The Mid-Atlantic Regional Group
Blinded Veterans Association
Legislative news
April 14, 2008
Below is press release from Chairman Filner about a hearing last week on Veterans Benefits and Disability Systems. We expect a large amount of legislation to begin to move in the next couple weeks and will continue to update all BVA members on this soon.
Would suggest for those interested in more details to log into the below site, and you can listen to the entire hearing in archives.
Press Release
House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee Reviews Historic Legislation to Reform the VA Benefits Claims Processing System
“The Subcommittee has conducted extensive oversight during this Congress and has listened to the testimonies of disabled veterans, their families and survivors who explained their problems with VA benefits,” said Chairman Hall. “Many of their concerns led back to issues with claims processing delays, denials and avoidable remands. This Subcommittee will continue to work to pass a bipartisan bill that will grant all disabled veterans the benefits they have earned and deserve.”
Currently, there is a backlog of approximately 650,000 disability claims. VA expects that number to grow to one million additional compensation and pension claims by the end of 2008. Currently the average time it takes for VA to process a claim is 183 days, an increase from 177 days in 2006. As these problems escalate and claims languish, the delays in receiving benefits have serious financial, emotional and functional impacts on the daily lives of disabled veterans and their families.
The Subcommittee has held a series of hearings on the claims backlog which examined the use of technology to improve the labor intensive and paper-based claims processing system, its work model and the outdated VA Schedule for Rating Disabilities. As a result of its oversight, research, and meetings, the Subcommittee concluded that the claims process at the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) is an archaic system prone to producing errors and is fraught with subjectivity, inadequate accountability, and inexplicable regional variations in ratings.
Chairman Hall has begun to develop a bill with bipartisan participation intended to provide solutions to these mounting problems and provide relief to veterans who are forced to deal with an outdated, inaccurate and time-consuming system of processing benefits claims. The Veterans Disability Benefits Claims Modernization Act of 2008 addresses the centric issues that have lead to the enormous and mounting claims backlog, delays in processing, avoidable errors, inconsistencies in ratings, and lack of accountability at the VBA.
The bill proposal has three parts. The first segment addresses the need to modernize the disability compensation system. The bill will study, report, and implement a plan for readjusting the VA Schedule for Rating Disabilities. The bill will also address evidence problems with post-traumatic stress disorder. The second part of the proposal relates to the transition from service member to veteran. It requires the creation of a single disability evaluation examination process, whereby the Department of Defense determines fitness for duty and VA rates level of severity. The third segment focuses on matters related to the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. It establishes annual tracking requirements for the Court’s workload and gives the Court the authority to affirm, modify, reverse, or vacate, and remand decisions of the board.
Witnesses reviewed the draft version of the legislation and offered recommendations to improve the proposal. Recommendations included improvements to language relating to updating the ratings schedule and including criteria for quality of life loss issues that arise with experiencing disability. It was also recommended that VA raters use vocational assessments, not simply medical evaluations, when granting Individual Unemployability (IU) benefits to those unable to work due to their service- connected disabilities. Panelists commented on the bill’s proposals for improving criteria for traumatic brain injury and expanding criteria for psychiatric disabilities including post-traumatic stress disorder. Witness testimony also focused on how best to approach presumptive decisions for veterans who experience health conditions that arise long after completion of military service when specific evidence is unavailable or incomplete.
“VA has been awash in informed recommendations on how to improve its claims processing system dating back to the Bradley Commission Report of 1956,” stated Bob Filner (D-CA), Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. “Yet, its leadership has consistently failed to implement most of the recommendations for reform and seems to lack the necessary vision to transform its broken claims processing system. This bill is a collective effort to both help VA focus on modernizing its disability claims processes and increase accountability, accuracy and quality of adjudicated claims. Our veterans deserve nothing less.”
Brad Mayes, Director of the VA Compensation and Pension Service, provided testimony on only the provisions proposed in the bill language. Although, VA did not provide a positive assessment of the bill, Mayes did state the VA and Congress were fairly close in what they saw needed to be accomplished to improve the disability benefits adjudication process for disabled veterans’ claims.
“This is an ambitious, landmark piece of legislation which will take a great deal of cooperation and collaboration on multiple fronts,” concluded Chairman Hall. “This effort will need to go well beyond Congress and VA. It will require the support and expertise of veterans’ service organization, Department of Defense, leading experts and professionals, academics, and others, all of whom bring information and experience to the table. I know that VA is moving in the general direction of some of the efforts outlined in the bill, but time is of the essence and we must bring accountability for outcomes back into the disability claims processing system.”
Witnesses:
Panel 1
· The Honorable William P. Greene, Jr., Chief Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims
Panel 2
· Kerry Baker, Associate National Legislative Director, Disabled American Veterans
· Ronald B. Abrams, Joint Executive Director, National Veterans Legal Services Program
· Steve Smithson, Deputy Director of Veterans Affairs and Rehabilitation Commission, The American Legion
· Eric A. Hilleman,
Deputy Director, National Legislative Service, Veterans of Foreign Wars of the
· Carl Blake, National
Legislative Director, Paralyzed Veterans of
Panel 3
· Bradley G. Mayes,
Director, Compensation and Pension Service, Veterans Benefits Administration,
Accompanied by
o Richard J. Hipolit, Assistant General Counsel
o Steven L. Keller, Senior Deputy Vice Chairman, Board of Veterans’ Appeals
Prepared testimony for the hearing and a link to the webcast is available at this link:
http://veterans.house.gov/hearings/hearing.aspx?newsid=223.
Thomas Zampieri
Director Government Relations
Blinded Veterans Association
BVA's Legislative Alerts Group
End of Document