[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                    FROM MONTHS TO HOURS: THE FUTURE
                    OF VA BENEFITS CLAIMS PROCESSING

=======================================================================

                             JOINT HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                  SUBCOMMITTEE ON DISABILITY ASSISTANCE AND 
                             MEMORIAL AFFAIRS

                                AND THE

                SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY MODERNIZATION

                                 OF THE

                     COMMITTEE ON VETERANS' AFFAIRS
                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                         TUESDAY, JUNE 6, 2023

                               __________

                           Serial No. 118-18

                               __________

       Printed for the use of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs
       
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]       


                    Available via http://govinfo.gov
                    
                               ________

                   U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
52-877                    WASHINGTON : 2024                    
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------                    
                   
                     COMMITTEE ON VETERANS' AFFAIRS

                     MIKE BOST, Illinois, Chairman

AUMUA AMATA COLEMAN RADEWAGEN,       MARK TAKANO, California, Ranking 
    American Samoa, Vice-Chairwoman      Member
JACK BERGMAN, Michigan               JULIA BROWNLEY, California
NANCY MACE, South Carolina           MIKE LEVIN, California
MATTHEW M. ROSENDALE, SR., Montana   CHRIS PAPPAS, New Hampshire
MARIANNETTE MILLER-MEEKS, Iowa       FRANK J. MRVAN, Indiana
GREGORY F. MURPHY, North Carolina    SHEILA CHERFILUS-MCCORMICK, 
C. SCOTT FRANKLIN, Florida               Florida
DERRICK VAN ORDEN, Wisconsin         CHRISTOPHER R. DELUZIO, 
MORGAN LUTTRELL, Texas                   Pennsylvania
JUAN CISCOMANI, Arizona              MORGAN MCGARVEY, Kentucky
ELIJAH CRANE, Arizona                DELIA C. RAMIREZ, Illinois
KEITH SELF, Texas                    GREG LANDSMAN, Ohio
JENNIFER A. KIGGANS, Virginia        NIKKI BUDZINSKI, Illinois

                       Jon Clark, Staff Director
                  Matt Reel, Democratic Staff Director
                                 ------                                

       SUBCOMMITTEE ON DISABILITY ASSISTANCE AND MEMORIAL AFFAIRS

                    MORGAN LUTTRELL, Texas, Chairman

C. SCOTT FRANKLIN, Florida           CHRIS PAPPAS, New Hampshire, 
JUAN CISCOMANI, Arizona                  Ranking Member
ELIJAH CRANE, Arizona                CHRISTOPHER R. DELUZIO, 
KEITH SELF, Texas                        Pennsylvania
                                     MORGAN MCGARVEY, Kentucky
                                     DELIA C. RAMIREZ, Illinois
                                 ------                                

                SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY MODERNIZATION

              MATTHEW M. ROSENDALE, SR., Montana, Chairman

NANCY MACE, South Carolina           SHEILA CHERFILUS-MCCORMICK, 
KEITH SELF, Texas                        Florida, Ranking Member
                                     GREG LANDSMAN, Ohio

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

                              ----------                              

                         TUESDAY, JUNE 6, 2023

                                                                   Page

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

The Honorable Morgan Luttrell, Chairman, Subcommittee on 
  Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs.....................     1
The Honorable Chris Pappas, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on 
  Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs.....................     2
The Honorable Matthew M. Rosendale, Sr., Chairman, Subcommittee 
  on Technology Modernization....................................     3
The Honorable Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, Ranking Member, 
  Subcommittee on Technology Modernization.......................     4

                               WITNESSES

Mr. Raymond Tellez, Acting Assistant Deputy Under Secretary, 
  Automated Benefits Delivery, Veterans Benefits Administration, 
  U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs.............................     5

        Accompanied by:

    Mr. Robert Orifici, Director, Benefits and Memorial Systems 
        Portfolio, Office of Information and Technology, U.S. 
        Department of Veterans Affairs

Mr. David Bump, National Representative for National Veterans 
  Affairs Council, Second Vice President for Veterans Benefits 
  Administration at Local 2157, Portland, Oregon, American 
  Federation of Government Employees.............................     7

                                APPENDIX
                    Prepared Statements Of Witnesses

Mr. Raymond Tellez Prepared Statement............................    37
Mr. David Bump Prepared Statement................................    41

                       Statements For The Record

Foundation for American Innovation...............................    45

 
                    FROM MONTHS TO HOURS: THE FUTURE
                    OF VA BENEFITS CLAIMS PROCESSING

                              ----------                              


                         TUESDAY, JUNE 6, 2023

             U.S. House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial 
                                           Affairs,
          Subcommittee on Technology Modernization,
                            Committee on Veterans' Affairs,
                                                   Washington, D.C.
    The subcommittees met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in 
room 360, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Morgan Luttrell 
[chairman of the subcommittee on Disability Assistance and 
Memorial Affairs] presiding.
    Present for Subcommittee on Disability Assistance & 
Memorial Affairs: Representatives Luttrell, Franklin, 
Ciscomani, Crane, Self, Pappas, Deluzio, McGarvey, and Ramirez.
    Present for Subcommittee on Technology Modernization: 
Representatives Rosendale, Self, and Cherfilus-McCormick.

OPENING STATEMENT OF MORGAN LUTTRELL, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 
           DISABILITY ASSISTANCE AND MEMORIAL AFFAIRS

    Mr. Luttrell. Good morning. I am a Navy man. We try to 
start on time normally at 5 minutes before, but that usually 
irritates everybody, so, we are going to start straight at 10. 
Thank you everyone for coming today. The Joint Subcommittee on 
Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs and Subcommittee on 
Technology Modernization hearing will come to order. Thank you, 
Chairman Rosendale, Ranking Member Pappas, Ranking Member 
Cherfilus-McCormick, for holding this hearing with me today.
    We are here today to discuss the Future of the Department 
of Veterans Affairs VA Benefits Claims Processing. Ten years 
ago, VA underwent its first claims modernization initiative 
when it transformed from a paper-based system to an electronic 
claims environment. VA accomplished this through the 
development of the Veterans Benefits Management System, or 
VBMS. This was an important step for the VA to dig them out of 
the last claims backlogs crisis.
    Since VBMS was released, the private financial sector has 
continued to leverage the latest technology to provide the best 
experience for their customers and employees. Unfortunately, 
Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) has struggled to keep 
pace with the private sector, resulting in unreliable and 
outdated systems. Consequently, VA cannot handle the influx of 
claims due to the The Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson 
Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act 
thus far. The VA estimates that the claims backlog could peak 
in 2024 at over 730,000 claims. This means veterans may have to 
wait months, if not years, for a decision. I know that the VA 
employees are doing their absolute best for our veterans and 
they are not satisfied with the level of our customer service. 
VA can always do better.
    I was encouraged by the VA's 5-year--the VBA's Five-Year 
Modernization Plan that we are here to discuss today. As part 
of this plan, VA is piloting automation technology to help 
decrease the time the process of a claim from months to days 
and hopefully hours. I understand that the technology may not 
be able to meaningfully reduce the backlog until 2 years from 
now. However, some veterans do not have 2 years to wait for 
this technology.
    Therefore, I would like to learn more about the steps VA is 
taking over the next 2 years to develop this technology and 
whether or not VA can be more aggressive in its timeline. I 
would also like to discuss how VA is prioritizing where to 
invest its modernization efforts. I hope the VA is thoroughly 
considering the pain points in the claims process and how 
technology can help reduce the time and expense to complete 
these tasks.
    I also would like VA to provide the assurance that it is 
investing in state-of-the-art technology that is agile and able 
to modernize on a continual basis. Simply put, veterans and 
employees deserve the best IT available in the technology 
industry now and in the future. This is how VA prevents a 
backlog and how veterans get decisions in hours instead of 
months.
    Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today and I 
look forward to your insight and feedback on this issue. With 
that, I yield to the ranking member for his opening statement.

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHRIS PAPPAS, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE 
         ON DISABILITY ASSISTANCE AND MEMORIAL AFFAIRS

    Mr. Pappas. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and 
thank you to our witnesses for being here today to help us 
understand how VA intends to modernize VBA's IT systems and 
improve the quality and timeliness of veterans disability 
claims.
    Now, the PACT Act is easily the most consequential piece of 
veterans legislation in past generations, and it represents the 
most significant expansion of veterans healthcare benefits in 
decades. When Congress passed PACT, we recognized that it would 
dramatically increase the number of claims that VBA would have 
to manage. To date, veterans have filed almost 600,000 PACT Act 
claims, in addition to the 1.1 million non-PACT Act claims 
filed during the same period. The Department must invest 
heavily in its IT and human infrastructure to ensure that these 
claims are processed in a timely manner and that veterans do 
not wait years for their benefits.
    Claims examiners have repeatedly complained to us that 
VBA's IT systems do not support the work that they do and 
frequently make their jobs even harder. We have heard that VBMS 
suffers from frequent system latency and downtimes, and that 
system crashes sometimes make them lose their work and have to 
start over. That was even before the additional crunch of 
hundreds of thousands of PACT Act claims. This frustration is 
compounded by the fact that lost productivity due to unstable 
IT affects the employee's performance rating. VBA needs to 
evaluate how its IT systems and related policies could be 
negatively impacting its workforce. We can not afford to lose 
skilled claims examiners because of poor IT systems.
    When PACT was being drafted, we recognized the importance 
of the IT systems. In Section 701 of the PACT Act, Congress 
mandated that VA develop a plan for the modernization of VBA's 
IT systems. The committee received the plan in March of this 
year, and while there are a lot of good ideas in it, I have 
questions about how they are going to fix the issues that we 
have raised by VBA personnel--that we hear raised by VBA 
personnel. Issues that predate PACT Act and yet continue to 
this day.
    In fact, in 2015, the Government Accountability Office 
released a report on VBMS that indicated, in part, that VBA 
would benefit from a customer satisfaction survey of VBMS end 
users and incorporating that feedback into efforts to deploy 
the system. I would argue that it would also be beneficial for 
VBA to use a similar survey to guide any modernization efforts. 
Unfortunately, when I asked about such surveys during our May 
16 hearing, it did not sound like either VBA or Office of 
Information and Technology (OIT) had been conducting them.
    Nobody knows the disconnect between VBMS and the claims 
workflows like the claims examiners, and it would be in 
everyone's best interest if VA asked for their thoughts. I hope 
to hear from the witnesses today how VA intends to incorporate 
the feedback from frontline employees in its efforts to 
modernize IT systems and how they intend to use technology to 
address the growing backlog of benefits claims. With that, Mr. 
Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Luttrell. Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member. The Chair now 
recognizes Chairman Rosendale for his opening statement.

   OPENING STATEMENT OF MATTHEW M. ROSENDALE, SR., CHAIRMAN, 
            SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY MODERNIZATION

    Mr. Rosendale. I want to thank Chairman Luttrell, Ranking 
Member Pappas, and Ranking Member Cherfilus-McCormick, for 
organizing this hearing with me. Improving the disability 
compensation claims process is one of my top priorities. 
Millions of veterans around the country receive disability 
benefits from the VA. These benefits are not some sort of 
entitlement. They are compensation for the sacrifice of those 
who serve this great Nation and carry with them illnesses, 
wounds, and scars from their service. The Federal Government 
also owes them an effective process to apply for and obtain 
these benefits.
    The Department of Veterans Affairs has a number of IT 
projects that frankly do not make sense even on paper. We have 
discussed them in our previous hearings. This effort is 
absolutely where we should be concentrating time and resources.
    Veterans deserve rapid decisions through a transparent 
process. Unfortunately, they are struggling with 1950's era 
procedures and the hodgepodge of dysfunctional IT systems. The 
Veterans Benefits Management System is barely 10 years old, but 
it needs substantial upgrades to keep pace with the VA's needs. 
The Board of Veterans Appeals is still attempting to put an 
end-to-end system in place. The VA started introducing some 
basic automation a few years ago. That is without question the 
right approach.
    The only way to avoid another major claims backlog is to 
give employees advanced automation tools to eliminate menial 
tasks and boost productivity. However, the rudimentary 
automation VA has today is closer to the state-of-the-art of 
the 1990's rather than 2023. The automation still has a long 
way to go to make a meaningful impact. We need to close the gap 
very quickly in order to handle the title wave of claims 
stemming from the PACT Act and prevent another huge backlog.
    This committee required a Five-year Benefits IT 
Modernization Plan in the PACT Act. This plan is meant to spell 
out exactly how the Department intends to spend the Toxic 
Exposure Fund dollars allocated to IT. We have seen the 
consequences of handing over billions of dollars with no 
strings attached before.
    I am encouraged that the VA has submitted a serious, 
detailed plan that lays out the 97 upgrades or projects over 
the course of the next 5 years and estimates the cost of each 
one. I have no doubt that if the plan can be accomplished, the 
Veterans Benefits Administration would be in a much better 
place at the conclusion. Unfortunately, we need those modern 
systems and enhanced automation capabilities today because the 
disability compensation claims from the PACT Act are already 
starting to roll in. I appreciate our witnesses joining us 
today for this important and timely discussion about the VA's 
needs, and what to do to get this one right and make good on 
the promise made to the veterans in the PACT Act. Thank you, 
Mr. Chair. I yield back.
    Mr. Luttrell. Thank you, Chairman Rosendale. The Chair now 
recognizes Ranking Member Cherfilus-McCormick----

   OPENING STATEMENT OF SHEILA CHERFILUS-MCCORMICK, RANKING 
        MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY MODERNIZATION

    Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Thank you.
    Mr. Luttrell [continuing]. for her opening statement.
    Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With the 
passage of the PACT Act, Congress fulfilled its promise to 
veterans to honor their service and recognized toxic exposure 
as a cost of war. Included in the law is much needed funding 
for modernization of Veteran Benefits Management System. This 
is intended to benefit veterans and the VA employees alike. New 
funding is meant to streamline claims processing for benefits 
and improve antiquated systems that have been underfunded for 
decades.
    The Technology Modernization Subcommittee has conducted 
extensive oversight of VA modernization and IT contracting. A 
common thread has been a fundamental lack of planning, 
budgeting, and adherence to contracting best practices by VA 
and its contracting centers. VA acquisition management has been 
on the Government Accountability Office's (GAO's) high-risk 
list since 2019. GAO has cataloged issues with competition for 
IT contracts. While VA's annual IT obligations have increased 
from 4.2 billion in 2017 to 6.5 billion in 2021, the number of 
companies receiving those awards has decreased.
    We must ensure the VA does not make similar mistakes when 
modernizing VBMS. The cost to the government and more 
importantly the cost to our veterans are too high. VA must show 
a commitment to planning, budgeting, and execution of 
improvements that benefit veterans and the employees. As a 
result, I have cosponsored Ranking Member Takano's IT 
Modernization Improvement Act. This will require VA to contract 
for independent verification and validation for these major IT 
programs to include the Veterans Benefits Management Systems.
    As we have seen with other failed modernization 
initiatives, VA no longer gets the benefit of the doubt on 
contracting process. We need this bill to provide checks and 
balances on the acquisition process for modernizing VBMS. 
Veterans and employees should not have to suffer for a lack of 
successful modernization again.
    While we work toward modernizing the IT system for 
veterans, I also want to highlight the impact that antiquated 
systems have had on the VA employees. Issues with 
interoperability, issues with reliability, and basic 
functionality have persisted for too long. We have an 
opportunity to provide a system that enables our employees to 
be more efficient and provide better service for our veterans. 
This means that the VA needs to listen to their employees when 
it comes to developing requirements for new systems. We have 
seen what a lack of prior work to standardize workflows across 
regional offices leads to. We need to hold the VA management 
accountable for creating a system that works for all employees 
and stops the silo of requirements development. With that, I 
look forward to hearing from our witnesses and I yield back, 
Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Luttrell. Thank you ma'am. Thank you. I will now 
introduce the witness panel. Our first witness from the 
Department of Veterans Affairs is Mr. Raymond Tellez, Acting 
Assistant Deputy Undersecretary for Automated Benefits Delivery 
with the Veterans Benefits Administration. He is accompanied by 
Mr. Robert Orifici, Director of the Benefits Memorial Service 
Portfolio for the Office of Information and Technology. We are 
also joined by Mr. David Bump, National Representative for the 
National Veterans Affairs Council and Second Vice president for 
the VBA at local 2157 for the American Federation of Government 
Employees. Thank you all for being here today. Mr. Tellez, you 
are now recognized for 5 minutes to deliver your opening 
statement.

