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UPDATE: VAOIG REPORTS ON DOCUMENT
DATE-SWITCHING
AT FOUR VA REGIONAL OFFICES -- Report says
"inaccurate
dates were unintentional errors" and "no veterans
or their
beneficiaries received incorrect or delayed
benefit payments."
Story below:
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by Larry Scott
After VA Watchdog dot Org broke the story about
the VA shredding documents critical to a veteran's disability claim, it
wasn't long before other unacceptable practices came to light... mail
rooms piled high with unopened correspondence and date-switching on
documents.
For a complete background, you can find all
shredder and document mishandling stories are here...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/VAshredderscandal.htm
Of note was the New York Regional Office where it
was reported that VA employees were told by managers to change the dates
on documents to make their claim handling statistics appear better than
they were.
A number of top managers were removed (relocated
or retired) and the VA's Office of Inspector General (VAOIG) investigated
four other Regional Offices to see if the practice was widespread.
Now we have that report... and it's not what was
expected.
The VAOIG report says "inaccurate dates were
unintentional errors" and "no veterans or their beneficiaries received
incorrect or delayed benefit payments."
So, the report seems to say that New York was
just a bad apple in the Big Apple and the other VAROs are in compliance
with document dating requirements.
And, this report will play a large part in the
Congressional document mishandling hearing on Tuesday, March 3, 2009.
More on that hearing here...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/09/nf09/nffeb09/nf021909-3.htm
This just seems a bit too convenient...
So... your thoughts are appreciated.
Report information below:
click for more information -- a disabled veteran
owned business
Audit of VA Regional Office Compensation and Pension Benefit Claim Receipt
Dates
Report Number 09-00189-81, 2/27/2009 |
Summary |
Report (PDF)
Summary is posted below:
Audit of VA Regional Office Compensation and
Pension Benefit Claim Receipt Dates
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted a review to evaluate the
accuracy of VA regional office (VARO) compensation and pension (C&P)
benefit claim receipt dates. We initiated the review after the Veterans
Benefits Administration’s (VBA) Administrative Investigation Board
concluded that VARO New York intentionally reported inaccurate receipt
dates for 220 (56 percent) of 390 reviewed claims. The objectives of the
review were to determine if (1) other VAROs reported inaccurate claim
receipt dates; (2) inaccurate claim receipt dates caused veterans or their
beneficiaries to receive incorrect benefit payments; and (3) inaccurate
claim receipt dates caused VBA to report incorrect claim-processing times
to veterans, members of Congress, or other stakeholders.
Our review indicated that the inaccurate dates were unintentional errors
that did not significantly affect the four VAROs’ fiscal year (FY) 2008
average claim-processing times. VARO Boston was the only exception where
we projected an understatement of average processing time for the sampled
rating claims by 4 days. Of the 94,920 claims the four VAROs completed
during FY 2008, we projected that 88,639 (93.4 percent) claim receipt
dates were accurate; 4,520 (4.7 percent) were inaccurate; and 1,761 (1.9
percent) were not adequately documented in the claim folders and we could
not evaluate the accuracy of these dates. While all four VAROs reported
inaccurate
 claim
receipt dates, none of the rates came close to the 56 percent rate VBA
reported for the VARO New York review. VARO Albuquerque reported a 5
percent inaccuracy rate, VARO Boston reported a 10 percent inaccuracy
rate, VARO San Diego reported a 3 percent inaccuracy rate, and VARO
Winston-Salem reported a 4 percent inaccuracy rate. Even though all four
VAROs reported inaccurate benefit claim receipt dates, no veterans or
their beneficiaries received incorrect or delayed benefit payments as
correct claim receipt dates documented in claim folders were used as
effective dates of benefit awards. OIG made three recommendations to
improve the accuracy and adequacy of C&P benefit claim receipt dates. The
Under Secretary for Benefits concurred with the report’s conclusion and
recommendations. We consider the planned actions provided by the Under
Secretary acceptable and will follow up on their implementation.
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posted by Larry Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org
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