Veterans Dealing With the VA

AnonymousIV

Member
May 18, 2011
297
17
16
The correct quotation is,"Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience stands He waiting, with exactness grinds He all."

In other words, God (and therefore, Justice) may take a long time to occur, nevertheless, it will happen. An Elder in the Mormon faith stated "God doesn't balance His books in October", which is a from a story about a rich, but wicked man who had a full harvest, and barns full of grain. While he was prosperous, many good people were poor and hungry. When a boy asked his father why he should be good, when goodness hadn't helped them to be rich, or even comfortable--and the worst man they knew was doing so well at the harvest, (October) the father simply replied, "Son, God doesn't balance His books in October.)

This is the essence of justice waiting for God to enact it. Some faiths call it Karma. (One of my favorites is "Nobody gets out of this life alive; we're all sentenced to what we deserve.)

Justice delayed is NOT justice denied; it's just delayed. And there will be justice.
 
VA backlog gettin' worse...
:eusa_eh:
VA backlog continues to mount; no clear solutions in sight
February 26, 2013 WASHINGTON — VA Secretary Eric Shinseki pledged Tuesday that his department will make progress toward ending the benefits backlog this year. House and Senate leaders promised to tackle the issue in upcoming hearings. Veterans groups are lobbying lawmakers this week on the depth of the problem.
But exactly how anyone can fix the mounting headache remains unclear. As of last week, the benefits backlog – the number of claims pending for more than 125 days – sat above 600,000 cases, up about 7 percent from a year ago. The average claim takes about 270 days to process. Department officials have offered a host of solutions over the last year, but have no positive trend to show for it. More claims adjusters, different processing methods and closer coordination with veterans groups have yet to pull down the overdue case numbers. In a speech before leaders of the American Legion on Tuesday, Shinseki said that the VA has processed more than 4.1 million claims in the last four years, a figure unmatched in department history.

The problem is that VA offices took in 4.6 million claims over that same period, rendering the quicker processing moot. The VA secretary told veterans advocates that much of the delay – up to 200 days of that 270-day wait – is spent trying to collect information from the Internal Revenue Service, defense department files and physicians outside the department. Improving VA internal procedures can only speed up the process so much, he said. Still, Shinseki told the crowd that the department is on track to eliminate the backlog by the end of 2015. “We intend … to end this backlog that has built up over the decades,” he said. Skeptics aren’t so sure.

After Shinseki’s remarks, House Veterans Affairs Chairman Jeff Miller, R-Florida, said the VA needs clearer plans to eliminate the backlog, and that “merely stating overly optimistic projections doesn’t help veterans.” He took aim at VA bureaucrats, saying that a “small contingent of problematic employees” have moved between regional offices, creating more problems than they have solved. Legion members applauded his call for more accountability among underperforming VA staffers, who he blamed for a lax culture among many claims processing units.

MORE

See also:

New VA clinics, expansions left in limbo
February 26, 2013 WASHINGTON — A veterans' health clinic in Brick, N.J. is in such disrepair that when the snow gets heavy, patients have to go elsewhere for fear the roof might collapse. Another in San Antonio has extensive mildew and mold problems that could prove a health hazard for employees and patients in the coming years.
In Lake Charles, La., it's not the condition of a clinic but the lack of one. It's estimated that 6,000 veterans would enroll in VA health care if the community were to get a new clinic. The Department of Veterans Affairs has cited these examples as it sought approval from Congress last year for a dozen new or expanded health clinics around the country. Lawmakers anticipated that the cost for the current fiscal year would probably run into the tens of millions of dollars, but the estimate from the Congressional Budget Office came in at $1.2 billion. The nonpartisan CBO said that sound accounting principles require the full cost of the 20-year leases for the clinics be accounted for up front. The huge jump in the clinics' price tag left lawmakers scrambling, and in the face of the budget-cutting climate on Capitol Hill, the VA request stalled. Now the agency is warning that unless lawmakers act, some currently operating clinics may have to close after their old leases expire and other long-planned expansions will not go forward.

Since the mid-1990s, the VA has turned to outpatient clinics as a way to bring health care closer to where veterans live. The department has opened 821 clinics to supplement the care provided at 152 medical centers. The clinics vary in size and services offered but virtually all provide primary care and mental health counseling. In most cases, the VA enters into a lease with private building owners, which gives the department flexibility to meet changes in demand down the road. "I know the VA itself had plans to go beyond these 12 in the next several years. It's going to be difficult for that to happen at a time when we see veterans' needs rising," said Rep. Charles Boustany Jr., R-La., whose congressional district includes Lake Charles and Lafayette, where the expansion of another VA outpatient clinic was delayed. "This has thrown a wrench into the entire way we do things."