                  STATEMENT OF RAYMOND TELLEZ

    Mr. Tellez. Good morning, Chairman Luttrell, Chairman 
Rosendale, Ranking Member Pappas, Ranking Member Cherfilus-
McCormick, and members of the subcommittee. We appreciate the 
opportunity to appear before you to discuss VA's plan for 
modernization of VBA's information technology systems. I am 
joined today by Robert Orifici, Benefits and Memorial Services 
Portfolio in VA's Office of Information & Technology. VBA and 
OIT have a long history of partnering to deploy technology 
solutions that improve claims processing to deliver benefits to 
those who have served our Nation with honor and courage.
    Before 2012, the floors at the VA regional offices were 
buckling under the weight of paper claims folders and VA staff 
physically boxing and shipping claims folders from regional 
office to regional office. To address the situation, VA 
underwent a historic transformation, moving from a completely 
paper-based system to an electronic claims processing system.
    The introduction of the Veterans Benefits Management 
System, or VBMS, along with VBA's digitization of millions of 
paper claims folders, was key to moving VA to an electronic 
processing environment.
    Today's VBMS has changed significantly from the start of 
the digital journey. Every week, VBMS is updated with 
enhancements and optimizations to improve system resiliency, 
increase claims processors productivity, and modernize system 
components. As a result of VA's continued investment in VBMS, 
VBA's digitization of inbound paper mail and developing a 
paperless claims process, VA maximized telework capabilities 
during the COVID-19 pandemic to minimize employee impact while 
still maintaining service to veterans.
    The inability to conduct in person medical examinations and 
access paper Federal records led to a temporary increase in the 
claims backlog. VBA has reduced the backlog by approximately 
100,000 in Fiscal Year 2022, and we continue to make progress 
in 2023. Lessons from the global pandemic highlighted the need 
for increased digitization of relevant paper records and 
evidence, leveraging of data, and utilizing existing medical 
evidence to avoid ordering unnecessary exam.
    In December 2021, VBA established a proof of concept for 
Automated Decision Support, or ADS. ADS leverages technology 
automating administrative tasks and workflows in the claims 
process by determining eligibility, gathering evidence, and 
auto ordering exam when necessary for consistent, accurate, and 
timely decisions. Based on the measured success of this site, 
the automation capabilities were expanded to additional medical 
conditions and eight regional offices.
    On August 10, 2022, the passage of the PACT Act expanded VA 
care and benefits to millions of veterans and their survivors, 
resulting in a surge of claims as well as an increase in the 
number of employees using VA IT systems to process these 
claims. While VA has and will continue to hire more people to 
process claims, adding more personnel is only one facet of the 
solution. VA must equip our new and existing employees with the 
right tools to enhance productivity.
    Today, 57 automation eligible diagnostic codes, including 
all 26 PACT Act presumptive conditions, have expanded to 16 
regional offices. VBA is on track to expand automation to 
additional 103 diagnostic codes related to some of the most 
frequently claimed conditions, such as hearing loss, mental 
health, and musculoskeletal conditions. Additionally, VBA and 
OIT partnered to create VA's Five-Year Modernization Plan for 
IT benefit systems to improve claims processing efficiency and 
create more reliable and resilient systems where systems are 
regularly improved with the most up to date technology.
    VA will evolve its approach to leveraging data to 
anticipate needs and proactively serve service members, 
veterans, and their families. IT modernization is an ongoing 
investment that will continue beyond the 5 years, allowing VA 
to shift its focus from veterans requesting help to VA 
providing a service. This includes simplifying the process of 
submitting claims and proactively notifying veterans when they 
are entitled to additional benefits and services.
    The modernization of the VBA corporate data base and 
transition of IT systems to the Cloud directly supports VA's 
ability to respond to these challenges. Additional Cloud 
resources have been added to VBMS, allowing the system to 
handle the increased PACT Act claims and additional users. Many 
components of VBMS have been completely modernized to use 
modern tools and Cloud services, with efforts underway to 
modernize the remaining VBMS modules. This will allow VA to 
eliminate older inefficient legacy systems that fail to meet 
VA's current needs.
    VA is confident that the modernization roadmap will provide 
a modernized enterprise and automated decision tools to ensure 
VBA systems remain current, reliable, and flexible to meet the 
critical needs of veterans. I want to express my appreciation 
of your continued support of service members, veterans, their 
families, caregivers, and survivors, and thank you for the 
opportunity to appear before the committee today, and I look 
forward to answering any questions that you may have.

    [The Prepared Statement Of Raymond Tellez Appears In The 
Appendix]

    Mr. Luttrell. Thanks you, sir. The written statement of Mr. 
Tellez will be entered into the hearing record. Mr. Bump, you 
are now recognized for 5 minutes, sir.

                    STATEMENT OF DAVID BUMP

    Mr. Bump. Chairman Luttrell, Chairman Rosendale, Ranking 
Member Pappas, Ranking Member Cherfilus-McCormick, and members 
of the subcommittee, the American Federation of Government 
Employees and its National Veterans Affairs Council (NVAC) 
appreciate the opportunity to testify today. My name is David 
Bump and I am a national representative for the National VA 
Council and serve as a vice president for American Federation 
of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 2157 in Portland, Oregon. 
I have had the privilege of serving veterans in VBA for 21 
years.
    On behalf of the thousands of VBA employees AFGE 
represents, over 50 percent of whom are veterans themselves, it 
is a privilege to offer AFGE's views on the IT challenges 
facing VBA and suggestions to address those problems and better 
serve veterans. In regards to the VA's Five-Year Modernization 
Plan, AFGE supports the use of technology to better enable 
VBA's processors to improve their duties--I am sorry--to 
perform their duties and best serve veterans.
    However, we are concerned about the negative effect on 
veterans of replacing human processors with technology. AFGE 
strongly supports the work done by lawmakers to protect VBA 
employees and to make sure that all claims have to be reviewed 
at some point during the process by human claims processors. It 
is important that our collective approach to the use of 
technology emphasize that information technology supplement and 
not supplant the VBA's workforce.
    The main point I want to address today is the Veterans 
Benefits Management System. While VBMS serves its purpose, 
there is certainly room for improvement from the perspective of 
the end user. The most serious problem that claims processors 
raise about VBMS is its reliability, or lack thereof. The 
system often crashes or requires rebooting, delaying claims 
processors from doing their required work. Claims processors 
justifiably fear when the system goes down that they may suffer 
consequences to their performance metrics through no fault of 
their own.
    Another complaint about VBMS is its lack of 
interoperability with other systems. A clear example of this is 
provided by the Houston Regional Office is related to letters 
that claims processors send to veterans to inform them of their 
decisions. Many do not automatically populate information 
requiring multiple data entry points and can often lead to 
errors.
    The process for getting a veteran service treatment record 
is also clear examples of problems with inoperability. The 
Portland Regional Office cited that VBMS will automatically 
pull up Service Treatment Records (STRs) from a veteran who 
served in a modern war from the Heath Artifact and Image 
Management Solution (HAIMS) system. However, for veterans who 
have served further in the past, VBMS makes a request for the 
data from the older Personnel Information Exchange Systems 
(PIES) system but does not record its own request. This leads 
to the employee having to make a manual entry in VBMS, but may 
also create duplicate requests in PIES, further wasting time.
    The Cleveland Regional Office cited problems with the Joint 
Legacy Viewer (JLV). When using JLV to view a veteran's record, 
each document must be opened separately, saved, and then 
uploaded into VBMS. Additionally, if a processor attempts to 
upload too many documents at once, the system may not work and 
the employee must start over.
    Another key criticism of the system for Rating Veterans 
Service Representatives (RVSRs) comes from the Pittsburgh 
office. RVSRs in this facility identified that Veterans 
Benefits Management System-Rating (VBMS-R) requires them to 
enter multiple levels of special monthly compensation on a 
veteran's claim. This requires multiple steps. VBMS will not 
create the narrative for both levels of Special Monthly 
Compensation (SMC) unless the employee uses the system this 
way. This can lead to errors and can create over or 
underpayments if not done correctly. Also, if SMC is awarded 
temporarily, RVSRs must manually end the SMC even though they 
initially entered an end date, because if they do not, the 
veteran will never stop being paid.
    To improve VBMS, it would be better if claims processors 
could rate certain conditions at the same time and then be able 
to merge them based on higher evaluation rules. Fixing these 
problems would greatly reduce time spent on claims from 
workarounds, reduce erroneous decisions, and deliver a higher 
quality product to our Nation's veterans.
    Another critical technology of the claims process is the 
National Work Queue. AFGE strongly supports the use of a 
special operations model for as many complex claims as the 
system will support. VBA does this currently for military 
sexual trauma, and Camp Lejeune water contamination claims, 
among others, and AFGE encourages their expanded use.
    AFGE also encourages the VA to modify the National Work 
Queue so that cases remain with the same Regional Office (RO) 
for employee review. Every RO, despite uniform rules, has its 
own way of conducting specific tasks. Having employees who are 
more familiar with each RO's standard procedures will help 
process cases efficiently. Additionally, by better identifying 
which employee worked on a particular claim, better 
collaboration between employees can be achieved leading to time 
savings.
    Last, NWQ should be reprogrammed to allow Veteran Service 
Representatives (VSRs) and RVSRs to always have access to all 
readily available claims. Despite the national claims backlog, 
it is a common refrain from employees that they do not have 
enough work assigned to meet their production standards. 
Although National Work Queue was designed in part to maximize 
VBA's claim processing capacity, it is counterproductive to 
deny employees access to all available claims when the 
technology to do so already exists. Claims processors should be 
focused on taking care of veterans instead of requesting work.
    In conclusion, VBA must use employee feedback as it 
modernizes its IT systems to help veterans. AFGE and the NVAC 
stand ready to work with Congress and VBA to reach this goal. 
Thank you, and I look forward to answering your questions.

    [The Prepared Statement Of David Bump Appears In The 
Appendix]

