorities, not specifically identified in this
document, which may be established by VA Leadership, will also be used
to evaluate performance in Element I.
Fully Successful--Meets Performance Expectations
II. Workplace Responsibilities (Critical Element)
Weight: 15%
In support of Strategic Goals: 1, 3, 4
In support of Integrated Strategies: 1c, 3a, 3b, 3c, 3d
Where appropriate, the Director promotes and maintains an effective
labor-management relations program. Creates and maintains a working
environment that is free of discrimination and one that assures
diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Ensures that plans exist and
are adequately implemented to recruit, select, train, coach, retain,
motivate, empower, and advance employees; and promotes the needs and
goals of the individual and the organization. Provides a safe, healthy
work environment. Appropriately appraises, rewards and addresses
employee performance and conduct deficiencies. The following
performance indicators identify professional behavior and outcomes that
may occur during the course of a rating cycle. The Rating Official may
consider any combination of these indicators--or any other indicators
as appropriate--to support the evaluation performance.
1. Maintain a healthy and safe work environment;
2. Ensure that the determination process used to identify the
``Best Qualified'' candidates is effective and that selections are made
from this pool of candidates;
3. Promote workforce diversity through their recruitment,
coaching and developmental activities, consistent with merit system
principles;
4. Retain highly qualified employees;
5. Implement and communicate the performance plans for each of
their employees, and inform them as to their progress in relation to
their individual performance plans;
6. Use the performance recognition system to reward employees
and improve productivity;
7. Respond to employees who exhibit performance or conduct
deficiencies;
8. Ensure that the organization's training requirements are met
and that employees receive training that supports their professional
growth;
9. Implement professional developmental strategies that enhance
the organization's recruiting strategies or existing workforce.
10. Provide employees with transitional, coaching or mentoring
support that increase the employees' likelihood of success;
11. Maintain effective communications and working relationships
with labor representatives, to include exploration and implementation
of cooperative labor management forums as outlined under Director Order
13522.
12. Participate in the organization's workforce planning,
innovative recruiting, or development of effective interviewing
strategies, as applicable.
Evaluation Method: EEO, Diversity and Inclusion
(Ensures compliance with applicable equal employment opportunity
(EEO) laws, regulations, Director Orders, Management Directives, and VA
policies; promptly addresses allegations of discrimination and
retaliation; engages in early conflict management and alternative
dispute resolution (ADR); and advances the goals of the VA Diversity
and Inclusion Strategic Plan, including meeting the Secretary's two
percent hiring goal for individuals with targeted disabilities.)
Fully Successful Performance Evaluation: Meets expectations for EEO
Compliance, and specifically, the actions addressed below:
1. Within five business days of issuance, posts and disseminates
VA's EEO, Diversity, and No FEAR Policy Statement. Responds to requests
for information related to EEO complaints within five business days.
2. Processes and provides effective reasonable accommodations
within 30 days from request and in accordance with VA Directive 5975.1.
Within the performance cycle, at least 50 percent of the time,
complaints are resolved at the informal stage.
3. Complies promptly and effectively with EEO and ADR settlement
agreements and corrective actions ordered by the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission and final agency decisions.
4. By September 30, ensures compliance, as follows, for
mandatory EEO-related training:
At least 90% of all employees complete the biennial No
FEAR training requirement; new hires will complete training within 90
days of hire and every 2 years thereafter; and
At least 90 percent of supervisors/managers complete
mandatory on-line EEO, Diversity, and Conflict Management training
Performance is acceptable if there are no documented instances
where, based on objective findings, the Director failed to meet the
stated expectation and where no mitigating circumstance exists.
Evaluation Method: Early Conflict Management and Alternative
Dispute Resolution
Fully Successful Performance Evaluation: Meets expectations, and
specifically, the actions addressed below:
1. By September 30, collaborates with key stakeholders, i.e.,
labor, human resources, general/regional counsel, and develops and
implements an ADR program that is widely communicated and marketed to
the workforce. If an ADR program exists, the program is marketed and
communicated to the workforce on a quarterly basis.
2. On a quarterly basis, evaluates the use of and satisfaction
with the ADR program and monitors positive and negative trends
impacting the program. Develops and implements action plans to address
negative trends; i.e., low participation - below 48%, low ADR
resolution - below 50%, high ADR processing time - more than 60
calendar days.
Performance is acceptable if there are no documented instances
where, based on objective findings, the Director failed to meet the
stated expectation and where no mitigating circumstance exists.
Evaluation Method: Workforce Diversity and Inclusion
Fully Successful Performance Evaluation: Meets expectations, and
specifically, the actions addressed below:
1. Within agreed upon timeframes, submits Federally mandated EEO
reports (e.g., MD 715, FEORP, DVAAP, etc.) that contain accurate,
comprehensive, and meaningful accomplishments, along with measureable
goals and objectives.