Any lease costing more than $1 million a year requires congressional approval. That's where the 12 proposed clinics come in. Lawmakers submitted the legislation to the Congressional Budget Office, which keeps score of how legislation fits with congressional spending targets. When CBO took a closer look at the clinics, analysts determined that the leases generally involved the construction of new buildings that the VA would essentially finance through a 20-year lease. The CBO told lawmakers that the entire cost of the leases needed to be accounted for up front to show taxpayers the true cost associated with a 20-year obligation.

MORE
 
Last edited:
VA protected from sequester cuts, but not veterans...
:eek:
VA protected from sequester cuts, but veterans will feel the pain
February 26, 2013 WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs will be spared when sequestration hits March 1. But veterans will not.
Despite assurances that veterans benefits and services will be exempt from the budget cuts, veterans and their families will share the suffering along with military counterparts. The result could mean more homeless veterans, less help for those looking for work, and tens of thousands of furloughed veteran struggling to make ends meet. “There’s a very large concern about the secondary effects (of sequestration) on veterans programs nationwide,” said Joe Davis, spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. “We still don’t know all the ways veterans might be hurt.”

image.jpg

A veteran sorts through donated clothes during the Department of Veterans Affairs' Annual Stand Down Against Homelessness at the Hickory Legion Fairgrounds in Hickory, N.C. in April 2012. Despite assurances that veterans benefits and services will be exempt from the budget cuts, sequestration could mean more homeless veterans, less help for those looking for work, and tens of thousands of furloughed veteran struggling to make ends meet.

VA programs and payouts are exempt from the mandated spending cuts. White House and department officials have promised that that disability benefits, veterans education funds and health care services will continue uninterrupted. But VA Secretary Eric Shinseki has warned on several occasions that everyone in America will feel the effects of sequestration, including veterans. Department officials have deflected questions about specific hardships facing veterans, but other agencies have detailed where the problems will emerge.

About 350,000 veterans work for the Defense Department, comprising about 44 percent of the civilian workforce. Nearly all of them will face once-a-week furloughs starting in late April, as the Pentagon tries to make up a multibillion-dollar shortfall in funding between March and October. The weekly furloughs represent a 20 percent loss in pay for veterans, many of whom re-entered the federal workforce assuming their paychecks and job stability were guarantees.

Tens of thousands of veterans working in other state and federal agencies could face pay cuts as well. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency has announced planned furloughs of up to 14 days to help fill their sequestration-mandated cuts. More than one in four employees of that agency are former military. And veterans without jobs will likely have a more difficult time finding one.

MORE
 
VA gettin' back on track...
:eusa_eh:
Shinseki says VA on target for ending backlog
24 Mar.`13 WASHINGTON (AP) — Although the number of pending veterans' disability claims keep soaring, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki on Sunday said he's committed to ending the backlog in 2015 by replacing paper with electronic records.
Veterans receive disability compensation for injuries or illness incurred during their active military service. About 600,000 claims, or 70 percent, are considered backlogged. The number of claims pending for more than 125 days has nearly quadrupled under Shinseki's watch. Shinseki told CNN's "State of the Union" that a decade of war and efforts to make it easier for veterans to collect compensation for certain illnesses such as post-traumatic stress disorder have driven the backlog higher during his tenure. He said that doing away with paper records will be the key to a turnaround.

Shinseki said that the VA has puts its new computer system in place in 20 regional offices around the country and all regional offices will be on the system by the end of the year. "This has been decades in the making, 10 years of war. We're in paper, we need to get out of paper," Shinseki said. The Defense Department and other agencies still file paper claims, he said, but "we have commitments that in 2014 we will be electronically processing our data and sharing it."

Congressional committees have held two hearings on the disability claims bottleneck in the past two weeks. Lawmakers voiced growing frustration with the Department of Veterans Affairs. "There are many people, including myself, who are losing patience as we continue to hear the same excuses from VA about increased workload and increased complexity of claims," Florida's Rep. Jeff Miller, the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, said during a hearing on Wednesday. "No veteran should have to wait for claims. If there's anybody impatient here, I am that individual and we're pushing hard," said Shinseki, the former four-star Army general who became VA secretary when President Barack Obama came into office.