    Mr. Luttrell. Thank you, sir. The written statement of Mr. 
Bump will be entered into the hearing record. We will now move 
to questioning. I recognize myself for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Bump, I hope you share your statement with the two 
gentlemen sitting to your right flank there. I am assuming both 
of you were listening. That is an extensive laundry list of 
issues that we need to be addressing. Is that going to be the 
case, Mr. Bump?
    Mr. Bump. Yes.
    Mr. Luttrell. I am assuming that is not the first time we 
have heard that, correct?
    Mr. Tellez. Those specific issues, I would say probably 
over time. I look forward to discussing with Mr. Bump his 
testimony. Talk through some of those, but we do get employee 
feedback often, yes.
    Mr. Luttrell. One of the biggest feedbacks that I got 
traveling around visiting the regional facilities was that 
exact list, and it seems to be reoccurring. My point is, I keep 
hearing the same thing over and over again, and that is 
something we most certainly need to address moving forward.
    This is for the panel, either one of you can answer this. 
My concern is that there will not be enough oversight for the 
implementation of this program and will end up being like the 
Electronic Health Record (EHR) system, 20 years outdated and 
billions of dollars over budget. Who of you or whom is 
responsible for the oversight of the implementation of this 
program?
    Mr. Orifici. Sir, thank you for that question, Chairman. We 
have tiered governance that is set up to oversee this program.
    Mr. Luttrell. No, I need a name.
    Mr. Orifici. So----
    Mr. Luttrell. Do not give me that tiered government thing 
because that means this is going to get lost in the 
bureaucracy.
    Mr. Orifici. Yes. I am the lead of the 701(b) execution, 
Interpersonal Therapy (IPT) that is responsible for running 
this plan and making sure that we have updates there. Then we 
have the executive lead, George Waddington, who is my executive 
lead over this IPT overseeing the 701(b) Modernization Plan.
    Mr. Luttrell. Okay. Once we start implementing this, you 
are who I am coming to if I need any questions answered?
    Mr. Orifici. I am who you are coming to for any questions 
that you need.
    Mr. Luttrell. Can you give me an idea moving forward with 
the amount of backlog that we have and then the timeframe of 
implementation of this program, in parallel, I am assuming, as 
our employees are working hard and diligently to make sure that 
this backlog is taken away, can you give me an assessment, 
because 2 years, it is quite a long time. As my colleague to my 
right stated, they are the ones that are suffering. Can you 
give me an estimation on when that backlog and how that backlog 
will be reduced once this program is online?
    Mr. Tellez. Thank you, Chairman. I think we are expecting 
the backlog to grow a little bit through 2024 and then drop 
dramatically in 2025. A lot of that is dependent on the 
incremental releases as we adopt more technology, as we 
implement some of the features that are in the 701(b) plan. We 
do have some coming up that I think will be very impactful to 
employees. Part of it is the ADS, the Automated Data Support 
that I am driving for claims automation, which does a lot of 
the automation for tasks associated with the claims process. 
Our intent there is to use evidence of record, so ordering 
exams, service validation, and then being able to present to 
the employees the information they need to make the decision on 
those issues faster.
    We are also looking at technology that takes the veteran's 
file and allows those claims processors to be able to search 
the file much faster. We call that Smart Search. We are 
expected to deploy that in summer. That will add some 
tremendous value, reduce that claims development time as 
employees are looking for the necessary records to determine 
whether they need to order exam or make a claim ready for 
decision for raters.
    We have also got new technology we are testing now called 
Automated Data Ingestion (ADI). That is where we are taking 
veterans who have an exam, they see a provider, they get a 
disability benefits questionnaire filled out and completed and 
returned back to us. VBMS ingests the data, the computable data 
from that Disability Benefits Questionnaires (DBQ) and we put 
it into VBMS-R and we present it back to the employees, the 
rater, for them to validate and help them make that decision, 
that recommended decision for that.
    That is some of the ways we are doing that. Two years I 
think is the timeframe that we are looking at because of the 
way that we release the technology for automated decision 
support. We are factoring 2 years because of the sort of 
conservative approach that we are doing for automation. Change 
is hard. Our employees have been, through the last 10 years, 
some huge transformation. We are being very thoughtful as we--
--
    Mr. Luttrell. To that point because my time is running 
short, sir. The one thing that I continually hear is training, 
training, training. Once this program, this platform, is 
implemented, are we training up for the initiation or are we 
initiating and then training? Because when we implemented the 
PACT Act, we put the cart before the horse, and we are 
suffering because of it right now.
    Mr. Tellez. I would say we are happening in parallel. As 
new features are coming on board, we prepare the staff and we 
train them when it is deployed so they have the tools and the 
information necessary to do the work.
    Mr. Luttrell. Okay, thank you. I now recognize the Ranking 
Member Pappas for your line of questioning.
    Mr. Pappas. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Tellez, 
if I could start with you. Committee staff recently visited 
both the Columbia, South Carolina and Chicago regional offices 
and heard uniformly from frontline employees that IT systems do 
not support their work. We heard about that directly today from 
Mr. Bump, and that substantiates long-standing complaints from 
across the country.
    At our hearing on PACT Act implementation last month, I 
asked Under Secretary Jacobs about this issue and about how we 
can capture user satisfaction information through surveys of 
VBMS users. Secretary Jacobs was not aware of any and promised 
to get back to me. Can you comment on the evidence that such 
surveys are happening? Is there a reason that VA would not want 
to hear from end users about their experiences?
    Mr. Tellez. Thank you, Congressman. I am not aware of any 
specific direct users, but we do often engage with frontline 
employees as we do new releases. We engage with them prior to 
release. We engage with them after the release to measure how 
effective was that particular release. One of the things that 
we are looking at since the hearing is a change management 
contract where we can adopt on the VBA side a survey, if you 
will, for a lot of things that we are deploying to measure the 
success of the efficiency of those tools that we are deploying.
    Mr. Pappas. Short of sitting next to a frontline worker at 
a congressional hearing, how can you capture feedback in a way 
that is going to inform changes in an efficient manner?
    Mr. Tellez. Thank you, sir. With automated decision 
support, we have 16 regional offices right now. We have 
dedicated weekly calls with the employees there to get their 
direct feedback on those specific automation tools. We have a 
tracker that employees are allowed to use or encouraged to use. 
As they are working claims and there is something that they 
want to report as a ticket or issue, they support it. We have 
weekly calls with them and we have weekly engagements. I would 
say regular touch points with the field frontline staff. We 
have optimization champions that we check in to see the areas 
that we can identify opportunities for optimizations inside.
    Mr. Pappas. Well, I appreciate that information, but I 
think something more systemic that is also forward leaning and 
proactive would provide the Department the information it needs 
to really understand the full picture there.
    Mr. Bump, if I could turn to you. Thanks for, you know, 
chronicling some of the pain points that you experience in your 
work. We are really grateful for the work that you do to 
support our veterans. I am wondering if you can comment on what 
avenues end users have of these systems to raise their concerns 
related to IT issues.
    Mr. Bump. Thank you, Congressman. The ways that we have to 
interact that Mr. Tellez described, they are all after the 
fact. What would help and I think help the process and of 
course then help employees serve veterans better, would be if 
we were in before these things were designed and before they 
were implemented as opposed to afterwards. A lot of the time 
when new systems are deployed, what VBA employees end up doing 
is beta testing software. That has been the case, I have been 
with VA for 21-plus years, and that was the case on day one. It 
is the case now. We need to be involved on the front end as 
opposed to the back end.
    Mr. Pappas. Do you think there are ways that VBA and the 
unions specifically can work together?
    Mr. Bump. Oh, certainly. I think now that we finally have a 
confirmed under secretary, who I would like to thank him 
personally for attending our latest Labor Management Forum 
meeting. He listened and asked thoughtful questions on how not 
only unions, but the employees who we represent can better 
interact with VBA's management staff that puts these things 
together.
    Mr. Pappas. Okay. Now, Mr. Tellez, one thing that Mr. Bump 
mentioned that we have heard from employees on is this issue of 
needing to reboot systems. They freeze up. There is significant 
downtime and instability in VBMS. Do you know what the cause of 
those issues might be? It could be a case-by-case issue but is 
there something more systemic that we should be concerned 
about?
    Mr. Tellez. I think it is probably more on a case-by-case 
basis. We have had some issues, but I am not sure that I would 
say that there is a consistent trend for that to happen. I 
could certainly take that back and go through that. Rob.
    Mr. Orifici. If I could add, we do track that. We do know 
by a case-by-case incident what causes that. Every time there 
is an outage or something like that, we do a root cause 
analysis. We do go in and we investigate what caused that 
incident, and we link it back to either a specific thing. It 
could be network. It could be something with the system itself, 
a defect or a change that had happened and did not work as 
expected. We do maintain that list for every outage and every 
incident, and we do an investigation to find out what happened 
and to prevent it from happening in the future.
    Mr. Pappas. Okay. I yield back my time.
    Mr. Luttrell. Thank you, ranking member. Chairman 
Rosendale, you are recognized, sir.
    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Orifici, 
Mr. Tellez just referenced the Automated Data Ingestion System, 
which is an extension of the Google Chrome browser that pre-
populates information for the claims raters into VBMS. This 
costs less than $2 million, and 400 employees are using it. Do 
you agree with Mr. Tellez that ADI is a success and that it 
should be continued?
    Mr. Orifici. Sir, thank you for that question, Chairman. I 
think ADI has been a success in getting functionality to the 
users quickly. It has been a way of getting features into the 
hands to help them process claims faster and more efficiently. 
At the same time, it has given us great input into how we could 
provide those features into VBMS, which, as you know, takes 
more time and costs more money. This was a great way of being 
able to test this functionality and see whether it will work 
and to be able to bring that into the VBMS in the future as we 
move forward.
    Mr. Rosendale. If it is a success, are you planning on 
continuing its use or are you planning on pulling the plug on 
that system?
    Mr. Orifici. We plan on continuing the use until its 
features are built into VBMS. It is a browser extension, and so 
it is not meant to be as robust and long lasting as something 
that is built into the actual software.
    Mr. Rosendale. What kind of timeframe do you think it is 
going to take for this to be phased out, shall we say?
    Mr. Orifici. We have the first parts of this starting to 
phase into VBMS this summer. We are looking at rolling out 
through probably second Fiscal Year of second quarter of the 
Fiscal Year 2024.
    Mr. Rosendale. Okay. What I am making sure that we do not 
run into is the exact same problem that we are experiencing 
with Oracle Cerner, EHR, Veterans Health Information Systems 
and Technology Architecture (Vista), where we have a system 
Vista, that is working. It is functioning. It is helping the 
facilities across the Nation, and yet we have spent billions of 
dollars for the Oracle Cerner system that is not functioning, 
okay? Even in the five facilities that it is currently at. Yet 
we have got billions of dollars going out the door to try and 
create that new system when we have one that is being utilized 
right now to deliver those services to those facilities, to the 
veterans.
    What I do not want to see is this dual track investment or 
drain of resources when we have a system that is already 
working. We had IT people before us about a week and a half ago 
and said that the problem with VA is that they continue to try 
and consolidate these IT systems and make them larger and 
larger and larger. And they have proven that if they keep them 
smaller with the vendors, that they have been much more 
effective, okay? We are going to be tracking that to make sure 
that we do not continue to dump money into vendors to continue 
to make them big while we have a system that is currently 
functioning.
    Mr. Orifici, I also want to get into as I look at this 
report on page 28 out of 106, where we look at the chart that 
shows how a claim is handled. One of the things that most of 
the people, I think, sitting at this dais and in this audience 
would recognize is these automated decision support systems, 
okay? When you call in and get a recording and you are supposed 
to start hitting numbers to find out where you are going to be 
directed to and that automated system is trying to resolve your 
problem, most of us get really frustrated, ok, dealing with 
that system.
    What I am trying to figure out from you or even Mr. Bump, 
you might have an idea about this, what are the triggers or 
keywords that are being utilized to make sure that this thing 
gets rapidly transferred to a real person to deal with our 
veterans? What kind of time does that take to get them over to 
a real person?
    Mr. Orifici. Sir, thank you for that question. I do not 
have an answer on hand for that. I will have to take that back 
for the record.
    Mr. Rosendale. Mr. Bump, do you have any insight to that?
    Mr. Bump. The time it takes to get to a real person?
    Mr. Rosendale. Mm-hmm.
    Mr. Bump. That I do not. Oftentimes the problem that we 
have in the call centers is the time limitations that the 
employees have to actually speak to a veteran or their spouse 
once they actually get to a person. The VA limit, the 
performance standards are set so that time is limited to, I 
believe it is roughly about 8 minutes.
    Mr. Rosendale. How long they are----
    Mr. Bump. How long they----
    Mr. Rosendale [continuing]. are allowed to speak to----
    Mr. Bump. How long the----
    Mr. Rosendale [continuing]. one of the veterans calling in?
    Mr. Bump. Right.
    Mr. Rosendale. Okay. This is going to go to my other line 
of questioning. I am going to give my time back. I am out. I 
have got a whole other round of questioning, sir, to get into 
this.
    Mr. Luttrell. Thank you, Mr. Rosendale. The chair now 
recognizes Mrs. Cherfilus-McCormick for her line of 
questioning.
    Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Bump, 
one of the most striking statements made in your testimony is 
that its common refrain from VSRs and RVSRs that they do not 
have enough work assigned to them to meet their production 
standards and that they have no constant--and that they have to 
constantly request new work from their coaches. Considering the 
size of the backlog, this is quite concerning. Do you know if 
there are any technological or functional impediments to the 
National Work Queue that caused this problem? Do you have any 
suggestions on how we can solve and help employees serve 
veterans more effectively and efficiently?
    Mr. Bump. Thank you, Congresswoman, for that question. The 
National Work Queue, the way it works is it assigns work to a 
particular regional office based on an algorithm that 
calculates how many employees work in that office. What always 
seems to happen, though, is it does not assign enough work to 
the office to keep folks busy throughout the day. Once it gets 
that work to those offices, the individual supervisors assign 
work to the individual employee's work queue. They hold some of 
it back intentionally so that when folks run out of work, they 
can then go to their supervisor and get more work.
    Further exacerbating that problem is when there is no more 
work left in the station's work queue. While VA tells its 
employees, do not wait until you are out of work, let me know 
as a supervisor, let me know when you have got one or two 
claims left in your work queue. Then that supposedly gives your 
supervisor time to find more work for you to do. If we could 
open up the National Work Queue so that employees have full 
access to all the claims that are out there, you would not have 
to have all those steps where an employee gets assigned not 
enough work to meet their performance standard on a given day. 
Then they have to go back to their coach. Their coach has to 
find work. Meanwhile, that could result in the employee sitting 
idle for, you know, who knows how long.
    Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Mr. Bump, would you mind giving 
the committee some perspective on the age of the IT system that 
make up VBMS?
    Mr. Bump. Well, as I believe it was Chairman Luttrell said, 
VBMS is at least 10 years old. The advances in computer 
processing and how the private sector does things, we are 
behind. One anecdote that I always think of when I am asked 
that question, or when I think about that question, is when I 
started with the VA nearly 22 years ago, in September, it will 
be 22 years, I was told that Benefits Delivery Network (BDN) 
was going to be going away. Well, here we are 22 years later, 
BDN is still there, and it informs I am not sure of the actual 
interactions it has, but it is still there for a reason, and it 
still interacts with VBMS. Not only do you have VBMS that is 10 
years old, you have other legacy systems that are even older. 
VBMS itself, you know, for a system as old as it is, we are 
able to work in it, but we could be doing better.
    Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. How does the age affect your work 
product and productivity?
    Mr. Bump. Well, every time VBMS gets upgraded, there are 
workarounds that result. Those workarounds, not only do you 
have to remember what all of them are, but they add to the time 
that it takes to process a claim because you have to, in some 
cases, manipulate VBMS. As I mentioned with the example, with 
the RVSRs, you have to manipulate the system to get it to 
provide the right result, as opposed to it just providing the 
right result.
    Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Do you feel that employees 
actually have a seat at the table as the VA plans to modernize?
    Mr. Bump. Not enough of one. As I mentioned earlier, we 
need a seat at the table as these things are being developed, 
not after they are developed. Then we just end up testing them 
and telling VBA what does not work.
    Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. My last question, in your time at 
the VA, do you feel that the acquisition and the procurement 
process--I will yield back and ask this later. Thank you.
    Mr. Luttrell. Thank you, ma'am. Mr. Franklin, you 
recognized, sir?
    Mr. Franklin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to our 
panel for being here today. Mr. Bump, my line of questioning 
really is going to follow up on what you were just touching on 
about how antiquated VBMS is now and really how do we get to 
where we need to be? I appreciate you chronicling in your 
testimony the challenges that we are facing. I read all these 
and candidly, what dismays me is just seeing the level of 
problems we are having now and where I think we need to be and 
the fact that, yes, and just in looking at the vernacular that 
the VA is using, we are talking automation, decision support 
systems, these are things that the private sector figured out a 
generation ago. Now that is aspirational it seems like for us 
to try to get there.
    From our folks from the VA, I would love to hear, we have 
got a freight train coming down the track. We are behind now, 
woefully behind, I think in where our technology ought to be. 
It is going to get worse. We are not doing right by our VA 
employees. Even worse, we are not doing right by our customers. 
Personally, from having been in the military, but also the 
private sector side, I think your customer should be the one 
defining what is acceptable. To me, I do not think 125 days 
should be defined as a backlog. To me, that is an absolute 
failure. If we give people a pat on the back for meeting, you 
know, because I got it in 124 days, shame on us.
    How do we get to a point where when we have big data, Cloud 
computing, predictive modeling, data analytics, are we ever 
going to get there with VBMS? How do we fix these programs to 
where we are out there proactively, you know, helping our 
veterans? It ought to be, to me, we ought to have systems that 
would say a veteran comes off of active duty, goes into the VA 
system. We know based on where they have been, what they have 
done, what they have been exposed to, these are the types of 
things that they are probably going to face down the line. How 
do we get out there ahead of that and help them? Or are we 
going to be talking about automation 20 years from now when the 
rest of the world has passed us by? I would love to yield the 3 
minutes I have to the two of you to tell me how we are going to 
do that better.
    Mr. Orifici. Yes, sir, thank you for that question, 
Congressman. There are a lot of components that we are working 
on today that will start to enable those features. We have come 
from a background when VBMS first started that this was one 
giant application and so to touch any component you were 
reworking all of VBMS to make sure that was working.
    The plan outlines how we are continuing the journey of 
breaking VBMS into smaller pieces. As we talked to, we could 
send that work off to other places or we can modernize smaller 
pieces and work with a more diverse group of providers in order 
to make sure those capabilities are modern and up to date.
    As part of that work, we are also decommissioning a lot of 
our legacy systems that we have out there. We have components 
of VetsNet that we are modernizing into new modules within 
either part of VBMS or standalone modules by themselves that 
interact across the other work type modernization that we are 
doing. Which is making it simpler for employees as they do not 
have to switch between tools, but also enabling future work in 
which we can connect those big data to make sure all the 
systems can use that data that is available and that we could 
integrate with other service providers like VBA is doing on the 
automated decision support, so we could bring those new 
capabilities to bear.
    Right now, it is very difficult to do that with some of the 
environment that is still outstanding from our legacy updates 
and so within 2 years, the plan is really getting us off those 
legacy components to enable that work. We are not really happy 
with how fast we are going but we appreciate the support that 
we have gotten around PACT Act and this is enabling us to 
accelerate a plan from 10 years down to 5. We are always 
looking for opportunities to accelerate that further and see 
what we could provide faster.
    Mr. Tellez. Sir, I would just like to add on the VBA side 
for we are using a professional services contract provider to 
help us with the claims automation. They are bringing to bear 
the latest technology automation tools to help us as we are 
accelerating the claims processing time to get to a rater so 
they can make a decision faster for veterans.
    Mr. Franklin. Mr. Bump, what is your take on what you hear?
    Mr. Bump. Thank you, Congressman. VA has always been kind 
of slow with adapting to change and the common refrain, and 
this goes back to at the very least General Hickey, when she 
was the VBA under secretary. It is a big ship and it takes a 
long time to turn it around. I hope that we get it right, but I 
also hope that we keep in mind the people who are doing this 
work and that we train them on these new systems, and that we 
involve them in the design of the new systems. That is what I 
do not see enough of right now is the involvement in as we are 
designing these things. The people who use these systems are 
the ones who are probably best informed as to what they should 
contain and how they should work.
    Mr. Franklin. Thank you. I am over my time. Hope is not a 
plan of action, and that is why we look to the gentlemen to 
your right for that. Thank you Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Luttrell. Thank you, Mr. Franklin. Mr. McGarvey, sir, 
you are recognized.
    Mr. McGarvey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Orifici and Mr. 
Bump, at a hearing last month on the implementation of the PACT 
Act I raised concerns that were voiced by the local out of my 
region, AFGE Local 611, which represents the VBA regional 
office in my hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. As you all know, 
what we talked about that Rating Veteran Service 
Representatives, or RVSRs, do not get production credit when 
they defer a case as not ready to rate. There are multiple 
problems that go along with this because including the concern 