2. By September 30, participates in at least two targeted
outreach events to increase diversity in the applicant pool or two
special emphasis programs to support workforce diversity and inclusion
initiatives.
3. On an ongoing basis, actively supports VA Diversity Council
and implemented initiatives to support work/life balance.
4. By September 30, meets Secretary's two percent hiring goal
and VA's two percent on-board representation goal for individuals with
targeted disabilities.
5. By September 30, demonstrates measurable progress in
implementing the goals of the VA Diversity and Inclusion Strategic
Plan.
Performance is acceptable if there are no documented instances
where, based on objective findings, the Director failed to meet the
stated expectation and where no mitigating circumstance exists.
Evaluation Method: Hiring Reform
Fully Successful Performance Evaluation: Meets expectations to
support OPM's Hiring Reform Initiative, and specifically, the action
addressed below:
Implements recruitment, retention, and developmental strategies
that support organizational performance objectives, agency hiring
goals, and successful transition of highly qualified employees into
Federal service or new positions.
Ensures subordinate supervisors (if applicable) meet all timeframes
and deadlines established for supervisors in the Agency's recruitment
and hiring plan.
III. Program Integrity (Critical element)
Weight: 10%
In support of Strategic Goals: 3
In support of Integrated Strategies: 1a, 1c, 3a, 3e
Sub-element 1: Compliance
The Director will lead his or her regional office to ensure
compliance with VBA's program integrity directives. The Director is
responsible to ensure that program integrity initiatives and policies
are implemented, assessed through an effective internal control
process, and adjusted as necessary to achieve appropriate results.
Evaluation Method: Adherence to IG Recommendations applicable to
VAROs as outlined in VBA Letter 20-99-68, Adherence to VBA Program
Integrity Directives.
Fully Successful Performance Evaluation: Meets Expectations
Sub-element 2: Information Security
Directors must exercise due diligence in their efforts to plan,
develop, coordinate and ensure accountability and control of government
property and implement effective information security procedures as
identified by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the National
Institute of Standards and Technology, VA policies, and VBA policy and
guidance documents Directors must improve internal communications and
information security requirements and reiterate responsibilities to
employees.
Fully Successful Performance Evaluation: Meets expectations to
support Information Security, and specifically, the action addressed
below:
Performance will be satisfactory if all required program integrity
safeguards are implemented, monitored and on-site reviews do not reveal
critical flaws in oversight of program integrity issues. In addition,
the Director is responsible for:
1. Ensuring that Information System (IS) security plans that
safeguard systems within their authority exist and are implemented in
accordance with NIST and OMB guidelines.
2. Ensuring that all operations under their authority prepare,
document, test and maintain IT contingency plans (i.e. COOP, BCCP).
3. Ensuring that annual risk assessments are conducted for each
identified IS (applications, hardware, software, etc.) within their
jurisdiction to ensure that the identified risks, vulnerabilities, and
threats are adequately addressed by appropriate security controls.
4. Ensuring that all employees comply with departmental training
requirements and are trained to understand their information security
responsibilities.
5. Complying with established procedures for detecting,
reporting and responding to information security incidents.
6. Improve internal communications of privacy and information
security requirements and policy adherence, and reiterate
responsibilities to employees.
7. By 30 September, 100% of employees receive Privacy training.
New employees receive the training 90 days from their appointment date.
This measure is tracked and reported by the CIO.
8. By 30 September, 100% of employees receive Cyber Security
training. This measure is tracked and reported by the CIO.
Performance is acceptable if there are no documented instances
where, based on objective findings, the Director failed to meet the
stated expectation and where no mitigating circumstance exists
Evaluation Method: Ensure accountability and control of government
property.
Fully Successful Performance Evaluation: Meets expectations to
ensure sensitive data is neither mismanaged nor used for any
unauthorized purpose, and specifically, the action addressed below:
1. By 30 September, conducts annual risk assessments and
inventory of property to ensure 95% accountability in accordance with
VA policy.
Performance is acceptable if there are no documented instances
where, based on objective findings, the Director failed to meet the
stated expectation and where no mitigating circumstance exists
IV. External Relations (Non-critical element)
Weight: 5%
In support of Strategic Goals: 2
In support of Integrated Strategies: 1e, 2a, 2b, 2d, 3a
Evaluation Method: The director builds effective, productive
relationships with organizations external to VBA in order to further
VA's goals and interests. Enhances external satisfaction by handling
complaints effectively and promptly and ensures a veteran focus in
direction and daily work. Uses veteran and other stakeholder feedback
in planning and providing services and encourages subordinates to meet
or exceed veteran and stakeholder needs and expectations. Examples of
activities, include, but are not limited to the following.
