VA Pilots Expedite Payments to Disabled Veterans

(BUSINESS WIRE)--VA has launched two pilot programs to test new procedures that will speed the payment of Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) compensation benefits to Veterans with disabilities connected to their military service. These new programs are part of Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki’s effort to “break the back” of the disability claims backlog.

“A fundamental goal in the transformation of VA’s claims processing is to make sure that Veterans receive in a timely manner the benefits they earned through their service to our Nation,” Shinseki said. “VA’s ambitious tests of numerous innovations reflect our commitment to constantly improving how we meet our mission of responsiveness to Veterans, their families and survivors.”

The “Quick Pay” Disability Program at the St. Petersburg, Fla., Regional Office and the “Express Lane” Pilot, based at the Seattle, Wash., Regional Office, are among a number of new initiatives using reengineered and streamlined claims processes to provide Veterans with faster claims decisions and benefit payments.

Secretary Shinseki established as one of VA’s highest priority goals the elimination of the disability claims backlog by 2015, so that all Veterans receive a quality decision on their claim in no more than 125 days.

The “Quick Pay” Disability initiative is designed to speed disability compensation to Veterans who provide sufficient evidence at the time of claim submission to decide all or part of their claim. Since program launch, “Quick Pay” has paid more than $2 million in benefits to 1,656 Florida Veterans. These payments averaged $1,236 monthly and were made three months faster than the department’s 125-day goal.

Under the “Express Lane” Pilot program based in the Seattle Regional Office, staff members are realigned to address disability claims based on claim complexity.

Like a supermarket check-out “express lane,” small employee teams focus on rapidly processing numerous less complex claims that typically involve only one disability, thus freeing their co-workers to process the more complex and multiple-disability claims that demand the greatest level of unilateral effort.

The “Express Lane” Pilot, while managed from Seattle, is also being tested at three additional VA regional offices: Nashville, Tenn.; St. Paul, Minn.; and Muskogee, Okla.

The St. Petersburg and Seattle pilots are among more than three dozen VA initiatives exploring optimal ways to organize and deliver benefits and improve service to Veterans.

For additional information on VA’s claims transformation activities, visit http://www.vba.va.gov/transformation. Questions about benefits for Veterans may be directed to VA’s toll free benefits number at 1-800-827-1000.

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VA, Congress Need to Grant New Agent Orange Claims Without Delay

/PRNewswire/ -- The American Legion is calling upon Congress and the Dept. of Veterans Affairs to move quickly in granting benefit claims for three diseases recently declared to have presumptive connections with exposure to Agent Orange defoliant.

For several months, The American Legion has been pressing VA to publish its final regulations for the three new presumptive diseases: ischemic heart disease, Parkinson's disease, and B-cell leukemia.

"Veterans can't collect their earned disability benefits until VA publishes final regulations on these diseases," said Barry Searle, director of the Legion's veterans affairs and rehabilitation division. "And that's a process that has been dragging through the bureaucratic mire since last October."

While veterans across the country are still waiting for those regulations to be published - so they can start to collect earned disability benefits - Congress is on the verge of creating another delay.

The House of Representatives may soon consider a Senate-approved amendment that would add a 60-day period of limited spending on the new benefits while Congress reviews the underlying scientific data that led VA to link the three diseases to herbicide exposure.

VA estimates it will spend more than $42 billion over the next decade on Agent Orange claims stemming from the new regulations.

"We can certainly understand why Congress wants to be fiscally responsible in this matter," Searle said. "But the scientific studies that support these new claims - that link these three diseases to Agent Orange exposure - are thorough in their research and unequivocal in their findings."

Searle said The American Legion wants Congress and VA to work together quickly in resolving any lingering doubts about the three new presumptive conditions.

"Thousands of veterans who suffer from these diseases have waited too long already. The findings are valid. The connections to Agent Orange exposure are real. Let VA and Congress hash it out together, but we urgently recommend that they do it without further delay," Searle said.

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