that an RVSR may not get the case back once more information is 
available on the claim.
    To do right by our vets, we have got to make sure the 
people handling their claims are given all they need. I had a 
town hall last Friday in Louisville. I had several former 
Marines show up. They might argue that there is no such thing 
as a former Marine, but I had several Marines show up who are 
dealing with the issues of having been at Camp Lejeune. One guy 
was stationed there for 3-1/2 years. Incidentally, Louisville 
is where the Camp Lejeune claims are being handled. We have 
done a really good job resolving those claims. Is a resolution, 
though, that some of the claims are being denied when maybe 
they should not, and maybe they are being denied because they 
do not have the tools right now to further investigate claims 
and they come back as a denial.
    You know, we are trying to make sure, especially with the 
Camp Lejeune claims, that honestly, the government that exposed 
them to these hazardous materials is more speedy and more 
efficient in helping them out. Mr. Orifici, a question for you 
given this background of what we know is going on since the 
PACT Act. Is the lack of RVSR production, credit for deferred 
claims, and the inability to get the case back once more work 
has been performed on the claim a technological limitation of 
the National Work Queue? Or is it a management decision to 
handle claims this way?
    Mr. Orifici. Yes, thank you for that question, Congressman. 
Right now, NWQ is able to route the work according to the 
rules, so that is not a technology issue.
    Mr. McGarvey. What can we do then to help resolve these 
claims for the tens of thousands of Marines at Camp Lejeune?
    Mr. Tellez. Sir, we will continue to process those in a 
priority manner as much as we can, but otherwise, I will have 
to take that question back for you and get you a response to 
that.
    Mr. McGarvey. I appreciate that.
    Mr. Tellez. You are welcome.
    Mr. McGarveY. Mr. Bump, what other changes should the VBA 
implement to the National Work Queue to make it easier for 
claims processors to perform their duties and get the credit 
they have earned?
    Mr. Bump. Thank you, Congressman. In addition to what you 
mentioned about returning deferrals to the rater who originally 
looked at the claim, one suggestion, again, would be to open up 
the National Work Queue more so employees do not have to spend 
valuable time looking for work instead of serving veterans. If 
we would have a system where, you know, all of the work was 
available all of the time, instead of assigning work to a 
regional office and then manually assigning that work to 
individual processors, I think that would go a long way to 
speeding up the process.
    Mr. McGarvey. What is keeping that from happening right 
now?
    Mr. Bump. Much like the deferral issue, I do not believe--
these gentlemen can correct me if I am wrong--but I do not 
believe it is a technology issue. It is a management decision 
to utilize the National Work Queue in the way it is being 
utilized right now.
    Mr. Tellez. Sir, I think what we have is a national 
distribution of work based on a lot of different factors per 
regional office. Then locally, they have the right to 
distribute the work as they see fit for the thing. I think one 
of the opportunities we have, sir, is this NWQ modernization 
that we have in the 701(b). NWQ was designed at a different 
time. Here we are today. We have an opportunity to look at how 
can that work be distributed much more in an agile fashion than 
maybe we do today. NWQ modernization is one of the efforts we 
have identified as a 701(b), a critical element to deploy as 
part of 701(b).
    Mr. McGarvey. Thank you. In my remaining seconds, all I 
will say is this committee works well together to protect our 
veterans as we see right now. However, we can help you to speed 
this up because these men and women, in some cases, their 
literal lives depend on it. Thank you all very much.
    Mr. Luttrell. Thank you, sir. Mr. Self, you are recognized.
    Mr. Self. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As has been mentioned 
before, the PACT Act was obviously passed with no thought about 
the infrastructure needed to be in place to service it. Down 
the line, did you raise this issue prior to the passage of the 
PACT Act? Mr. Tellez first.
    Mr. Tellez. The infrastructure system, I think we probably 
raised some concerns with overall. I think one of the ways we 
were addressing that is using our professional managed services 
to automatically do some of those simple tasks so that we can 
get this----
    Mr. Self. I just asked, did you raise the issue, Mr. 
Tellez?
    Mr. Tellez. I will have to go, I will have to get you a 
response to that, sir. I am not sure.
    Mr. Self. Okay.
    Mr. Orifici. I know we had some feedback that we provided 
around this infrastructure's ability to support, but we also 
did start preemptively increasing some of the infrastructure in 
anticipation of the PACT Act being done. I think up to 18 
months before passage, we did start on increasing some of the 
capacity of training environments, of ability of VBMS at scale.
    Mr. Self. Okay. Mr. Bump, how about the council?
    Mr. Bump. I am sorry?
    Mr. Self. About the council?
    Mr. Bump. Infrastructure to do our jobs is always a 
concern. My biggest concern with the PACT Act is training. If 
you think of, you know, employees as human infrastructure, we 
did not do a good job----
    Mr. Self. Okay.
    Mr. Bump [continuing]. with the training aspect.
    Mr. Self. Thank you. Mr. Tellez, you said that you were 
confident of the system in your testimony. When are you going 
to be confident of the system?
    Mr. Tellez. Sir, I would say I am confident in the system 
now. I think the process that we have for deploying automated 
decision support tools has high quality. We do have user 
frontline employees involved in that process. We use the human 
set.
    Mr. Self. Mr. Tellez, what are the metrics that you use to 
say the system is getting better? I mean, I think all of us 
would question what are the metrics that you use? We have gone 
from 65,000 pre-pandemic to what today, over 400,000 by you 
all's testimony. It is going to peak at over a million when we 
get to the Terra and non-Terra. What are the metrics you use to 
tell us that the system is getting better? Is it numbers of 
days, the 125 days that we can take down to what? What are the 
metrics that you are going to use?
    Mr. Tellez. I think the metrics that we use are the metrics 
that we report to this committee on the average days to 
complete, the average days pending. For automated decision 
support, we are still in preliminary stages. We hope as we 
deploy those nationwide, you will really see the true benefits 
of how automation can reduce the decisionmaking for veterans, 
and we can get those decisions and benefits earlier to 
veterans.
    Mr. Self. Last question. When will we get back down to 
65,000 backlog?
    Mr. Tellez. Sir, as we are projecting to have that backlog 
increase, our projection now is about 400,000, between 2024. We 
start seeing that backlog drop down in 2025 below 100,000.
    Mr. Self. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Luttrell. Thanks, sir. Mr. Crane?
    Mr. Crane. Thank you all for coming today. Mr. Tellez, I am 
going to start with you. Right now, the VA is about 4 months 
behind and our wait time in processing claims are 125 days. By 
April 2024, it is projected that the VA's backlog will peak at 
about 730,000 PACT Act claims. Knowing this, what do you think 
the wait time is going to be come April 2024 when we have the 
peak of the PACT Act claims?
    Mr. Tellez. Sir, we are projecting our backlog to be about 
400,000 between now and 2024. I do not have the data with me on 
what we are projecting for what we think the wait times. I will 
have to get that back for you, sir.
    Mr. Crane. Okay, but you would say a substantial increase 
in wait time just based on the numbers now, and then the 
increase then?
    Mr. Tellez. I think with the increase of the backlog to 
about 400,000 I think there will be some increased time. As we 
are deploying more and more automated decision support tools, 
adopting more technology, I hope to prevent that happening for 
more. That is on us.
    Mr. Crane. Okay. Mr. Tellez, you seemed a little upset when 
Mr. Bump spoke about the need for instructive feedback on the 
front end of the system design, not beta testing on the back 
end. I kept seeing you reach for your little talking button 
there. Can you go ahead and address that?
    Mr. Tellez. Sure. Yes. Really what I would like to 
highlight for here so the employees are not absent in the 
process. When we come up with new ideas and things, we bring in 
subject matter experts and we bring employees from the field. 
We hold requirement sessions with employees along the way, 
sometimes several times. We invite employees for what we call 
user acceptance testing. Hey, we heard your requirements. Here 
is how it is in the system. Does it work? We get that direct 
feedback. Then before we deploy new functionality, we have 
users also test the system to make sure it works.
    Mr. Crane. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Bump, what do you have 
to say to that, anything? Any feedback?
    Mr. Bump. Thank you, Congressman. There is simply not 
enough of it.
    Mr. Crane. Okay.
    Mr. Bump. That is what I would say. We select a small 
number of employees and have them test things out. Those 
employees are not often of the same experience level or of an 
appropriate experience level. There is just not enough of it.
    Mr. Crane. Do you think if that was done within the 
parameters of what you are suggesting, we would be having less 
problems now?
    Mr. Bump. I think we would because I think we would have 
less workarounds after the fact.
    Mr. Crane. You know, Mr. Bump, I found it pretty 
interesting when you made the comment, if we were to open up 
the National Work Queue, it would drive productivity and 
decrease the backlog. Mr. Tellez, what do you think about that 
suggestion?
    Mr. Tellez. I think it is a great suggestion. As I 
mentioned, we are looking to modernize NWQ. I think we have a 
lot of opportunities to look at how work is distributed in a 
much more agile fashion. I do not have the answer for you 
today, sir, but I can commit that is part of the 701(b) plan. 
We are committed as an effort to modernize the NWQ and figure 
what opportunities there are to make that process better.
    Mr. Crane. That does not seem like something that you would 
need to modernize. That seems more like a command decision. 
That does not seem like something that is technology or needs 
to be modernized, right? That just seems like something that 
the individual at the top actually needs to say, hey, we want 
to decrease the backlog we have here. Mr. Bump made a pretty 
good suggestion. Why do not we try that and see if it actually 
decreases the backlog?
    Mr. Tellez. Sir, I will take that back for you and get you 
a response.
    Mr. Crane. Okay. Who is making that call? Mr. Tellez, who 
makes that call?
    Mr. Tellez. Our fielder operations leadership.
    Mr. Crane. Who is the name? Give me the name.
    Mr. Tellez. I believe it would be Willie Clark.
    Mr. Crane. Who?
    Mr. Tellez. Willie Clark.
    Mr. Crane. Willie Clark.
    Mr. Tellez. Deputy Under Secretary, sir.
    Mr. Crane. All right, Mr. Tellez, last question for you. 
What do you think the biggest difference is between how the VA 
operates and how the private healthcare system operates?
    Mr. Tellez. I am sorry, sir, I do not have--I will have to 
get you a response to that. I do not work in the healthcare, so 
I am not sure I am able to answer that question.
    Mr. Crane. No problem. Mr. Bump, you want to take a shot at 
that one, the differences, private sector and VA?
    Mr. Bump. My experience with the private sector healthcare 
system, when I go for a test or see a doctor or something like 
that, the very same day, I can see and interact with not only 
my records, I should say I can interact with my records, but 
also my physician can see those same records. That is not 
always the case in VA.
    Mr. Crane. Yes. One of the big problems is and this is a 
problem that many of us on this committee have with the VA and 
its desire to basically have everything under its own roof and 
really try and halt, you know, veterans from going out in town 
and getting care is one of the biggest differences in the 
private sector, if you have a backlog or you are not performing 
well, you go out of business. In the VA, that is not the case. 
We just keep appropriating more money to you guys, and there is 
really never any accountability. That is one of the things that 
I want, you know, you guys to understand, is that is why so 
many of us want to see veterans be able to go out into the 
private sector and get care out in the private sector. Not 
dismissing the VA completely, because we know that there is a 
time and a place for VA healthcare. This is part of the 
problem. In the private sector, you do not have these type of 
problems, because if you consistently have these type of 
problems and are behind, like Mr. Bump has testified to today, 
you go out of business. Thank you. I yield back my time.
    Mr. Luttrell. Thank you, Mr. Crane. Mr. Deluzio, you want 
me to move over? Take your time.
    Mr. Deluzio. Mr. Chairman, I am ready. I appreciate it.
    Mr. Luttrell. Yes, sir, you are recognized.
    Mr. Deluzio. Okay. All right. Thank you. Good morning, 
everybody. I want to start Mr. Bump with you, sir. As you know, 
you know, I am proud to represent many VBA employees who work 
at the Pittsburgh VBA regional office represented by AFGE Local 
1627, their President, Michelle Fisher. Reading your testimony, 
I was pleased to see some of the concerns coming out of the 
workers in that office raised, but frustrated to learn that 
claims processors, as you describe it, and as they have talked 
about, have to employ a bunch of workarounds to get veterans 
correct monthly compensation. Not to mention how error prone 
that usage of the VBA management system is.
    Mr. Bump, my question is, could you explain for my 
colleagues and me how an innocent error could negatively impact 
a claims processor's performance, and what that impact might be 
for them.
    Mr. Bump. Thank you, Congressman. I am good friends with 
Michelle. We know each other well, have known each other for 
nearly a decade. If there is an error on a claim, it affects 
your performance standard, no matter what kind of an error it 
is. It could be something as simple as a portion of the 
veteran's service record not being correct in the system. All 
of these workarounds that we have to do to get the correct 
result for a veteran, they are all points in which an error can 
be made. The more times that you have to manipulate the system 
to do what it--to provide the result that it is supposed to 
provide, that is more opportunities for an error in either data 
entry or the system not capturing the data correctly.
    You know, the employees who work for this agency they do 
their best. Again, more than half of the folks who work in VBA 
on the front line are veterans themselves. They are committed 
to getting things right for veterans and getting veterans the 
benefits that they deserve and that they have earned. I believe 
it was Chairman Luttrell who, or no, it was Chairman Rosendale 
who mentioned that these are not entitlements. These are 
benefits that are earned, and we need to make the system work 
better so we do not have to do things in the manner that 
Michelle described when she was asked about this.
    Mr. Deluzio. Well, and I should say the obvious piece, in 
addition to affecting performance, slows down decisions for 
veterans, as folks who are processing these claims have to 
spend more time to get it right to avoid errors that, again, 
will also negatively impact veterans who are waiting for 
decisions here.
    Mr. Bump. Definitely. The more steps we have to take that 
lengthens the time that it takes to process a claim.
    Mr. Deluzio. Well, about a minute and a half, and so, I 
realize this is a big question, but what do you think VBA needs 
to do to modernize here to make this work better for veterans, 
for the folks who are working, both?
    Mr. Bump. Well, there are things that system enhancements 
could do. Automation, I think, will help at some point. I do 
not believe we are anywhere close to where we need to be with 
that. There are management decisions as well, and one of them 
is opening up the National Work Queue, assuring that raters get 
a case back after they have to defer it.
    Additionally, if we could change something so that a claim 
stays in the same office once it is started, because right now, 
you know, we have a system where I could work on a claim in 
Portland, do what I need to do, send it back up. Then the claim 
goes to Pittsburgh or Denver or St. Petersburg. Every time that 
an employee touches a claim, they have to go through it from 
the beginning, because if there is an error and they do not 
catch it, that is their error.
    In order for employees to meet their performance metrics 
and feel good about the job they are doing and, you know, 
keeping their career, they have to almost rework a claim from 
the beginning every time they touch it to prevent getting an 
error.
    Mr. Deluzio. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield 
back.
    Mr. Luttrell. Thanks, sir. Mr. Ciscomani, you recognized, 
sir.
    Mr. Ciscomani. Thank you, Chairman Luttrell and Chairman 
Rosendale for holding this important hearing. Thank you to the 
witnesses for coming in. The United States has seen how far 
technology has come and advanced technology will continue to 
make our constituents lives easier and our country better. 
However, Department of Veteran Affairs, along with many other 
government entities, are struggling to keep up with the modern 
times and the technology that provide in the private sector 
that companies can utilize there.
    Back home in Tucson, I met with a local American Federation 
of Government Employees union in March and learned about the 
complexity in the claims process and the innovation being done 
in the private sector to help veterans within this claim 
process. I know that the dedicated men and women at the VA are 
working to help our veterans, but outdated technology and quite 
frankly, bureaucracy serve as roadblocks for those who put 
their lives on the line for this country.
    Unfortunately, it seems that some businesses have built a 
business model based on bureaucratic incompetence. That was my 
takeaway from this meeting. As we are looking at the investment 
in Veteran Affairs, you may know this, I am also on the 
Appropriations Committee. My questions are very interested in 
the investment in VA here, making sure that our veterans have 
the right tools so that there is the right accountability on 
those resources as well.
    Mr. Tellez, based on the Veteran Benefit Administration's 
Five-Year Modernization Plan, Department of VA is requesting 
125 million to modernize the VA.gov platform. How will these 
changes to VA.gov improve the veteran facing aspects of the 
website and specifically the benefit claims?
    On the same vein, here, requesting also 36-1/2 million for 
improving its National Call Center. I am very interested in 
seeing not only anecdotally how this will improve, but how will 
you keep track of this and what is the accountability that 
these funds will actually produce the results that you are 
intended for them to produce?
    Mr. Tellez. Thank you, sir, for the question. The 
enhancements of the VA.gov portal are really important to 
veterans because it allows them to interact with us better. It 
allows them to do more work with VA, exchange information with 
VA, submit more claims through the VA.gov portal, and more 
importantly, allows us to deliver more information to them as 
well, such as decision letter downloads, which we delivered 
last January.
    We will continue, expand on that, expand on the ability for 
the veteran to choose their mode of communication, whether it 
be a text, email, or whatnot. From our perspective it has a 
better experience for the veteran. Automation is a factor in 
that too. I think when you think about automation from the 
veteran perspective and the employee perspective, it really 
just creates a better experience altogether when we can have 
those pieces. We measure that by the usage of the tool and then 
the success of the implementation of that measuring along the 
way. I can not speak to the National Call Center (NCC) 
directly, but I will have to get you a response to that for 
that.
    Mr. Ciscomani. Thank you. I would like a response to that. 
When we look at, as I mentioned at these investments that we 
want to make sure that our veterans are taken care of, we have 
pledged to uphold the line on the resources here to Veteran 
Affairs. We want to continue to make sure that these funds are 
being used for its intended purpose, but also that they produce 
the results that we need them to.
    I have got another question that will probably change 
topics and take a little longer with the amount of time we have 
left. I just want to dig in a little deeper on this 
conversation. If you can just go again a little deeper on how 
the results would be measured and what would claim success with 
these resources? What would you say that is exactly the 
intended purpose, and that we can claim success, and how long 
do you think that would take us to get there?
    Mr. Tellez. Thank you, sir. I think one way I would measure 
success is more claims submitted through VA.gov than paper. 
Right now, even though we are seeing an increase in veterans 
submitting claims through VA.gov, we still get a fair number of 
paper. I have to convert paper, I have to scan it, I have to 
digitize it, and that is not always a perfect thing. I would 
say one way we would measure success there is more veterans are 
using VA.gov.
    I would also measure the success of the interactions with 
the number of veterans that use the site for those tools and 
resources, such as the number of decision letters that are 
downloaded and accessed each month. We have a number of those 
metrics to measure the success of that, making sure that 
veterans find trust in the system and that they are finding it 
useful and they will keep coming back to engage with VA that 
way as well.
    Mr. Ciscomani. Well, those are good, Mr. Tellez, and I 
agree with them. You know, one thing that I keep hearing is the 
wait time on these claims. Obviously, the paperless claims 
hopefully speed up that time and the wait time for our veterans 
keeps on reducing. That will be a measurement that I will be 
very interested in you pursuing and tracking so that we can 
make sure at the end of the day we can make all these changes 
from paper to electronic. If the process is not sped up and our 
veterans are waiting the same amount of time for whatever other 
reason, then I would not call that success. In my mind, success 
would mainly revolve around the wait time that our veterans are 
waiting for these claims. I yield back. Thank you, Chair.
    Mr. Luttrell. Thank you, sir. That concludes our first 
round. We are going to move directly into the second round. I 
recognize myself for 5 minutes. Mr. Tellez, you said, is it 
Under Secretary Clark is the manager of the PQS, or, I am 
sorry, the NWQ? Do you work directly? Do you answer to him? My 
concern is if we are onboarding this new platform that is 
supposed to assist claims and decrease a backlog, but it seems 
to me that the National Work Queue is one of the major problems 
in this chain of command, if you will. Then we have stations 
that do not have work because the National Work Queue does not 
deliver claims. Am I understanding that correctly from my 
colleague over here? She stated that earlier.
    Mr. Tellez. I think that is what I heard. I have to get 
back to you on a response to that.
    Mr. Luttrell. It seems to me that we need to address the 
National Work Queue because I think the backlog, from what you 
said, next year at 100,000 will be substantially higher. Now, 
if we are onboarding this new platform in parallel, I think it 
is still going to be problematic because packages are not being 
disseminated properly and then everyone's being penalized if 
they are not conducting proper oversight on each packet. Does 
that hold water to you?
    Mr. Tellez. I am not aware that there is challenges with 
distribution of work to the regional offices. I will have to 
come back to you with a response on where there may be 
opportunities. I am not aware of any, sir.
    Mr. Luttrell. Okay. Please do. Sir? I recognize a ranking 
member.
    Mr. Pappas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to follow 
up on one issue that I had raised in the first round. Mr. Bump, 
if I can direct this to you. I was asking about system 
disruptions, which you highlighted in your testimony, and 
wondering if you can just talk about how these issues might 
affect VBA personnel and around the issue of not being granted 
or potentially being granted relief for lost time due to these 
system disruptions.
    Mr. Bump. Well, thank you, Congressman. When VBA employees 
are not processing claims, they are not able to earn the 
appropriate number of work credits or transactions that they 
need to meet their performance standard. VBA, in the nearly 22 
years that I have worked there, the same position has been held 
about what is called excluded time. It is granted by your 
supervisor. That said, VA has I will call it limited, sort of 
subversively limited. I do not mean that in a bad sense, the 
use of the word subversive.
    What they do from the national level is if a particular 
station has too much what they perceive to be too much, or over 
a limit of excluded time that they grant, they have to answer 
for it. What that leads to is that leads to a very conservative 
approach when it comes to granting or not granting excluded 
time. Excluded time is meant to account for the time when VBA 
employees can not do their job because of system issues or, in 
some cases, extraordinarily complex claims. If we are not 
granted the appropriate amount of excluded time to cover the 
