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89–379 2015

EVALUATION OF THE PROCESS TO ACHIEVE VBA 

GOALS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

MONDAY, JULY 14, 2014 

Serial No. 113–80 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 


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COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS 

JEFF MILLER, Florida, Chairman 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida, Vice-Chairman 

DAVID P. ROE, Tennessee 

BILL FLORES, Texas 

JEFF DENHAM, California 

JON RUNYAN, New Jersey 

DAN BENISHEK, Michigan 

TIM HUELSKAMP, Kansas 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio 

PAUL COOK, California 

JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana 

DAVID JOLLY, Florida 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine, Ranking 

Minority Member 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

MARK TAKANO, California 

JULIA BROWNLEY, California 

DINA TITUS, Nevada 

ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona 

RAUL RUIZ, California 

GLORIA NEGRETE MCLEOD, California 

ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire 

BETO O’ROURKE, Texas 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

JON TOWERS, Staff Director 

NANCY DOLAN, Democratic Staff Director 

Pursuant to clause 2(e)(4) of Rule XI of the Rules of the House, public hearing records 

of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs are also published in electronic form. The printed 

hearing record remains the official version. Because electronic submissions are used to 

prepare both printed and electronic versions of the hearing record, the process of converting 

between various electronic formats may introduce unintentional errors or omissions. Such occurrences are inherent in the current publication process and should diminish as the process 

is further refined. 


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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Monday, July 14, 2014 

Evaluation of the Process to Achieve VBA Goals .................................................

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Hon. Jeff Miller, Chairman ..................................................................................... 1 

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 105 

Hon. Michael Michaud, Ranking Minority Member ............................................. 4 

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 108 

WITNESSES 

Kristen Ruell, J.D., Authorization Quality Services Representative, Pension 

Management Center, Philadelphia Reginal Office, VBA, U.S. Dept. of VA .... 6 

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 109 

Ronald Robinson, USA, Ret., Senior Veterans Service Representative, AFGE 

Local 520, Columbia Regional Office, VBA, U.S. Dept. of VA .......................... 9 

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 112 

Javier Soto, Esq., Former Rating Veterans Service Representative, Executive 

Vice President, Local AFGE 1594, St. Petersburg Regional Office, VBA 

U.S. Dept. of VA ................................................................................................... 10 

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 122 

Ms. Linda Halliday, Asst. Inspector General for Audits and Evaluations, 

Office of Inspector General, U.S. Dept. of VA .................................................... 56 

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 125 

Accompanied by: 

Mr. Brent Arronte, Director of San Diego Benefits Inspections Division, Office of Audits and Evaluations, Office of Inspector General, U.S. Dept. of VA 

Hon. Allison A. Hickey, Under Secretary for Benefits, VBA, U.S. Dept. of 

VA .......................................................................................................................... 58

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 138 

Accompanied by: 

Ms. Diana Rubens, Director of Philadelphia Regional Office, VBA, 

U.S. Dept. of VA 

and 

Mr. Thoms Murphy, Director of Compensation Service, VBA, U.S. 

Dept. of VA 

Mr. Daniel Bertoni, Director of Education, Workforce, and Income Security, 

U.S. GAO .............................................................................................................. 60 

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 146 

MATERIALS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

Questions From: HVAC and Responses From: VA ............................................... 164 


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EVALUATION OF THE PROCESS TO ACHIEVE 

VBA GOALS 

Monday, July 14, 2014 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS, 

Washington, D.C. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 7:30 p.m., in Room 

334, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Jeff Miller [chairman of 

the committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Miller, Lamborn, Bilirakis, Roe, Flores, Denham, Runyan, Benishek, Huelskamp, Coffman, Wenstrup, 

Cook, Walorski, Jolly, Michaud, Brown, Takano, Brownley, Titus, 

Kirkpatrick, Ruiz, McLeod, Kuster, O’Rourke, and Walz. 

Also present: Representatives Fitzpatrick, Meehan, and 

LaMalfa. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF JEFF MILLER, CHAIRMAN 

The CHAIRMAN. Good evening. Welcome to tonight’s hearing. 

