“The Department of Veterans Affairs has been spearheading a collaborative modernization project with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) that is enabling the agency to more quickly and efficiently provide veterans benefits especially amid workflow interruptions during the pandemic.”
“The process of digitizing veteran records began in 2011 and has entailed ongoing expansion as well as increasingly sophisticated means of incorporating essential information within VA’s database.”
“We actually started that process probably almost a decade ago with our own process of digitizing our claims files. We had a significant storage warehouse of service treatment records that are required for every claim decision that we make,” said Veterans Benefits Administration Assistant Deputy Secretary Ken Smith in an interview with GovernmentCIO Media & Research. “We digitized all of those. So, ultimately, we’ve built a full digital capability long before ever thinking about a pandemic to better serve veterans.”
“This process has allowed VA claims adjudicators to not only more efficiently access essential information, but also has enabled the agency to quickly upload new information, further streamlining the claims process.”
“’One of the more recent things that we’ve done, just internally, is to use a centralized mail portal,’ Smith said. ‘We have a contract where we scan all of our incoming mail in, and it’s now in the claims file within 24 hours, significantly cutting down on mail-in process time and improving accuracy because we’re not missing evidence when we make decisions. It really allows us to serve veterans a lot faster.'”
“Much of the benefits claims adjudication managed by VA relies on corroborating records from a veterans service, particularly to verify incidents where a veteran received an injury, was exposed to dangerous material or experienced service-related psychological trauma. As part of this overall modernization, VA has begun collaborating with NARA’s National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) to ensure essential information is quickly digitized and shared with adjudicators…”
“Widespread vaccination has allowed in-person operations to resume safely, allowing the VA and NARA to collaborate further on expediting the claims process. Records requests that could have taken weeks or even months to fully settle are now being completed within days. This covers compensation for conditions ranging from Agent Orange exposure to post-traumatic stress disorder. This kind of digitization is particularly effective in awarding benefits in the case of a complex, multi-record adjudication process…” Read the full article here.
Source: VA, NARA Partnership Streamlines Benefits Claims Processing – By Adam Patterson, June 1, 2021. GovernmentCIO.
