United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 2004-11-19 monographic deposited born digital 28 p. GA 1.13:GAO-05-99 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GAO-05-99 P0b002ee18039d6c7 f:d0599 DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-28 GAOREPORTS-GAO-05-99 machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-GAO-05-99 GAO-05-99 Claims processing Decision making Disability benefits Veterans benefits Veterans disability compensation VA Benefits Delivery Network System Other Written Product A13595 In the past, we have reported concerns about possible inconsistencies in the disability decisions made by the 57 regional offices of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). In 2002, we reported that VA did not systematically assess the consistency of decision making for any specific impairments included in veterans' disability claims. We recommended that VA conduct such assessments to help reduce any unacceptable variations that VA might find among regional offices. VA agreed that decision-making consistency is an important goal and concurred in principle with our recommendation. However, VA did not discuss how it would measure consistency. In January 2003, in part because of concerns about consistency, we designated VA's disability program, along with other federal disability programs, as high-risk. In fiscal year 2005, VA estimates it will pay about $25 billion in disability compensation benefits to about 2.7 million disabled veterans. In this context, we determined (1) the actions that VA has taken to assess the consistency of regional office decisions on disability compensation claims and (2) the extent to which VA program data can be used to measure the consistency of decision making among regional offices. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-05-99/html/GAOREPORTS-GAO-05-99.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-05-99/pdf/GAOREPORTS-GAO-05-99.pdf GAO-05-99 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GAO-05-99 Other Written Product GAO-05-99; Veterans Benefits: VA Needs Plan for Assessing Consistency of Decisions; Claims processing Decision making Disability benefits Veterans benefits Veterans disability compensation VA Benefits Delivery Network System