We’re going to be reviewing the Veterans Benefits Administration’s 2015 goals for disability benefit claims processing as well as 

the viability of those targets, which the former secretary established several years ago at 125 days to complete and 98 percent accuracy on the claims. 

We’re going to delve into the actions that VBA has taken in its 

singular focus to declare victory on disability claims in 2015, and 

we will endeavor to determine what price is being paid by our veterans, by the employees, the human capital of the regional offices, 

and by the American taxpayers. 

We have spent significant time on veterans’ health in recent 

weeks and have exposed the rampant corruption and dishonesty, 

the bullying and the retaliation, the corrosive culture, and the 

workplace fear that has flourished within the administration. 

Now we look to VBA and seek answers on its part in creating 

the same—the very same environment that we’ve already heard 

about within its ranks. 

I received correspondence from a VBA employee who is with us 

tonight who wrote—and I quote—‘‘Here are excerpts from the report by the White House Deputy Chief of Staff Rob Nabors detailing, one, the VHA’s 14-day scheduling is standard and arbitrary; 

two, the VHA needs to be restructured. It lacks a transparency or 

accountability in its management; and, three, a corrosive culture 

has led to personnel problems highlighting poor management, distrust between VA employees and management, and a history of retaliation towards employee raising issues.’’ 


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The employee then stated in a letter, ‘‘If VHA is replaced by VBA 

and 14 days is replaced by zero claims over 125 days and 98 percent accuracy, these excerpts from the report apply equally to the 

VBA.’’ 

To determine the scope of this statement, at the end of last week, 

the committee asked AFGE to inquire whether employees nationally agreed or disagreed with this sentiment, and in less than 2 

days fast responses were received from 18 regional offices. 

Not one regional office employee responded in disagreement. In 

fact, 16 R.O.s agreed unequivocally. Let that sink in. VBA is still 

running, guns blazing, on this questionable path without a real 

plan, without a real change. 

So let’s begin tonight by reminding everyone again of VBA’s real 

mission. And it is ‘‘to provide benefits and services to veterans and 

their families in a responsive, timely, and compassionate manner.’’ 

Now, you’ve seen the perverse consequences of the mixed metric 

goals within the Veteran Health Administration, and tonight we’re 

going to look at VBA’s targets. And we will hear what’s being done 

to push claims out the door at any cost. 125 days and 98 percent 

claim-based accuracy would be a laudable goal if it were at all realistic. 

Weeks before tonight’s hearing we began asking VBA to provide 

this committee with information on the research and analysis that 

was conducted prior to setting this goal as well as its information 

on performance standards. 

VBA has declined to provide timely and complete responses. In 

fact, we just got an email a couple of hours before this hearing. 

The purported responses fail to fully answer the questions that 

have been asked, and we’re going to discuss that again later. 

The VBA’s 2015 goals were outcomes, directed by the then-Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs to make progress. They were a call to 

action. And however well-intentioned, they have now become a distraction from accomplishing true progress. 

Employees have been working for a year on a 20-hour-per-month 

mandatory overtime schedule with no end in sight. In fact, we 

know that VBA has not ruled out actually increasing the 20-hourovertime mandate. 

We’re going to hear from GAO later about how 75 percent of the 

regional offices that they surveyed have agreements with the local 

unions that all veterans’ disability claims work done on this candleburning overtime shall be exempt from any quality review. 

I look forward to hearing from VBA on how that’s being sold as 

a veteran-friendly practice. 

Now, essentially, it’s the equivalent of saying, ‘‘Just make a decision and we’ll hope that the veteran doesn’t appeal.’’ 

Chronic incidents of unchecked oppressive and vindictive management festers within many of the regional offices, and the honest 

expert input of VBA employees has been silenced, ignored and, at 

times, punished. 

I’m told that the performance requirements on production and 

accuracy have been weaponized, if you will, to keep VBA employees 

in check. To what end? It’s certainly not in the name of service to 

America’s veterans. 


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It is, instead, to create an appearance of success, just as VHA attempted to do by cooking the books on scheduling times and notifications involving disease. 