time that we have lost due to system issues, the only negative 
effect to the employee is it is harder to meet your performance 
standard.
    Mr. Pappas. There are times when that is the case, when you 
are not granted the relief because of an issue that is out of 
your hands with respect to the system.
    Mr. Bump. Definitely. Definitely that happens. Some offices 
are better than others, but it is, you know, it is something 
that each individual office controls. It is dependent on the 
leadership in that office as to what their philosophy on 
granting that time is. It is inconsistent.
    Mr. Pappas. Thank you. Mr. Tellez, do you think that is 
fair, that employees could be adversely impacted in terms of 
reviews and credits based on a system issue that is out of 
their hands?
    Mr. Tellez. Well, as you know, we are in a completely 
digital operating environment. When we have a system issue that 
happens occasionally from time to time, there is an impact to 
our productivity, and we have ways around addressing that. We 
offer training. There are other ways we can fill our time for 
employee stuff.
    To your specific question of how it is happened at local 
regional offices versus national, I will have to get you back a 
response to that. I am not aware that there has been a 
disparity in how that is approved or disapproved.
    Mr. Pappas. Okay. Well, we would like more information on 
that.
    Mr. Tellez. Of course.
    Mr. Pappas. I yield back my time.
    Mr. Luttrell. Thank you, sir. Mr. Rosendale, you are 
recognized.
    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I would like 
to make a reference to a movie I saw recently. It is called 
Ford v. Ferrari. In the course of the movie, in this one scene, 
Carol Shelby is sitting out in the lobby of Ford Corporation 
waiting to visit with Henry Ford II. He watches a file come in, 
and it goes through five sets of hands and then goes into the 
office, and someone hands it to Henry Ford II before he 
actually takes a look at it. It had been looked at by 20 other 
people before it even arrived on what they called, I think, the 
9th floor.
    It seems to me that this is the problem that we are having 
with this processing. Everything that Mr. Bump is describing 
and that the other two gentlemen are describing this 
information is going through a lot of hands. The way that I 
think it is evidenced is, again, look at the Benefits Delivery 
Information Technology Systems report that you all provided. If 
we look at page 13, it talks about the development of the plan 
taking 90 days, intake, 1 day rating, 5 days, authorization and 
award, 5 days, development, 90 days. If that file is being 
handed off to different people before it is even completed, as 
Mr. Bump referenced, or if there is someone sitting there that 
can not get that information in a timely manner, this is the 
crux of this entire problem that we are dealing with.
    Mr. Tellez, Mr. Orifici, your plan says automation is the 
key to speeding up processing, and successful automation relies 
on access to all veterans' relevant data, better quality data 
that computers can read directly, improved infrastructure, and 
supportive policies. None of these conditions are in place 
today. Please tell me, how are you going to implement these 
fixes and how will your process and the results be different as 
we go forward?
    Mr. Tellez. Thank you for your question, Congressman. One 
of the things I would highlight here is our automated decision 
tool. As a result of the pandemic and our inability to access--
--
    Mr. Rosendale. I am tired of hearing about the pandemic. I 
will be honest with you. I have got veterans that can not get 
their benefits right now because they are being required to use 
mask mandates, okay, in our veterans facilities. We do not even 
want to go down that trail.
    Mr. Tellez. One of the principles of 701(b) is leveraging 
data. One of the things we are doing at claims intake when 
veterans file a claim is we are automating those steps that you 
just highlighted there. A claim comes in for PACT Act claims 
right now.
    Mr. Rosendale. Intake, it does not seem to be a problem. We 
are looking at the development----
    Mr. Tellez. Correct.
    Mr. Rosendale [continuing]. of the claim.
    Mr. Tellez. Correct. Correct. One of the things we are 
looking at is being able to obtain the medical evidence from 
our inter-agencies. From Veterans Health Administration (VHA), 
from Department of Defense (DoD), from Community Care, and we 
pull those records in. If we are able to rate that decision 
based on the evidence of claim, we will hand it to a rating, an 
RVSR in the house.
    Mr. Rosendale. How are we going to improve that? Okay, I 
understand.
    Mr. Tellez. Yes.
    Mr. Rosendale. How are we going to improve this going 
forward to take this 90 days and narrow it down and somehow 
make sure that that claim is kept in one person's hands instead 
of being distributed in different locations?
    Mr. Orifici. Yes, Thank you for that question, chairman. We 
have a lot of pieces that all come together to help address 
this. We had questions about the VA.gov portion at the very 
beginning. It starts with how we receive the claim from the 
veteran and making sure that we have all the relevant data. And 
then the connections to the various systems to make sure that 
we are pulling the service treatment record completely, whether 
that is a modern record or a legacy, more legacy record from an 
older theater of duty, and that we have all that data coming 
together. The plan outlines how we are putting those into 
interactive services that other providers like ADS can use to 
have all that ready----
    Mr. Rosendale. What tools are lacking right now, okay, that 
we are not able to gather that information and get it into a 
claims processor or an underwriter's hand so that we can 
deliver the benefits to the veterans? What is lacking? What 
systems are failing? What do we need to do going forward?
    Mr. Orifici. Right, so the first thing that we are really 
addressing is our corporate data base, which has all of our 
data around the benefits claims rating, historical data around 
it, and that is a monolithic data base that is not structured 
properly to enable the support that we have. One of our first 
key activities is updating this massive data base of veteran 
data in order to make it more accessible and to have new 
technologies that could interoperate off of that new and 
modernized data platform.
    Mr. Rosendale. Mr. Chair, I am down to 19 seconds, so I am 
going to yield back. I got deep water to go into yet.
    Mr. Luttrell. Yes, sir. Thank you. Mrs. Cherfilus-
McCormick, you are recognized.
    Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Bump, I 
want to pick up where we left off. In your time at the VA, do 
you feel that the acquisition of procurement IT systems have 
been done in a thoughtful manner?
    Mr. Bump. Thank you, Congresswoman. I truly believe that 
the VA has the best intent as to how it modernizes its systems. 
What I think might be lacking outside of what I have already 
testified to as to more employee involvement earlier in the 
process. What I see as a problem is in connection with all of 
that is that some of the people who are putting these things 
together from, you know, what platforms we use, to how they are 
designed, those are not folks who have done the work. Those are 
not frontline employees who have, you know, been trying to get 
benefits to veterans as quickly as possible as their job. There 
are obviously limits to how much that can be done.
    I think we can do many things better with not only our IT 
systems, but, as Congressman Rosendale was mentioning, how we 
reduce the development time. One of the things that was going 
through my head as Mr. Tellez and Mr. Orifici were answering 
those questions, if we could get to a point where we did not 
have to request that information, where as soon as a veteran 
files a claim or more to the point, as soon as they are 
discharged that data was already there. Right now, we have to 
go and make requests to whether it is HAIMS or PIES or Defense 
Finance Accounting Service (DFAS) for personnel records. If we 
did not have to request those things, if it was automatically 
provided, that would reduce the development time and it would 
reduce the backlog because we would not be waiting for those 
records.
    Now, some of those records you can get in less than a day, 
but many of them you can not. I think to answer the question 
about thoughtfulness, if we would think about those things 
instead of technical requirements, I think we would be a lot 
further into the process.
    Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Bump. My next 
question is for Mr. Tellez. VA has a long history of failed 
modernization attempts, everything from health records, to 
supply chain, to financial management. At the core of this 
issue is the lack of comprehensive thought and planning at the 
beginning of the acquisition program. Last Congress, our 
committee passed the IT Reform Act to begin to address the 
challenges with IT programs. This Congress, I have cosponsored 
a bill to require independent verification and validation of 
large program including VBMS. What process are you currently 
using to plan for and award contracts to address the new 
automation initiatives?
    Mr. Tellez. Thank you Congresswoman. For automated decision 
support, we do have an independent verification validation 
vendor that validates the automation logic as it is in 
production. We do use that as a validation and I think I will 
pass it to Mr. Orifici who can speak to you on the IT side of 
the house.
    Mr. Orifici. Yes, ranking member, thank you for that 
question. We are also interested in Independent Verification 
and Validation (IV&V). This past March we awarded an IV&V 
contract which covers all the products within the band 
portfolio. We are working on making sure that we have IV 
coverage for all of our major projects, including VBMS.
    Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. How do you intend to measure 
success? Specifically, what kind of variables are you using to 
measure success?
    Mr. Orifici. For the IV&V?
    Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Mm-hmm.
    Mr. Orifici. Yes, so, for the IV&V, it is product by 
product basis, but it looks at the requirements as they are 
delivered and the outcomes that are supposed to be delivered 
for that product. The IV&V contractor goes to their test suite 
to ensure that those requirements are being met and that those 
outcomes are also delivered by the system.
    Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Now, do you have any specific 
measures that you are looking at?
    Mr. Orifici. I would have to go back and bring those back 
to the record.
    Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield 
back.
    Mr. Luttrell. Thank you ma'am. Mr. Crane, you are 
recognized, sir.
    Mr. Crane. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Bump was talking a 
second ago and he was talking about why claims are going from 
Portland to Pittsburgh and getting kind of farmed out. Why is 
that happening, Mr. Tellez? Why is not one processor being able 
to handle a claim all the way through?
    Mr. Tellez. Thank you Congressman. It is my understanding 
that the claim typically stays with a regional office. There 
might be opportunities where for reasons that the capacity is 
at a different regional office. Otherwise, I have to get you a 
response to that.
    Mr. Crane. Mr. Bump, do you have any idea why that is 
happening?
    Mr. Bump. When the National Work Queue was originally 
designed and implemented, what the messaging around it was, was 
to have the next available person ready to take the next 
action. What was not thought about was how that works with 
employee performance standards and, you know, what it actually 
takes to do things that way. There are differences in the way 
regional offices operate and frankly train their employees, you 
simply can not trust what was done before. If we could change 
how we manage the National Work Queue to allow a claim to 
perhaps not stay, it would not necessarily have to stay with 
the same employee, but if it could stay within the same office, 
instead of having to, you would have more confidence in the 
work that was done before you, because you would be working 
with people who were trained the same way you were by the same 
people. You understand what the employee who went before you 
did and why they did it the way they did it.
    Mr. Crane. Does that make sense, Mr. Tellez?
    Mr. Tellez. Again, I think it is really about capacity. I 
think the intent is to try to keep the claims at the local 
regional office for processing. Again, I think there are times 
when capacity says that we might have more capacity at a 
different regional office to do it. I think the training is 
pretty standardized across VBA, so I do not know that there 
would be significant nuances from regional office to regional 
office processing claims the same way. I would expect again, 
the intent is to keep it with the regional office unless there 
could be an opportunity to make a decision on that veteran at a 
different regional office faster.
    Mr. Crane. Mr. Bump, you were shaking your head as if you 
do not agree with the training being centralized.
    Mr. Bump. When an employee onboards at VBA, the VA made a 
conscious decision a few years ago to shorten the amount of 
time that the training is done centrally. It used to be where 
folks went off to what was called challenge training and you 
were there for challenge training itself was 10 weeks. You had 
4 weeks of sort of learning the lingo, I will say, and then you 
had 6 weeks where you traveled and you were all trained 
together by national level trainers.
    Now, what we have transitioned to is 4 weeks total of 
national training, and then you are sent back to your regional 
office where you are trained by regional office personnel. To 
say that it is standardized, perhaps the material, and the 
manuals, and things like that are standard, but the way you are 
taught to do things varies from office to office.
    Mr. Crane. Thank you. Last question, Mr. Bump. You said you 
have been working with the VA for close to 20 years, is that 
correct?
    Mr. Bump. Twenty-two years this September, sir.
    Mr. Crane. Twenty-two years. Has anybody explained to you 
why they do not open up the work queue so that the VA staff is 
more efficient and not sitting around as much?
    Mr. Bump. No. The answer to that question has never really 
been explained.
    Mr. Crane. Have you asked the question?
    Mr. Bump. It has come up. I serve on both the VBA Midterm 
Bargaining Committee as well as our National Labor Management 
Forum, and these are topics that are discussed there, so 
certainly. The answer is always some form of we want the system 
to work the way we designed it to work, instead of taking into 
account changes that affect how that works and the projected 
increase in the backlog.
    If we are going to expect this increase and we are going to 
do things the same way we have been doing them for the last 10 
years, I do not think we are going to get a different result.
    Mr. Crane. Thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. Luttrell. Thank you, sir. Mr. Ciscomani, you 
recognized, sir.
    Mr. Ciscomani. Thank you, Chair. Just a quick question to 
piggyback off the last part of our conversation on the 
investments and how that is going to be improving in regards to 
these changes. I have a question about how this is going to 
benefit older veterans as well. My district has over 70,000 
veterans, which is one of the highest concentration of veterans 
in the country in any congressional district. Out of the over 
70,000 veterans, many of them served in the Vietnam War with 
service records and medical records that date back decades.
    I am pleased to see the VA using optical character 
recognition software to help find key words in the claims 
paperwork. I have also learned that the accuracy still needs a 
lot of improvement on that. We have seen live examples of that 
happening. Mr. Tellez, how are you planning on improving the 
optical character recognition so the automation can accurately 
scan all these old service and treatment records that my 
Vietnam veterans have now?
    Mr. Tellez. Thank you, Congressman, for your question. 
Because we are using professional services, they are bringing 
the latest automation technology tools to bear. Part of it is a 
learning process, natural learning processing. It takes time to 
learn and do that. We see that accuracy improving and 
improving. It does get harder when you start getting into those 
older medical records with our handwriting. That is an industry 
challenge wide for handwriting. Again, we are using our vendor 
to implement that automation and to learn and improve the 
accuracy of that. Then I will turn it to Mr. Orifici here.
    Mr. Orifici. If I may add, we are also implementing the 
Smart Search capability within VBMS. This is a service offering 
from Amazon as part of their Cloud services. It has Optical 
Character Recognition (OCR) and it maps it to where in the 
document occurs. It also does recognition across images. If it 
is not just type text or computer-generated text. It also has a 
high rate of recognizing handwriting. This is one of the 
improvements that we are rolling out this summer. A veteran 
claims processor can search across the e-folder and it has that 
ability to search both images and handwriting for increased 
accuracy.
    Mr. Ciscomani. Is this part of the same outsourced service 
that Mr. Tellez was talking about or is this internal?
    Mr. Orifici. This is internal to VBMS and this will be 
fully exposed to other providers to utilize this data. It is 
not just going to be isolated to VBMS for its use. It will be 
available broadly to any service within the VA that wants to 
use it.
    Mr. Ciscomani. Regarding the service that we are hiring 
from the outside, Mr. Tellez, and we are I guess contracting 
the highest technology available, as you are describing, and 
learning process on that, again, I am all about the efficiency 
on this. In order to have efficiency, we got to have 
expectations and timelines. In your mind, again, you know, no 
system will ever be perfect. I understand that, but if there is 
improvement to make, how much improvement have we made? Are we 
instructing the service and company that is giving us these 
services, what we need from this and the challenges we are 
having with the older records as well?
    Mr. Tellez. We do have a measurement for that. I will have 
to get you back where we are improving on that, sir.
    Mr. Ciscomani. Yes, please do. I want to see how much we 
have improved and what do we still have to go in terms of the 
metrics and the goals that you would set out on that and what 
kind of progress we are making toward that.
    Mr. Tellez. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Ciscomani. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Luttrell. Thank you, sir. Mr. Rosendale?
    Mr. Rosendale. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Bump, I really 
like your comments about keeping the follow-on location. Let us 
just say for a moment, let us just say that everyone was 
trained exactly the same. Do you still think it would be easier 
to talk to the person that is sitting next to you that has that 
file if it was transferred over, than trying to reach across 
the country to talk to someone?
    Mr. Bump. Definitely. It is not only easier to talk to your 
fellow coworkers in your office just because you are more 
familiar with them, but it is also, I mean, frankly, if you are 
in the office on the same day, you can actually just go and 
physically speak with them and have everything at the ready to 
do that.
    Mr. Rosendale. Does not the actual act of transferring that 
file to another location take a certain amount of time?
    Mr. BUMP. The work that the National Work Queue does to 
draw things back up into the Cloud and then disperse it, that 
takes a certain amount of time. I am not sure how often that 
is, but all of the information, so all of the ''paperwork'' 
that goes with the claim that is readily available to everybody 
at the same time. That said, you are not supposed to access a 
veteran's records unless you have a need to do so.
    Mr. Rosendale. Exactly. Mr. Tellez, is there any part of 
that that you disagree with, do you not feel that it is a lot 
easier to talk to someone sitting next to you with the 
documents right there in front of you than trying to go across 
the country to bring them up to speed on all of the work that 
you have just completed?
    Mr. Tellez. I think meaningful engagements with employees 
is always a positive outreach, for sure. I think we have built 
an environment where we can have the flexibility to move the 
claims around where we have capacity. I think that is one of 
the benefits of the NWQ is to allow us to do it. As I said, I 
think the intent is to keep the claim at the local regional 
office to work it but there may be times when we can disburse 
it.
    Mr. Rosendale. Mr. Tellez, the intent of legislation many 
times that I have seen go through does not get implemented in 
that fashion once it gets translated by the bureaucrats that 
are working on it. I have got a question. Mr. Tellez, Mr. 
Orifici, there is a misconception that the VA's ability to 
access medical evidence and existing health records has 
anything to do with the replacing of the EHR. In reality, you 
are already using information from Vista, from the Department 
of Defense, and from private physicians to a limited extent. 
What is necessary to improve and expand that?
    Mr. Orifici. Yes, sir, thank you for that question. We 
actually do have efforts underway to expand that right now. We 
have work that is going on with Health Data Repository (HDR) on 
the health side, which is pulling information directly into the 
claims to eliminate steps that claims processors have to do to 
pull health data from Capri into VBMS. There is continued work 
with our partners in DoD to bring over older service treatment 
records into our systems and have it right there in one tool 
without having to have the request that Mr. Bump has been 
referencing that are manual steps that need to be taken right 
now. There is always more work to do as we work with our 
partners in VHA to pull that data from either VHA or the 
community care aspects to have that data readily available to 
VBMS and the claims processors.
    Mr. Rosendale. Mr. Tellez and Mr. Orifici, you mentioned 
that you are attempting to expand the automation to 103 
diagnostic codes representing 103 medical conditions. When will 
you be able to speed up and automate most claims for these 
conditions, not just a token number of simple claims?
    Mr. Tellez. Thank you, Congressman, for your question. Our 
intention to automate or make eligible those diagnostic codes 
about 90 percent of what we call all rated claims issues. That 
is about 250 diagnostic codes. That is where the real bang for 
our buck is. We are expecting about an 18 to 24-month period to 
accomplish that, get that information, get that capability in 
the hands of users.
    Beyond that, it is probably going to have to take a little 
bit of look at to see whether or not those are automation 
eligible, if we can automate that process, or do we have enough 
claims to invest the dollars to automate. I think there is a 
little bit of opportunity for us to look at those diagnostic 
codes beyond the 250 to determine whether or not it is feasible 
to do that.
    Mr. Rosendale. Mr. Bump, how do you feel that your folks 
that you work with are going to be able to integrate these 
systems he is talking about?
    Mr. Bump. Thank you, Congressman. We are really in the 
infancy of all of this. I hope that at some point we get to the 
point where we have more of this information already there, the 
automated piece of it. As I mentioned in my opening statement, 
I hope that we are never at the point where we are relying 
solely on technology to process a claim that at least at some 
point or points, that an actual human has to touch it because 
there are things automation can not do, so.
    Mr. Rosendale. I agree. I agree. Thank you so much, Mr. 
Chair, I yield back.
    Mr. Luttrell. Thank you, sir. That concludes our second 
round of questioning. I recognize the Ranking Member Pappas for 
his closing remarks.
    Mr. Pappas. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to our 
panel for your comments today and for the work that you do for 
our veterans. Given the implementation of PACT Act and the 
impact that it is going to have on VBA claims, it is really 
crucial that IT systems support the work of the claims 
processors to ensure that veterans are going to receive their 
benefits in a timely manner.
    Modernizing these systems must be a partnership between 
VBA, OIT, and end users. These folks have a wealth of knowledge 
and that was borne out by this hearing today about what is 
working and what is not working. With hundreds of thousands of 
claims awaiting adjudication and more coming in every day, I do 
not think we can ignore the voices of those who do this work 
each and every day. I hope that that can be front and center as 
we move toward greater modernization and find greater 
efficiency for our veterans. Thank you all for your 
contributions and your comments today and I yield back my time.
    Mr. Luttrell. Thank you, Ranking Member Pappas. Thank you 
all again for coming before us today. I look forward to 
continuing to work with the Department and all our partners as 
we track the VBA's implementation of its Five-Year 
Modernization Plan. I believe the tools the VA is developing 
are critical for reducing the backlog, improving employee 
morale, and restoring veterans trust in VA.
    Do know this, gentleman, we are very unified on this 
committee and our primary concern is our veterans. I think you 
saw that today. We are watching. With that, I ask unanimous 
consent that all members have 5 legislative days to revise and 
extend their remarks and include extraneous material. Without 
objection, so ordered. This hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 11:46 a.m., the subcommittees were 
adjourned.]