About 4.3 million veterans and survivors receive disability benefits. Most veterans whose claims are backlogged, about 60 percent, are getting some disability compensation already and have filed for additional benefits for other injuries or illnesses. Tom Tarantino, chief policy officer of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said a presidential commission was needed to bring greater emphasis to solving the problem and to make sure all federal agencies were on the same page. "We're tired of waiting for the VA to get their act together," Tarantino said. Peter Gaytan, executive director of the American Legion, emphasized that resolving disability claims in a timely manner is an issue his organization has dealt with for decades.

Shinseki says VA on target for ending backlog
 
"This is the essence of justice waiting for God to enact it. Some faiths call it Karma."

Mine calls it bullshit.
 
Problem hasn't gotten better...
:eusa_eh:
Short-term fix could help vets, but will it solve the backlog problem?
April 23, 2013 WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers remain skeptical that the Department of Veterans Affairs’ new short-term fix to tackle the massive claims backlog will ultimately solve the problem.
But, at least for now, they’re pleased that veterans will start getting some money. VA Secretary Eric Shinseki and other top department leaders were peppered with new backlog questions on Tuesday, including recently announced plans to fast-track compensation claims that have lingered for more than a year. Department officials announced Friday that they will start awarding provisional decisions on all claims pending for more than a year, allowing those individuals to begin immediately receiving some compensation from the department. Veterans with indisputable injuries related to their service will receive compensation for those problems, even while department adjusters evaluate the rest of their paperwork. If they’re found to deserve a larger payout, they’ll retroactively receive that once the review process is complete. Shinseki said the department is still committed to ending the backlog problem in 2015, but the short-term fix will immediately help veterans who have been waiting the longest.

Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray, D-Wash., told department leaders Tuesday that she believes the move can “make a difference for our veterans” but cautioned against seeing it as more than a small part of fixing the problem. “Certainly we cannot maintain the status quo, where almost 70 percent of veterans are waiting 125 days or more for their claim,” she said. About 613,000 veterans fall in that backlog category. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., said helping some of them immediately is a good step, but “our veterans do not want to hear about new processes and programs. They want results.”

Over the weekend, House Veterans Affairs Chairman Jeff Miller, R-Fla., questioned whether the latest move is good policy or just good publicity. “VA has a responsibility to make sure it doesn’t use this program as an excuse for letting average claims processing times continue their steady ascent indefinitely,” he said in a statement. “The department must not shift resources and manpower away from processing new claims just to clear out old ones.” VA Undersecretary for Benefits Allison Hickey told lawmakers on Tuesday that isn’t the case, and that the early award of benefits won’t create a duplicative processing system that creates more work for beleaguered claims adjusters.

But that promise brought more skepticism from lawmakers, who note VA’s poor track record in estimating when the backlog problem will be fixed. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., noted that in February 2012, department officials promised large drops within a year in the percentage of veterans waiting more than four months for their claims to be processed. Instead, it worsened. “This is a problem that has not gotten better,” he said. Department officials promise that new technology, new training and new partnerships with veterans organizations will help them meet the 2015 goal. Lawmakers said they’ll be keeping a close eye. Miller promised hearings on the new initiative, and how it will affect overall processing. Members of the budget committee said they’ll scrutinize the backlog issue before approving next year’s funding.

Short-term fix could help vets, but will it solve the backlog problem? - Stripes - Independent U.S. military news from Iraq, Afghanistan and bases worldwide
 
Work yer fingers to the bone, whadaya get - boney fingers...
:clap2:
VA workers told to work overtime to clear claims backlog
May 15, 2013 - Veterans Affairs claims processors will be required to work overtime this summer to help clear the problematic benefits backlog, department officials announced Wednesday.
Under the plan, all 10,000-plus VA employees who process disability claims will be required to work at least 20 hours overtime each month, between now and September 30. Officials could not estimate how much the move will cost the department. In a statement, Secretary Eric Shinseki said the move “will provide more veterans with decisions on their claims, and will help us achieve our goal of eliminating the claims backlog.” According to VA statistics this week, about 567,000 compensation pending claims are “backlogged” — unfinished after more than four months of processing. The average wait for a claim to be completed is almost nine months.

VA officials said they expect the mandatory overtime will have a “measurable impact” on the backlog by the end of the fiscal year. Undersecretary for Benefits Allison Hickey called the move a surge in resources “to help those who have waited the longest.” The department has come under fire in recent months from lawmakers and veterans advocates for slow progress on the claims processing problem. But officials have also received praise from veterans groups for their public plans to eliminate the backlog in 2015, and recent steps to achieve that goal.

Last month, the department announced it would begin issuing provisional decisions — partial, temporary compensation awards — for veterans who have been waiting more than a year to have their cases completed. The department has also introduced a host of new processes, training and technology they insist will help clear the backlog over the next two years. VA officials said the overtime work will also focus on quickly finishing high-priority claims, which include homeless applicants, terminally ill veterans, and former Prisoners of War.