The VA Office of Inspector General will testify to the potential of over $1.3 billion in improper payments. The Oldest Claims Initiative, a push that required all claims that were 2 years old or 

older to be rated within 60 days, introduced a scheme called provisional ratings. 

This was another hard-and-fast deadline dictated by Central Office, and VBA promised, ‘‘Don’t worry. We’ll get them done right. 

They won’t be going out the door without service treatment records, 

without medical exams, if that’s necessary.’’ 

So what was found at the regional office? Guidance that read— 

and I quote—‘‘A new VA exam request will have a negative impact 

on our ability to meet the goal that has been mandated by our 

leadership.’’ 

So VBA employees were directed to move forward with the evidence of file even if a medical exam was necessary to decide these 

aging claims. 

Contained in the guidance—and I ask you to look at the screen— 

and, Members, you should have this at your desk—I quote from an 

email where it says, ‘‘I understand this may be difficult to do and 

may appear to go against the values of how we do work. I want 

to assure you that’’—and here it is typed in boldface—‘‘there will 

be no negative consequences for you, the employees, as a result of 

following this guidance. The only possible negative consequences 

are those that exist if we fail to meet our goals for this project and 

for any actions that keep us from doing so.’’ 

VA OIG’s report issued earlier today found that regional office 

staff incorrectly processed 83 percent of the provisional rating decisions that were reviewed. Who is paying the price for VBA’s selfdefined success? 

There are roughly 280,000 veterans languishing in 3, 4, and 5 

years of an appellate backlog and nearly 240,000 veterans waiting 

on dependency award adjustments. 

We then have the complicated case, the old cases which were lost 

and then were subsequently found under a contrived and disingenuous interpretation of VBA’s guidance of May 20th of 2013. 

Even more egregious, VBA has recently put out guidance to the 

regional offices that, unless a veteran puts specific words on their 

claim form, a form that doesn’t provide any space for comment, 

that the claimed condition has existed, that the claimed condition 

has existed, ‘‘since service,’’ then a medical nexus exam will not be 

ordered and the claim will be denied, denied. 

Robert Gates, former Secretary of Defense, recently released his 

memoir entitled ‘‘Duty,’’ which he dedicated to the men and women 

of the United States Armed Forces. 

He writes about VA and about his dealings with a former VA secretary. The secretary notes, ‘‘I was staggered when he said his department was in good shape and had no problems.’’ 

And he continued, ‘‘I’d been around long enough to know that, 

when a head of a department says his organization has no problems, he’s either lying or he’s delusional.’’ 

So I’ll close my remarks by speaking to VBA directly. 


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Whatever hooray that you shout, whatever win you attempt to 

take credit for in 2015, you will not be celebrated. It has been made 

clear that there is not a corner of VBA leadership that will not cut 

nor a statistic that they will not manipulate to lay claim to a hollow victory. What we all want to see, both my Republican and 

Democrat colleagues on this committee is progress, not deception. 

[THE PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JEFF MILLER APPEARS

IN THE APPENDIX] 

The CHAIRMAN. With that, I now recognize the ranking member, 

Mr. Michaud, for his opening statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MICHAEL MICHAUD, RANKING 

MINORITY MEMBER 

Mr. MICHAUD. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for having 

this hearing this evening. 

Tonight we will have an opportunity to continue an important 

discussion we have touched upon in several of our previous oversight hearings, the Veterans Benefits Administration and their 

progress in reaching goals related to the claims backlog. 

With the scandal at the Veterans Health Administration weighing heavily on us, tonight the committee wants to assess the current state of place at the VBA. The Agency appears to be making 

some progress on its goals of eliminating claims backlog by the end 

of 2015. 

I do, however, have concerns—and the VA OIG shares the concern—that the resources needed to achieve VA’s backlog goals are 

being directed and applied disproportionately, ultimately harming 

other veterans’ services. 

I refer in particular to non-rating workload, Quick Start, benefits 

delivery at discharge, independent disability evaluation system, 

and appeals, to name a few. 

We have heard over and over again of the dangers and failures 

of a system geared toward defining success based on narrow, fixed 

metrics. That is not how good customer service is delivered, and it 

is not how our veterans perceive success. 