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                         A  P  P  E  N  D  I  X

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                    Prepared Statement of Witnesses

                              ----------                              


                  Prepared Statement of Raymond Tellez

    Chairman Luttrell, Chairman Rosendale, Ranking Member Pappas, 
Ranking Member Cherfilus-McCormick, and Members of both Subcommittees, 
thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the 
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA or Department) report entitled, 
``The Plan for Modernization of Veterans Benefits Administration 
Information Technology (IT) Systems,'' as required by P. L. 117-168, 
Sec.  701(b) (known as the PACT Act). For decades, our dedicated team 
at the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) and the Office of 
Information Technology (OIT) has worked tirelessly to support those who 
have served our Nation with honor and courage. We have witnessed the 
evolving needs of Veterans and recognized the pressing need to 
modernize our systems and processes to better serve them.

Background

    Before 2012, VA regional offices were buckling under the weight of 
paper claims folders, and multiple systems were used to process 
disability compensation claims. VA staff physically boxed and shipped 
Veterans' claims folders from office to office across the Nation, 
depending on available processing capacity. This archaic approach 
resulted in significant delays to Veterans receiving their earned 
benefits in a timely manner, as well as information security risks 
related to tracking and shipping errors. During 2012, VA underwent a 
historic transformation of the benefits claims process, moving from a 
completely paper-based system to one predicated on electronic claims 
processing.
    The introduction of the Veterans Benefits Management System (VBMS), 
VA's claims processing system, along with the integration of the 
Veterans Claims Intake effort (where millions of paper claims folders 
were digitized for ingestion into VBMS), was foundational to moving VA 
from a paper-based process to an electronic processing environment. 
Over the years, VBMS has undergone multiple enhancements and 
optimizations to improve system resiliency, increase claims processors' 
productivity and modernize system components. Recently, VBMS was 
expanded to allow processing and control of VBA's fiduciary program, 
improved Draft Rating Approval eliminating the need to manually process 
second signature decision reviews, and in June 2023, VBA will deploy 
Smart Search technology, which allows claims processors to conduct 
intelligent searches of the entire Veteran's eFolder of documents, 
which was formerly a tedious manual process of searching multiple 
individual documents. While VA still receives paper claims, more 
Veterans are filing claims online through an online portal at VA.gov. 
Today, more than 1.1 million Veterans are active users of our digital 
benefits products on VA.gov, with user adoption continuing to increase, 
and over 50,000 claims being filed online each month.
    As a result of VA's continued investment in VBMS, the establishment 
of the Evidence Intake Center (EIC) to digitize inbound paper mail for 
ingestion into VBMS, and developing a paperless claims process, VA 
maximized telework capabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic to 
minimize employee health and safety impacts while still maintaining 
service to Veterans. While VA successfully pivoted to remote work, 
while still serving Veterans, the inability to conduct in-person 
disability medical examinations and access paper Federal records led to 
a temporary increase to the disability compensation claims backlog. VA 
later reduced the claims backlog by approximately 100,000 in fiscal 
year 2022, but the lessons from the pandemic processing period 
highlighted the need for increased digitization of relevant paper 
records and supporting medical evidence.

Passage of the PACT Act

    On August 10, 2022, the enactment of the PACT Act expanded VA care 
and benefits to millions of Veterans and their survivors. To 
effectively deliver the additional care and benefits, VA must continue 
modernizing and expanding its business processes and technology, as 
well as continue improving communications with Veterans and other 
claimants. While VA has and will continue to hire more people to 
process claims, adding more personnel is only one facet of the 
solution. VA must equip our new and existing employees with tools to 
enhance productivity by increasing the accuracy and timeliness of the 
delivery of benefits for Veterans, families and survivors.
    The report required by Section 701(b) in the PACT Act created a 
fresh opportunity to develop an enterprise-wide plan to deliver 
technology products that enable a journey-driven, proactive engagement 
with the Veteran and improve the way VA delivers benefits and services, 
leading to increased customer service, higher utilization, and better-
quality outcomes for the Veteran. A key principle of 701(b) is 
embracing automated decision support tools.
    VBA and the Office of Information Technology (OIT) partnered to 
create VA's Five-Year Modernization Plan of Benefits Delivery IT 
Systems to improve efficiency of claims processing and create more 
reliable and resilient systems. VA will evolve its approach to 
leveraging data to anticipate needs and more efficiently and 
proactively serve the Veteran. IT modernization is a continuous 
investment that will continue beyond 5 years; however, the 701(b)-
modernization effort will realize benefits across five key pillars:

      Improved Veteran Experience;

      Increased Efficiency and Accuracy in Claims Processing;

      Improved System Architecture and Resiliency;

      Improved Data Infrastructure and Use of Data; and

      Improved Employee Experience and Efficiency.

    This modernization plan will allow VA to move toward a seamless and 
personalized engagement model in support of Veterans and their 
beneficiaries, while shifting the focus from the Veteran requesting 
help to VA providing a service. This includes simplifying the process 
of submitting claims and proactively notifying Veterans when they are 
entitled to additional benefits and services. The impact of 701(b) IT 
modernization will be life-changing to Veterans and transform claims 
processing.

Enhancements to VBMS and other Claims Processing Systems

    As anticipated, the passage of the PACT Act resulted in a surge of 
claims and an increase in the number of employees using VA IT systems 
to process these claims. Since the PACT Act was signed, Veterans and 
their survivors have filed more than 1.7 million claims, an increase of 
30.2 percent over the same period last year. VA has already received 
more than 588,000 PACT Act-related claims since August 10, 2022. The 
modernization of the VBA Corporate Data base and transition of IT 
systems to the cloud directly supports VA's ability to respond to these 
challenges. Additional capacity has been added to VBMS allowing the 
system to handle the increased claims volume and additional users. 
Efforts are underway to move the remaining VBMS modules to the cloud to 
take advantage of these offerings.
    In addition to VBMS, VA uses several other IT systems to facilitate 
the delivery of benefits. Many of these older systems were designed to 
solve different problems from those that VA faces today, for example, 
when many of these systems were created, VA was relying on paper claims 
folders and entering data into these antiquated systems. These legacy 
systems are inefficient and fail to fully meet VA's current needs, 
creating challenges for employees to deliver world-class customer 
service to Veterans. Many aging systems date back to the 1990's and are 
at end-of-life. Dependencies and integrations with these obsolete 
systems make it complex to automate and modernize. However, OIT and VBA 
continue to work together to move or modernize functionality from 
legacy systems into more modern systems. This approach allows VA to 
leverage modern interfaces and authoritative data sources to meet the 
business requirement in the short term, streamline processes by 
retiring these aging systems and avoid the long-term costs of 
integrating with legacy systems. For example, VA just completed 
migrating capabilities from VETSNET Award into VBMS. This allows the 
claims processors to complete all compensation awards actions within 
VBMS without switching back and forth between multiple systems.