The VA announcement amounts to about 12 extra days of work for claims employees between May and the end of September. On Tuesday, Defense Department officials announced plans to furlough most of their civilian employees for 11 days over the same period, to cover funding cuts mandated under sequestration. VA programs and employees are exempt from the sequestration cuts.

VA workers told to work overtime to clear claims backlog - News - Stripes
 
Granny says she knows what it's like - the harder ya try, the behinder ya get...
:eusa_eh:
VA workers say mandatory overtime won't solve benefits backlog
May 17, 2013 WASHINGTON — Claims processors within the Veterans Benefits Administration are skeptical than new overtime mandates from Veterans Affairs officials will help solve the department’s benefits backlog, but they do believe the extra work will ruin employee morale.
Members of VBA Truth -- a group of anonymous claims workers with the stated goal of “raising awareness about what’s really going on in this dysfunctional agency” -- said the overtime requirement announced this week shows that VA leaders don’t have a well-reasoned plan to end the backlog, and the problem isn’t just simply underperforming processors. “We’ve been forced to work mandatory overtime the last two years, and yet the backlog remains,” said one VBA employee, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of firing. “It burns employees out and creates a feeling of resentment to the agency.”

Earlier this week, department officials announced that all 10,000-plus VA employees who process disability claims will be required to work at least 20 hours overtime each month, between now and Sept. 30. The goal is to help more quickly process the 567,000 compensation pending claims that are “backlogged” — unfinished after more than four months of processing. The average wait for a claim to be completed is almost nine months. Department leaders said the required overtime, amounting to 11 or 12 days for claims employees, would have a “measurable impact” on reaching the department’s goal of eliminating the backlog in 2015.

VBA Truth members disputed that. They said similar overtime mandates, in spring 2012 and summer 2011, produced no real progress on the backlog. During the four-month period in 2012, the number of backlog claims remained almost unchanged. During the five-month period in 2011, the backlog numbers rose by about 4 percent. But benefits administration officials that’s only part of the story. They argue that claims processors saw their work output jump about 12 percent during the extra hours worked 2012. But because the volume of claims entering the system also increased, the result was flat.

Department workers have completed more than 4.1 million claims over the past four years, a record production level for the department. But they also took in 4.6 million claims over the same period, leading to the steadily growing backlog.

MORE
 
Granny says lotta good dat gonna do - now dey'll never get caught up...
:eusa_eh:
Congress vows close scrutiny of VA's backlog progress
May 22, 2013 WASHINGTON — After years of quiet stagnation, the veterans benefits claim backlog has finally caught Congress’ attention.
On Wednesday afternoon, leaders from the Senate Appropriations committee vowed close oversight of the backlog problem in coming months after a summit earlier in the day that summoned the secretaries of defense and veterans affairs to Capitol Hill. Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., told reporters that both agencies have been given funding and time to tackle the problem. “Now they have to use it the right way to shrink the backlog,” she said.

It was a high-profile news conference on an issue the committee hasn’t typically dwelled upon in the past. In recent months, a number of congressional panels beyond the veterans-specific committees have begun to weigh in on the claims backlog problem, promising to ensure that returning war heroes get the benefits they deserve. Early in the day, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and a team of fellow Democrats introduced a slate of legislation to deal with the problem. House Speaker John Boehner has addressed the issue on several occasions in recent weeks, along with other members typically not heavily involved in veterans issues.

Wednesday’s flurry of Capitol Hill backlog news came amid a pushback from VA officials designed to prove they are on track to fix the problem by their 2015 goal. Veterans groups and veteran lawmakers, who have been tracking the issue for years, have been confused but optimistic with the recent spate of national attention on the ongoing problem. The claims backlog has been on a steady trend downward since March, when the number of cases pending for more than four months peaked above 600,000. This week, department officials said the number of backlogged cases had dropped to below 560,000, an eight-month low.

Still, benefits workers take almost nine months on average to complete a claim, well above the four-month promise outlined by department leaders. House Veterans Affairs Committee ranking member Rep. Mike Michaud, D-Maine, called the recent downward trend encouraging, but noted that “at the current rate, the 2015 goal … seems to be unlikely.” VA Secretary Eric Shinseki and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel reiterated their promise to solve the processing snafus and vowed their departments were on the right track. “The backlog is not and has never been acceptable,” Shinseki told reporters. “We are aggressively executing a plan to eliminate it.”

MORE
 

New Topics

Forum List

Back
Top