“In a March 2018 report, GAO assessed the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) November 2017 plan for changing how veterans appeal disability claim decisions and found that VA could do more to successfully implement these reforms. The March 2018 report made four recommendations to address planning gaps…”
“In our 2018 report, we found that VA’s November 2017 appeals plan could more fully assess key risks related to implementing the new appeals process. In particular, we found that VA’s plan did not include testing of new Board options or clearly define how it would assess the RAMP pilot test of the VBA-only options before implementing the process more broadly. Further, we reported that VA’s plan had not comprehensively reflected key risks because the agency had not established a complete and balanced set of goals and measures, which are a necessary pre-condition to effectively assessing risk…”
“In its updated May 2018 plan, VA took many steps to address our recommendation, although opportunities exist to better assess risks associated with implementing appeals reform and managing appeals workloads in the legacy process. Specifically…” Read the full statement here.
Source: GAO – Testimony, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, VA Disability Benefits – July 24, 2018. GAO.