    Additional efforts completed through the VBA--OIT partnership to 
modernize VBA's claims processing systems include:

Production Optimization Continuous Improvement Model

    In addition to investing in large modernization efforts, VBA and 
OIT commit resources to improve the VBMS system through the Production 
Optimization Continuous Improvement Model, which implements feedback 
and suggestions from claims processors. During fiscal year (FY) 2022, 
VA implemented 67 enhancement requests, and in FY 2023 to date, VA has 
implemented 38 enhancement requests. These requests range from VBMS 
system defects found by claims processors to optimizations for 
improving the employee experience. The system enhancements eliminate 
time-consuming workarounds and improve the system accuracy for claims 
processors. Overall, VBA and OIT have improved the response to 
resolving system defects, with the majority being resolved in less than 
30-days, minimizing delays for Veterans.

Draft Rating Approval

    VA implemented Draft Rating Approval to support the average 700,000 
rating decisions completed per year that require a second signature. 
All rating decisions require the signatures of two decision makers 
until the first signatory rating specialist has reached a level of 
proficiency to complete decisions under a single-signature authority. 
Additionally, specific types of rating issues, a few examples include 
Traumatic Brain Injury, Special Monthly Compensation and Military 
Sexual Trauma, always require a second signature due to the level of 
complexity of the decision. This improved productivity and 
accountability in the review process to ensure draft Rating Decisions 
were completed within the VBMS platform eliminating the need to 
download, manually sign, and reupload forms. This streamlined process 
is expected to save more than 75,800 hours annually equivalent to 36 
full-time employees.

Automated Data Ingestion

    VA and our industry partners collaborated on Automated Data 
Ingestion (ADI) functionality that automatically transcribes 
information received from medical exam vendors uploading Disability 
Benefits Questionnaires (DBQs) into the VBMS system used to calculate 
ratings. This technology assists Rating Veteran Service Representatives 
(RVSRs) by eliminating the need for manual data transcription. This 
helps to promote the consistency and standardization of decision-
making. ADI is currently being operationalized at eight regional 
offices with all 26 PACT Act medical condition DBQs scheduled for 
release by the end of this fiscal year.

VBMS Demo Academy

    In response to VBA's increased hiring of new employees, OIT 
upgraded the VBMS Demo Academy capacity to support eight-times the 
number of new hires and eliminated one week of preparation to reset 
testing environments between training sessions. The VBA training 
program supports Instructor-Led Web-Based Training (IWT), Virtual and 
In-Person (VIP) training and Warrior Training Advancement Course 
(WARTAC) training for newly hired claims processors. This training 
environment and platform provides VBA with the ability to walk new 
hires through a simulated and controlled environment for training in 
every phase of the claims process. The training supports the 6 to 12 
weeks of training required for all claims processors. These 
improvements ensure VBA can train a continual stream of new employees 
supporting PACT Act claims processing.
    Of note, national quality remains high. The systematic technical 
accuracy review (STAR) data for rating 12-month accuracy is currently 
95.64 percent and has increased since Jan 2023.
    The more current rating 3-month STAR accuracy is 97.33 percent. 
This is the highest 3-month accuracy since Jan 2022. The STAR non-
rating 12-month accuracy has also remained steady and has been 92 
percent or better since Sept 2022.

    Individual compensation quality data for claims processors remains 
high.

      Veterans Service Representatives (VSRs) have a national 
quality FY 2023 to date of 95.09 percent (FY22 VSR quality was 94.82 
percent).

      Rating Veterans Service Representatives (RVSRs) have a 
quality FY 2023 to date of 95.98 percent (FY22 RVSR quality was 95.85 
percent).

System Automation

    Automation offers VBA the ability to process claims more quickly, 
reduce the time claims processors spend on administrative tasks, and 
provide more consistent claims decisions. To provide oversight of the 
effectiveness of the automation process, VBA established the Deputy 
Under Secretary for Automated Benefits Delivery (DUSABD) in 2021. As 
part of VBA's People, Process, Technology framework, the Office of 
Automated Benefits Delivery (ABD) focuses on VBA's digital 
transformation strategy providing innovative solutions to leverage 
automation and maximize efficiencies.

Mail Automation

    ABD has executed improvements in mail automation efficiency, now 
automating approximately 68 percent of initial claims intake processing 
activities for inbound mail received at VBA's EIC. This enables VBA to 
focus employee efforts on more complex decision-making tasks. Since May 
6, 2020, mail automation has established over 2.7 million claims 
representing over 7.6 million individual contentions.

Pension and Survivor Benefits Automation

    VBA's Pension and Fiduciary Service aims to move toward an 
automated electronic claims submission process for all pension 
applications forms. These automated capabilities will streamline the 
process to gather the evidence needed to grant both Veterans and 
survivors pension, Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC), burial 
and accrued benefits.
    This initiative builds on VBA's proven track record for leveraging 
automation to provide survivor benefits. Currently, when VBA is 
notified of a Veteran passing and specific criteria are met, the system 
automatically pays the month of death benefit to the surviving spouse 
for Veterans, who are in receipt of disability benefits. Additionally, 
burial and DIC benefits may also be paid to the surviving spouse when 
the spouse's information is available in VBA systems, and the spouse 
meets the eligibility requirements. These payments are completed 
without the need for an application and are based on the evidence 
available at the time of the Veteran's death, as allowed by P. L. 114-
315. Since implementation in 2014, VBA has paid out over 206,000 month 
of death and burial benefits claims automatically, without the need for 
an application.

Proactive Scanning

    In FY 2022, VBA partnered with the National Personal Records Center 
(NPRC) to digitize all available Service member and Veteran records for 
use in determining a claimant's eligibility for VA benefits. VA 
digitized military records and claims folders for approximately 170,000 
Veterans who may potentially file an initial claim for benefits under 
the PACT Act. Once digitized, these records are available to claims 
processors on the same day as the corresponding Veteran's claim is 
received. This reduces the administrative burden of collecting records 
and results in faster claims processing for Veterans, Service members, 
their family members, and survivors.

Automated Decision Support Tools

    VBA is undergoing business modernization efforts designed to 
leverage technology by automating administrative tasks and workflows, 
known as Automated Decision Support (ADS). The ADS tools support claims 
processors to make faster and more equitable claims decisions by 
indexing relevant medical evidence and automatically ordering exams in 
certain situations. In December 2021, VBA established a prototype site 
at the Boise Regional Office to evaluate the proof of concept for 
automation. Based on the success of the process combined with the 
positive feedback from claims processors at this site, the automation 
capabilities were expanded to claims for increase for asthma (March 
2022) and sleep apnea (April 2022). In September 2022, VA expanded the 
prototype site to three additional regional offices and in December 
2022, VA expanded to four additional prototype sites for a total of 
eight (8) sites. In May 2023, VA added eight (8) pilot sites to 
validate the automation logic in preparation for national deployment.
    VBA planned to continue adding three additional diagnostic codes 
per quarter; however, with the passage of the PACT Act, VBA shifted its 
focus to the diagnostic codes associated with this enactment. Under the 
direction of the DUSABD, 57 diagnostic codes are automation eligible, 
including all 26 PACT Act presumptive conditions.
    Today, claims processing tasks, supported by technology to enable 
automation using artificial intelligence, Natural Language Processing, 
and Optical Character Recognition, enable automation with data and 
records extraction from Veterans' electronic health records, 
verification of military service eligibility, expediting claims that 
can be decided based on the evidence of record, ordering examinations 
when required, and the intelligent indexing of the relevant 
adjudicative information. Since December 2021, over 179,000 claims have 
utilized automation.

Verification of Military Service Eligibility

    In the third quarter of FY 2022, VA obtained authoritative military 
service deployment data from the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) 
that enabled VBA to proactively determine PACT Act eligibility for more 
than 3.5 million Veterans. This allows VBA to provide Veterans with 
faster decisions on their PACT Act claims by reducing instances where 
manual research is needed by claims processors to determine military 
service eligibility.

Automated Issue Management

    In December 2022, VBA and OIT released Automated Issue Management 
(AIM) functionality, providing the ability to route claim types by 
issue and automate specific issues without breaking up the overall 
claim. This directly benefits Veterans as it lowers the barrier to 
evidence collation on certain issues within the overall claim, rather 
than waiting for all issues to be developed.

Smart Search Technology

    In the third quarter of FY 2023, VBA and OIT will begin deploying 
Smart Search technology, which allows claims processors to conduct 
intelligent searches of the entire Veteran's eFolder of documents, 
which was formerly a tedious manual process of searching multiple 
individual documents, including images and handwritten documents. This 
capability increases employee efficiency by accelerating the ability to 
search for relevant information to expedite PACT Act claims processing.

Verify, Validate, Graduate (VVG) Plan

    In 2022, VA recognized the need for a robust, repeatable process to 
assess the effectiveness of automation outputs with the goal to make 
data-driven decisions for nationwide deployment of automation 
functionality. VA subsequently established the Verify, Validate, 
Graduate (Prototype, Pilot, nationwide release) plan, ensuring all ADS 
tools pass a consistent validation assessment before they are advanced 
to nationwide release. In April 2023, VBA validated the automation 
logic first diagnostic codes to move from Prototype to Pilot phase and 
added eight new Pilot locations across the Nation. These Pilot Sites 
will test the automation logic and ensure it meets strict criteria 
before graduating to national release.
    Early accomplishments include 57 diagnostic codes in production (54 
are PACT Act specific) and compared to the traditional claims process 
for single issue claims, ADS claims have a 27.5 percent examination 
avoidance compared to 9.5 percent, reducing the burden on Veterans.

Future of Claims Processing

    Throughout the remainder of calendar year 2023, VBA is on track to 
expand automation to an additional 103 diagnostic codes related to some 
of the most frequently claimed conditions, such as hearing loss, mental 
health, peripheral nerves, and musculoskeletal conditions, that 
represent over 700,000 annual claims. Over the next 18-24 months, VBA 
will continue to apply automation to conditions most frequently claimed 
by Veterans to enable continued execution of the vision to provide 
Veterans faster, more accurate, consistent, and equitable claim 
decisions than ever before.

Conclusion

    VA's IT modernization vision is grounded in its unwavering 
dedication to Veterans, their families, caregivers, and survivors. The 
efforts outlined in VA's 5-Year Modernization Plan of Benefits Delivery 
IT Systems sets the foundation for a future of continual modernization, 
where systems are regularly improved with the most up-to-date 
technology. Automation can enable and empower VA employees to deliver 
world-class, proactive service to Veterans in ways that have never been 
possible before. Further, automation only succeeds if the underlying 
architecture and systems are modern, agile and resilient.
    The outcomes envisioned in VA's IT modernization plan have the 
potential to change Veterans' lives. With event-driven processes, 
automated to deliver benefits with greater speed, VA can provide a 
seamless and personalized experience for Veterans.
    VA is confident that the modernization roadmap described in this 
plan can be realized. The continued support and commitment of Congress 
is key to VA achieving this goal. We look forward to continued 
engagement with you as we implement this plan and strive to serve with 
excellence those who have served the Nation. Thank you for the 
opportunity to appear before the Committee today. I would be pleased to 
answer any questions that you or members of the Committee may have.
                                 ______
                                 

                    Prepared Statement of David Bump

    Chairman Luttrell, Chairman Rosendale, Ranking Member Pappas, 
Ranking Member Cherfilus-McCormick and Members of the Disability 
Assistance and Memorial Affairs and Technology Modernization 
Subcommittees:
    The American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO (AFGE) and 
its National Veterans Affairs Council (NVAC) appreciate the opportunity 
to testify at today's subcommittee hearing titled ``From Months to 
Hours: The Future of VA Benefits Claim Processing.'' My name is David 
Bump, and I am a National Representative for the NVAC, and serve as the 
Second Vice President for VBA for AFGE Local 2157, in Portland, Oregon. 
I also serve as a member of the NVAC's Veterans Benefits Administration 
(VBA) Legislative Committee and the VBA Midterm Bargaining team. I have 
also had the privilege of serving veterans in the VBA for 21 years, 
including 10 as a VSR, and 11 as an Authorization Quality Review 
Specialist in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Regional Office, and now the 
Portland, Oregon, Regional Office.
    On behalf of the 291,000 Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) 
employees AFGE represents, including thousands who are frontline 
workers at the VBA, over 50 percent of whom are veterans themselves, it 
is a privilege to offer AFGE's views on the IT challenges facing VBA 
today, and more importantly, offer suggestions that could improve the 
use technology at VBA, and enable claims processors to better serve 
veterans more efficiently and accurately.

VA's Five-Year Modernization Plan:

    AFGE was proud to support the PACT Act which expanded eligibility 
to VA healthcare for millions of veterans. Section 701(b) of the PACT 
required the VA to submit to Congress ``a plan for the modernization of 
the information technology systems of the Veterans Benefits 
Administration.'' AFGE supports the use of technology to better enable 
VBA's processors to perform their duties and best serve veterans. 
However, we are concerned about the negative effect on veterans of 
replacing human processors with technology. AFGE strongly supports the 
work done by lawmakers to protect VBA employees, and to make sure that 
all claims have to be reviewed at some point during the process by 
human claims processors. It is important that our approach to the use 
of technology emphasize that information technology supplement and not 
supplant the VBA's workforce.

Veterans Benefits Management System

    The Veteran Benefits Management System (VBMS) is the core platform 
VBA Veteran Service Representatives (VSRs) and Rating Veteran Service 
Representatives (RVSRs) use to process veterans' claims. While VBMS 
generally serves its purpose, there is certainly room for improvement 
from the perspective of the end user.

Reliability

    The most serious problem that claims processors raise about VBMS is 
its unreliability. The system often crashes or requires rebooting, 
delaying claims processors from doing their required work. Even when 
the system does not crash, complaints of general sluggishness also 
create unnecessary delays. While managers are supposed grant ``excluded 
time'' when the system is down to account for less time for employees 
to meet their performance metrics, this is not done universally or 
consistently. Claims processors fear when the system goes down that 
they may suffer negative consequences through no fault of their own.

Basic Functionality

    When hearing from claims processors around country, two basic tools 
appear to be missing within VBMS. First, it is not easy to know what 
previous employees have looked at or worked on a claim; either a 
special note must be entered, or an employee must click on the 
information to see who worked on it. Giving employees using VBMS the 
ability to quickly see who worked on something previously, and then use 
VBMS to contact that employee with a simple question would save time, 
and let claims move through the claims process more efficiently.
    Additionally, the user does not have the ability to sort or filter 
information to get a chronological view of a claim's history, other 
than what VBMS automatically provides. This basic function could help 
claims processors and save time.