1. Work on a Federal Director Board project
2. Participation in VISN meetings
3. Relations with the media, congressional offices and service
organizations
4. Engage in ongoing outreach activities (i.e., stand-downs, POW
outreach, etc.) to ensure targeted populations of veterans are
appropriately served (Strategic Goal 3.2)
Fully Successful Performance Evaluation: Meets expectations to
maintain an effective means to receive, evaluate and resolve veteran
and stakeholder feedback. Tracks data to identify and correct issues.
Performance is acceptable if the rater receives no more than 2
sustained complaints based on failure to effectively and promptly
address needs of external organizations.
V. Acquisition Process (Non-critical element)
Weight: 5%
In support of Strategic Goals: 1
In support of Integrated Strategies: 1d, 3d, 3e
Ensures the Department-wide Small Business Program Goals for Small
Businesses, Small Disadvantaged Businesses, Women-Owned Small
Businesses, Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses, Veteran-
Owned Small Businesses and Historically Underutilized Business (HUB)
Zone Small Businesses, are considered in VBA acquisitions.
Evaluation Method: Periodic review of acquisition packages.
Fully Successful Performance Evaluation: Meets expectations to
support the acquisitions process through Department-wide Small Business
Program Goals by ensuring acquisitions are directed to appropriate
sources.
VI. Action Plans - All Employee Survey (Non-critical element)
Weight: 5%
Develops, implements and successfully completes an action plan
methodology to address All-Employee Survey results, to include:
Identified issues
Actions
Target Dates
Responsible Parties
Expected Outcomes
Accomplishments since last update
Linkage to other organizational initiatives
Status
Evaluation Method: Periodic review of progress towards goals
outlined in action plan
Fully Successful Performance Evaluation: Meets performance
expectations expected outcomes and accomplishments since last update.
Prepared by: Office of Field Operations
Distributed: October 14, 2011
Materials Submitted For The Record
Setting up an eBenefits Account
eBenefits is a joint VA/DoD web portal that provides resources and
self-service capabilities to Veterans, Servicemembers, and their
families to research, access and manage their VA and military benefits
and personal information. eBenefits uses secure credentials to allow
access to personal information and gives users the ability to perform
numerous self-service functions. It also provides links to other sites
that provide information about military and Veterans benefits. Some of
the self-service features in eBenefits allow users to: access official
military personnel documents; view the status of a disability
compensation claim; transfer entitlement of Post-9/11 GI Bill to
eligible dependents (Servicemembers only); and register for and update
direct deposit information for certain benefits.
eBenefits is located at www.ebenefits.va.gov. To register for an
eBenefits account, users must be listed in the Defense Enrollment
Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS) and first obtain a DoD Self-
service (DS) Logon. A DS Logon is a secure identity (username and
password) that is used by various DoD and VA web sites. If a user is
already registered in DEERS, they are eligible for a DS Logon, which
does not have an expiration date. If an individual attempts to register
without a DEERS record, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will
first verify military service and add the individual to DEERS. This
occurs most often among Veterans who served prior to 1982. Individuals
should contact a VA regional office for assistance in being added to
DEERS or call our National Call Center at 1-800-827-1000.
Registration for an eBenefits account online can be done using the
eBenefits DS Logon Account Self-Registration Wizard. There are two
types of registration, Basic and Premium. Users will be walked through
a series of questions to assist in obtaining a Premium eBenefits
Account, which provides the highest level of access to eBenefits
features. With a Premium Account, users can view personal data in VA
and DoD systems, apply for benefits online, check the status of a
claim, update address records, and complete other actions.
Servicemembers may register online by using their Common Access
Card. Military retirees may verify their identity online using their
Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) Logon. For those unable
to verify their identity online, they will instantly receive a Basic
Account, which allows users to customize the site and access
information entered into eBenefits; however, personal information from
VA and DoD systems cannot be viewed.
Additionally, Veterans in receipt of VA benefits via direct deposit
may have their identity verified by calling 1-800-827-1000 and
selecting option 7. My HealtheVet users may use their secure My
HealtheVet identity to obtain an eBenefits account. Others may need to
visit a VA regional office or TriCare Service Center to have their
identity verified in person.
Benefits Assistance Service
July 2012
Claim Status Availability in eBenefits
Veterans have been able to view the status of claims within
eBenefits since April 2010. This is the most popular self-service
feature within eBenefits, receiving over 9.1 million views to date.
Claim status is divided into specific phases that reflect where the
claim is in the process, how long the Veteran can anticipate the claim
should remain in each phase, and ultimately a timeframe for completion
as shown below. Timeframes are calculated based on the type of claim
filed and are specific to each regional office.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8766.001
Prepared by Benefits Assistance Service
September 24, 2012