Secretary Shinseki, Eliminate the DVA Backlog: A suggestion

by Sanford D. Cook, Staff Writer

The DVA bureaucracy has been around since Herbert Hoover established the VA in 1930. It has had 79 years to develop its own bureaucratic inertia. It is not going to change easily.

Secretary Shinseki, a retired military man with 38 years of military service is going to have to face the same situation that President Eisenhower faced. Harry Truman is alleged to have said, “Poor Ike. He’s going to come in here and give an order and expect someone to obey it.” Good luck, Mr. Secretary!

Secretary Shinseki and President Obama have vowed to reduce waiting times for those veterans seeking benefits rulings, and waiting times for the benefits themselves. Let’s see what kind of problem these two dedicated leaders face.

On the first full day of the current administration, Eric K. Shinseki, GEN USA (Ret) was sworn in as the new Secretary of Veterans Affairs. [We all still call it the “VA”, as in “Veterans Administration”, but for 20 years, since 15 March 1989, Veterans Affairs has been a cabinet post.]

The DVA has also been a bureaucracy, and a huge one at that. As of September 30, 2008, VA had 278,565 employees on the rolls. Among all departments and agencies of the federal government, only the Department of Defense has a larger work force. Of the total number of VA employees, 247,113 were in the Veterans Health Administration, 16,135 in the Veterans Benefits Administration, 1,549 in the National Cemetery System, 3,412 in the Veterans Canteen Service and 437 in the Revolving Supply Fund. The rest, 9,919 employees, are in various staff and facilities offices. According to a report on Homeland Security credentials required, DVA also has 217,946 contractors. Close to 100,000 citizens also volunteer at various DVA facilities. Altogether, approximately 600,000 people serving 23.4 million veterans – a ratio of 39:1; not bad,
 
but!.

We also have to remember that the DVA bureaucracy has been around since Herbert Hoover established the VA in 1930. It has had 79 years to develop its own bureaucratic inertia. It is not going to change easily.

Secretary Shinseki, a retired military man with 38 years of military service is going to have to face the same situation that President Eisenhower faced. Harry Truman is alleged to have said, “Poor Ike. He’s going to come in here and give an order and expect someone to obey it.” Good luck, Mr. Secretary!
Secretary Shinseki and President Obama have vowed to reduce waiting times for those veterans seeking benefits rulings, and waiting for the benefits themselves. Let’s see what kind of problem these two dedicated leaders face.

We all know that any bureaucracy takes time to do things. If we are to assess the “Change’ requirement for the DVA then we should propose acceptable goals. Even if there is no change in the steps required in the current system, we would have to propose that any veteran ought to be able to get a local ruling from a DVA Regional Office (RO) within 30 days; should be able to get an appeal through the Board of Veterans Appeals (BVA) within 60 more days , or 90 days total; and ought to be able to get a final appeal through the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (CAVC) within another 90 days for a total of 180 days. That’s 6 months altogether for someone who needs a ruling ASAP, but we have to be realistic and reasonable – bureaucracies take time.

Currently the times that the VA and the appeals system allow themselves, however, is rather startling, and is a product of the fact that only about 6,000 people are handling all of the claims, and maybe far fewer than that at the Regional Office level. Since only about one quarter of all veterans ever file claims, that means that there are 3900 or more potential cases per benefits adjudicator.

Right now the time for a veteran to get an initial response to his or her claim is 196 days (all times average). If that claim is denied and the veteran pursues the claim to the BVA, it takes another 971 days for a response.

Now those two steps are all that the DVA can control. Once an appeal goes to the CAVC it is out of the DVA’s hands. Of course you need to know that the CAVC takes 1,286 days to process an appeal of a BVA ruling. If the CAVC’s ruling is unfavorable, the appeal can then go to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, which takes another 317 days, and finally to the Supreme Court which takes another 386 days – if the Supreme Court accepts the case. Altogether, 9 years, 9 months, and 3 days.

But let’s examine the first 1,167 days – 3 years and 2 ½ months!. How can Secretary Shinseki reduce that to our target of 90 days? I don’t know. Despite the fact that the stimulus package contains $150,000,000 to hire and train new examiners, can that wait really be cut by 93% in the next four years in an 80-year old bureaucracy? I am truly afraid that it would take a miracle beyond any of those already postulated for the current administration to get such a result. Simple walking on water and raising the dead is not enough.

So, with great humility, I propose to Secretary Shinseki that he take a new tack – one that just might work, and would immediately exceed everyone’s expectations.

Get rid of the operating assumption within the DVA that all claimants are attempting fraud. They really aren’t, you know, but that has become the operating basis of the DVA’s benefits system.

Their current approach requires absolute verification of the validity of a claim before the claim is granted. A demand for absolute validity, when coupled with their reported 12-a-day quota for evaluations, gives the bureaucrats not only a great incentive, but also multiple opportunities to deny the claim.

Their goal is to “process claims”. Our goal is to “grant benefits”. So here is our proposal.

PRESUME THE VALIDITY OF THE CLAIM FROM THE GIT-GO!

Let me repeat that –

PRESUME THE VALIDITY OF THE CLAIM FROM THE GIT-GO!

Grant the claim, perhaps at a reduced initial level, when a veteran with a valid DD-214 walks in the door. Then go about determining the claim’s validity and the ultimate percentage of disability.

Think of how that would change the DVA’s incentive system! Instead of being incentivized to “get x claims processed (regardless of outcome) every day” so that the wait-numbers or the claims-processed numbers look good and the administrative budget is met, they could incentivize their evaluators on numbers of claims validated. That’s a marked difference, and it gets some response and some benefits into the hands of the individual veteran immediately.

This approach might not only return the DVA to the intent of the law, but would allow them to take down their current motto of, “We will serve you as soon as you present absolute proof and we don’t lose the paperwork or shred it”, and return it to, “To care for him who has borne the battle, and for his widow and orphan"

Yes there will still be fraud, and they need to root that out. But the evaluators should never be incentivized on the basis of numbers-of-frauds-uncovered, rather they must be incentivized on numbers-and-percentages-of-claims-validated.

The evaluators have to know that they are not just the administrators of the nation’s sacred promise to veterans, but it’s protectors also. Without that inherent knowledge, and a real belief in their responsibility under that charge, nothing will change.

Instant presumption of validity will quickly eliminate all of the current waiting periods at the DVA level. If a claim is found to be fraudulent, then the perpetrator is liable for criminal charges and restitution. If the claim is found to be erroneous – invalid but not fraudulent – then the veteran can be down-evaluated and the government should waive any restitution. After all, te veteran thought the claim was valid but was just wrong. Everyone else seems to be getting a pass for getting things wrong, from the DoD to Wall Street, so why not vets?

Such a system would get all of the valid claims in the system immediately – this is what was promised, wasn’t it? If the claims were granted at a reduced rate pending validation, then any underpayment could be made up retroactively once validation was complete. Fraud will still be discovered. Erroneous claims will still be denied. But the pressure to perform is off the veteran and on the bureaucratic system, where it belongs.

I have a sneaky feeling that administrative costs would plummet, although benefits costs would undoubtedly rise – but again, benefits is what the system is designed for, isn’t it?

So General Shinseki I offer you a solution free of charge. Now you can spend your time on getting Congress to guarantee the DVA budget from year-to-year. Your second-order task is to design a system that forces the Congress to calculate all these cost into their future decisions to go to war (they are going to take that power back aren’t they?)

“Surely, then, it is our responsibility to ensure that our soldiers are cared for as well in life as they are in death.” – Mary McNamara: LA Times review of "Taking Chance"