Interoperability

    Another common complaint about VBMS is its lack of interoperability 
with other systems claims processors must use every day. A clear 
example of this provided by the Houston, Texas, Regional Office is 
related to form letters that claims processors send to veterans to 
inform them of their decisions. Redesigned Automated Decision Letters 
do not automatically populate information in VBMS for all the 
withholdings that may affect a veteran's compensation, including 
severance pay, separation pay, or drill pay withholdings. Other letters 
that RVSRs send do not auto-populate within VBMS and must be completed 
in the Personal Computer Generated Letters (PCGL) system. Other 
employees raised the problems of integration for letters related to 
Individual Unemployability (IU) claims within VBMS. These are all 
examples where RVSRs have to manually update letters in VBMS and pull 
information that is more up-to-date in other systems, that should 
ideally be in VBMS. This takes extra time that can be better spent 
performing work that require a claims processor's expertise and leads 
to unnecessary errors that negatively affect an employee's performance 
rating or a veteran's benefits.
    The process for getting a veteran's Service Treatment Record (STR) 
is also a clear example of problems with interoperability. The 
Portland, Oregon Regional office cited that VBMS will automatically 
pull up STRs from a veteran who served in a modern war from the Health 
Artifact and Image Management Solution (HAIMS) system. However, for 
veterans who served further in the past, VBMS makes a request for the 
data from the older Personnel Information Exchange System (PIES) but 
does not record its own request. This leads to the employee having to 
make a manual request in VBMS on top of what they did, but may also 
create duplicate requests in PIES, further wasting time.
    The Cleveland, Ohio Regional Office cited problems with the Joint 
Legacy Viewer (JLV) that were similar to problems experienced in 
Portland, Oregon. When using the JLV to view a veteran's records, each 
document must be opened separately, saved, and then uploaded into VBMS, 
with each document taking several minutes to upload. Additionally, if a 
claims process attempts to upload too many documents at once, the 
system may not work, and the employee must start over, wasting valuable 
time.

Unnecessary Repetition

    Another key criticism of the system for RVSRs comes from the 
Pittsburgh, PA, Regional Office. RVSRs in this facility identified that 
VBMS-R (the portion of VBMS raters use) requires RVSRs to enter 
multiple levels of SMC (special monthly compensation) on a veteran's 
claim. To do this, RVSRs must instead use a workaround that enters the 
first level of SMC, then delete the coded conclusion (the number 
generated for payments), then enter the second SMC with the combined 
numbers. VBMS will not create the narrative for both levels of SMC 
unless employees use the system this way. This can lead to errors as 
well in incorrectly entering the SMC levels and can create over/under 
payments if done incorrectly. Also, if SMC is awarded temporarily, 
RVSRs must manually end the SMC even though the RVSR initially entered 
an end date, because if the RVSR does not go back in to ``zero out'' 
(coding to stop payment) then the veteran will never stop being paid. 
VBMS would be more efficient if the system allowed employees to create 
the narrative issue and the correct coding all in one entry instead of 
multiple entries.
    VBMS also does not work well when considering conditions that 
cannot be evaluated separately, including several cardiac conditions, 
digestive issues, gastroesophageal reflux disease, irritable bowel 
syndrome, traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, 
asthma, and sleep apnea. VBMS sometimes allows claims processors to 
combine these symptoms at the end, but it does not always work, 
especially if one condition was already service-connected and the 
employee is attempting to add service connection to a new condition 
that cannot be evaluated separately. This can create performance 
errors, overpayments and extra work in correcting these errors.
    To improve VBMS, it would be better if claims processors could rate 
certain conditions at the same time and then be able to merge them 
based on the higher evaluation rules. This would also save time by not 
having to use external evaluation builders and copy and pasting 
additional information within the system. There are specific diagnostic 
codes that cannot be evaluated separately, but if there were the 
functionality to add a co-morbid condition that must now be rated 
individually, it would greatly improve employee efficiency and reduce 
errors.
    Fixing these examples within VBMS would greatly reduce time spent 
on claims affected by these workarounds, reduce erroneous decisions, 
and deliver a higher quality product to our nation's veterans.

The National Work Queue

    Another critical component of the claims process that the 
subcommittees must examine is the National Work Queue (NWQ). AFGE 
agrees with the Inspector General's (IG) 2018 conclusion that VBA's 
decision to eliminate specialization of claims processing has had 
adetrimental impact on veterans whose claims are more complex and 
sensitive in nature. As the IG report explains, prior to the 
implementation of the NWQ:

        The Segmented Lanes model required VSRs and RVSRs on Special 
        Operations teams to process all claims VBA designated as 
        requiring special handling, which included MST-related claims. 
        By implementing the NWQ, VBA no longer required Special 
        Operations teams to review MST-related claims. Under the NWQ, 
        VSRs and RVSRs are responsible for processing a wide variety of 
        claims, including MST-related claims. However, many VSRs and 
        RVSRs do not have the experience or expertise to process MST-
        related claims.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ VA OIG 17-05248-241 Page iii August 21, 2018

    Because of the level of difficulty in processing these claims, AFGE 
strongly supports returning to a ``Special Operations'' model for as 
many complex claims as the system will support. AFGE supports the 
current use of these specialty lanes for Military Sexual Trauma (MST) 
and Camp Lejeune Water Contamination Claims among others and encourages 
their expanded use.
    AFGE also encourages the VA to modify the NWQ so that cases remain 
within the same RO for VSR and RVSR review. Every RO, despite uniform 
production standards, has its own way of conducting specific tasks, and 
having VSRs and RVSRs who are more familiar with each RO's standard 
procedures will help process cases efficiently. Additionally, by better 
identifying which employee worked on a particular claim, better 
collaboration between VSRs and RVSRs can be achieved.
    Last, the NWQ should reprogrammed to allow VSRs and RVSRs to always 
have access to all readily available claims. Despite the national 
claims backlog that existed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and has 
grown with the passage of the PACT Act, it is a common refrain from 
VSRs and RVSRs that they do not have enough work assigned to meet their 
production standards and that they have to constantly request new work 
from their coaches. Although the NWQ was designed in part to maximize 
the VBA's claims processing capacity, it is counterproductive to deny 
employees access to all available claims when the technology to do so 
already exists. Workers should not have to request additional work to 
meet their standards but should instead be constantly engaged in 
efforts to reduce VBA's backlog.

Conclusion

    I hope that my testimony today leads the subcommittees to conduct 
further oversight of VBA's IT challenges. The VBA should survey its 
employees as it modernizes IT systems and use employee feedback to 
promote improvements that will help veterans. AFGE and the NVAC stand 
ready to work with the House Veterans' Affairs Committee and VBA to 
reach this goal. Thank you, and I look forward to answering your 
questions.

                        Statement for the Record

                              ----------                              


        Prepared Statement of Foundation for American Innovation

Introduction

    Mr. Chairman, Ranking members, and members of the Subcommittees, 
thank you for the opportunity to submit this written statement in 
support of this hearing. My name is Reynold Schweickhardt. I am a non-
resident senior fellow with the Foundation for American Innovation, a 
nonprofit think tank focused on innovation, governance, and national 
security. During my career, I have worked in the public and private 
sectors on technology policy, management, and modernization. I 
previously served as a senior technology advisor with the General 
Services Administration. Before that, I was a strategic advisor with 
the House Office of the Chief Administrative Officer and Director of 
Technology Policy for the Committee on House Administration. Earlier in 
my career, I worked as the chief technology officer and chief 
information officer in the U.S. Government Publishing Office and as an 
R&D project manager for Hewlett-Packard.
    While I have extensive experience working on technology policy and 
advising senior governmental leaders on technology modernization, I do 
not have specific expertise on the Department of Veterans' Affairs's 
technology systems or health care information technology systems. 
Therefore, my comments are based on my review of the Department of 
Veterans Affairs's five-year technology modernization plan and on 
conversations with experts who have experience working on VA or similar 
federal IT systems. Moreover, I share the subcommittee's commitment to 
ensuring that the VA provides better service to the veterans who have 
patriotically served our country.

Modernizing the Department of Veterans Affairs to Improve Disability 
Services to Meet Growing Demand

    The enactment of the PACT Act in 2022 will create a significant 
increase in new veteran disability claims, as well as reviews of 
previously declined claims by the VA. As a result, the Veterans Benefit 
Administration (VBA) will face a significant workload increase. 
Modernizing the VA's information technology systems--specifically, the 
VBA--will likely determine if veterans receive these benefits in a 
timely manner.

    To do this, Congress and VA leaders should be asking several 
questions:

      To what extent will the VA's five-year plan improve 
outcomes for veterans in the next several years, or will the 
improvements manifest in later years after the surge in claims has been 
submitted to the VBA?

      What are the key projects, their dependencies, and 
maturity to provide material benefit in the short-to-medium term?

      What are the options to segment the anticipated workload, 
identify claims with a simpler requirement set, and process those more 
rapidly?

Short-Term Improvement

Identification of Cases with Required Information for Quick Resolutions

    The Hypertension Automated Decision Support is the FY23 
implementation that can affect claims processing speed, and the ongoing 
metrics should be reported to the Committee. Other conditions should 
also be added to this automation where the available data supports 
simplified review--for example, specific cancers and service locations 
creating a presumption of environmental exposure during military 
service.

Value of Robotic Process Automation

    Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a strategy to bridge two 
systems that have not been integrated. It is effectively an automated 
cut-and-paste methodology to reduce staff's time performing lower-level 
tasks. In the long term, the systems in question would be integrated to 
automate the transfer of data. The anticipated benefits to VBA 
processing time will require an analysis of time spent performing these 
tasks manually.
    An enterprise RPA platform, which is required for the scope and 
complexity of VBA, is initially implemented as a pilot with an initial 
transaction, and then rolled out enterprise-wide and expanded to 
additional use cases. Several agencies within the federal government, 
especially the General Services Administration, have a demonstrated 
track record of using RPA to rapidly improve processing. The former CFO 
of the General Services Administration set an aggressive goal of 
implementing one transaction a week and achieved an average of 2-3 per 
month. By January 2022, according to the Office of GSA's CFO, GSA had 
implemented 104 automations at an annual cost of $2.5 million, creating 
more than 350,000 hours of additional capacity annually. This approach 
also included business process reengineering (BPR) to simplify and 
align processes to avoid automated outdated processes.

Simpler, Faster Ways to Use Artificial Intelligence

    The Social Security Administration is using AI to process complex 
claims, including disability benefit applications, more effectively. 
The AI tool sorts the claims into similar buckets, which are then 
assigned to a group of claims processors that are responsible for 
processing them. This allows staff to specialize in similar claims; by 
learning the nuances of applicable case law and processes, they can 
reduce both errors and time spent.\1\ The AI tool improved workload 
management and did not automate decision making, nor did it predict the 
outcome of cases. This approach is simpler than task 5D ``Limited 
Predictive Use of Data to Enable Outcomes.'' This approach could be 
implemented with minimal integration complexity, allowing for faster 
results and improved processing times at the VA.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ ``SSA reported 12 percent reduction in case processing time and 
7.5 percent reduction in returns from administrative appeal judges to 
attorneys.'' Engstrom, David Freeman, Daniel E. Ho, Catherine Sharkey, 
and Mariano-Florentino Cuellar. 2020. http://complaw.stanford.edu/
readings/government_by_algorithm.pdf; ``Government by Algorithm: 
Artificial Intelligence in Federal Administrative Agencies.'' 
Administrative Conference of the United States.''https://
law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/ACUS-AI-Report.pdf.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Improved Search

    Subcommittee staff shared an example of the current maturity of an 
Automation Aid to identify cases ready for adjudication. The goal was 
to identify notes with conditions that were presumptively grounds for 
benefits and present them to raters who would evaluate the specific 
claim. However, in the example, the search was extremely primitive, 
selecting cases with ``rhinitis,'' for example, without evaluating 
``does not have rhinitis.''
    The plan has a task to address this deficiency, ``Smart Search 
within Veterans eFolder [6-12 month].'' However, it includes more than 
is necessary to improve the immediate user experience. Effectively 
using a modern search engine would improve the accuracy of the results. 
After initial implementation, the search engine could be tuned, 
including with machine learning, to improve accuracy over time.

Implementing Longer-Term Improvements

    The overall plan could be implemented more effectively if the 
Veterans' Administration addressed these opportunities:

      Define and prioritize the infrastructure for a modern 
infrastructure. This reduces ongoing cost and complexity, improves 
reliability, and implements modules in the end-State to eliminate 
rework.

      Examine areas of duplication to implement a ``build once, 
use many'' strategy, which reduces implementation costs and increases 
software quality by focusing on a single implementation for a given 
task. This strategy is enabled by a modern infrastructure.

      Effectively adopt an agile methodology, which is not 
reflected in the plan today. An agile approach typically starts with a 
Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that meets the user's core needs. Through 
feedback and metrics, bug fixes and enhancements are created, tested, 
and released in a six-to-eight-week cycle, which repeats until further 
improvements are no longer a priority. Do not let the perfect be the 
enemy of the good.

BIP Capability Key to Modernization of Systems

    A critical design goal described in the plan is achieving a modular 
architecture, in which different functions are maintained separately 
and loosely coupled via Application Programing Interfaces (APIs). A 
mature BIP is critical to this goal because it allows for such 
capabilities as including, adding, or replacing individual modules 
without rebuilding the entire system.
    In a modern design, an updated module can be replaced while the 
system is running. A module could be replaced and reverted to the older 
version if necessary. In fact, BIP could allow for two modules that 
perform the same task. The updated module would be installed and 
initially given a small percentage of the workload (after having been 
properly tested) and evaluated for compliance with requirements. 
Gradually, it would replace the original version.
    BIP also supports the principle of ``build once, use many.'' For 
example, the plan appears to suggest there are different exam 
scheduling functions in the Veterans Benefits Management System (VBMS). 
A single module supporting the different requirements would be 
implemented and interconnected appropriately using the BIP. Therefore, 
the maturity and migration of functions to use the BIP should be 
closely watched as an implementation and risk-reduction metric.

Data Centers, Testing Infrastructure, and the Cloud

    Supporting geographically dispersed data centers is a key principle 
of resiliency. A related challenge is testing new modules in the 
context of a complete system, introducing them to production, and 
reverting to the original versions if required. The complexity of 
supporting identical hardware stacks in two locations depends on the 
extent to which legacy hardware is still required. The desired end 
State is to have 100 percent cloud hardware to simplify management of 
identical hardware stacks. Cloud implementations also provide for rapid 
scaling to add capacity when needed and remove it when no longer 
needed.
    The plan proposes two similar investments: two widely separated 
data centers (East and West) for normal operations and resiliency, and 
a separate Blue/Green testing/deployment infrastructure. According to 
the Blue/Green concept, one color is the live version, and the other is 
the test version, in which new functionality is introduced. The roles 
of the two systems are switched, and the new functionality is put into 
production. If there is an issue, the roles are reversed, and 
functionality reverts to the prior state.
    Software testing has multiple levels, and the most complex is 
automated testing of the entire system from an end-user perspective. 
However, modular architecture involving software modules with tightly 
defined interfaces reduces the need for a separate system-wide testing 
infrastructure. The dual module configuration discussed above would 
allow for new modules to be put in the production environment and 
initially released to a small group of users for evaluation.
    One reason that a full-sized testing environment was used in the 
past is that it could evaluate capacity and performance. In a cloud-
based world, performance and capacity are managed by increasing the 
power or number of instances of a function that is constraining system 
capacity. A smaller but identical test environment can be created as 
needed in a cloud environment.
    Being fully cloud-ready involves two aspects: First, all of the 
system functionality, management, and security is running on cloud 
instances of hardware. This transfers the responsibility for hardware 
reliability and availability to the cloud provider. Second, VBMS and 
related software has been decomposed into independent modules 
interconnected by APIs over the BIM. The modules would allow for 
multiple instances to run simultaneously, allowing for scaling up and 
down for performance and capacity reasons.

    Conclusion

    The Veterans Administration has submitted a detailed and well-
thought-out plan. However, the challenge of rapidly implementing 
significant improvements with increased processing accuracy to serve 
veterans also requires cultural change.
    When the system development process is long and subject to delays, 
the tendency is to add everything possible into the plan because it is 
the only opportunity for many years. Requirements can change or become 
obsolete, or the business side can develop its own workarounds during a 
multi-year development cycle, which reduces the value to the enterprise 
of the new software. In the worst-case scenario, the new release is 
obsolete upon arrival.
    An agile development methodology also requires cultural change for 
both the IT and business sides to implement a new way of working 
together. It requires changes to the procurement process and 
requirements for effective implementation. In the short term, 
identifying specific areas where an agile approach can be implemented 
to improve the veteran experience sooner rather than later is 
essential. This will build human capacity and mature the Veterans 
Administration's internal capacity in this area.

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