And why should they? What good is it for a veteran if VBA processes his or her rating in an unacceptable period of time, but then 

takes years to add a dependent? 

From July 2010 to July 2014, the number of backlog dependency 

claims cases have gone from 9,367 to 192,322. This represents a 

nearly 2,000 percent increase. 

Since March of last year, the number of pending appeals has 

gone up 12 percent and continues to increase. And there are personnel issues as well. We have heard reports of unacceptable practices and challenges at many VA facilities. 

At the Baltimore VA regional office, the OIG found that as many 

as 9,500 documents, including claims, claims-related mail, and various other documents containing personal identifiable information 

have been improperly stored. Lax measures and practices with 

records to veterans’ personal information is simply unacceptable. 

Again, to me, this says VA’s focus on narrow performance measures are not realistic for defining success. Veterans define good, 

timely care and services on their whole experience from start to 


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finish. That’s what makes sense. It is something we must confront 

in today’s hearing and in the larger term as we continue on our important work to reform the VA. 

The Department of Veterans’ Affairs cannot morally claim success in delivering better care to our veterans by touting their 

progress on the backlog if that progress has come at the expense 

of delivering other key services to veterans in a timely manner. 

This work takes an increased urgency as more and more veterans are coming home from service abroad in Operation Iraqi 

Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. 

To fix the current shortcomings in the delivery of service, we 

need all of the facts and we need honesty, frank discussions. That’s 

what I’m hoping to get out of tonight’s hearing. 

Because if we do not base our reform efforts based upon what is 

realistically achievable and what the facts are, we are setting the 

Department of Veterans Administration and, more importantly, our 

veterans up for failure down the road once again. And I think we 

can all agree that this is not an option. 

So tonight, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you calling this hearing 

because it gives us a chance to take a hard look at what VBA needs 

to do to ensure that it is providing its claims workforce with the 

training and other tools needed to deliver timely and accurate benefits to our Nation’s veterans and their families in all areas of their 

responsibility. 

So I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance 

of my time. 

[THE PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL MICHAUD APPEARS

IN THE APPENDIX] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Michaud. 

I would ask that all Members would, as is the committee’s custom, waive their opening remarks. 

And I also ask unanimous consent of the committee that we 

allow some of our colleagues to join us here tonight, from the 8th 

District of Pennsylvania, Congressman Michael Fitzpatrick, and 

from the 7th District of Pennsylvania, Congressman Patrick Meehan. And, also, we may be joined by other colleagues, including Mr. 

Lamalfa, later. 

Hearing no objection, so ordered. 

So tonight we’re going to hear from two panels. The first is comprised of individuals from various VBA regional offices, to include 

Ms. Kristen Ruell, Authorization Quality Services Representative 

of the Pension Management Center of the Philadelphia Regional 

Office; Mr. Ronald Robinson, Veterans Service Representative and 

member of AFGE Local 520 of the Columbia, South Carolina, Regional Office; and Mr. Javier Soto, who served as a Rating Veterans Service Representative and the Executive Vice President of 

Local AFGE 1594 in my home State, the great State of Florida, 

under the supervision of the St. Petersburg Regional Office. 

And the second panel that we’re going to have will contain government witnesses in the following order: Ms. Linda Halliday, Assistant Inspector General for Audits and Evaluations, Office of the 

Inspector General. 


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Ms. Halliday is accompanied by Mr. Brent Arronte, Director of 

San Diego Benefits Inspections Division Office of Audits and Evaluation. 

Next will be VBA, to include the Honorable Allison A. Hickey, 

Under Secretary for Benefits. 

And she is accompanied by Ms. Diana Rubens, Director of the 

Philadelphia Regional Office, who is the former Deputy Under Secretary for Field Operation, as well as Mr. Thomas Murphy, Director of Compensation Service. 

And, finally, we will hear from Mr. Daniel Bertoni, Director, 

Education Workforce and Income Security, with the U.S. Government Accountability Office. 

So I now acknowledge our first panel, who is already seated. 

Yield to our colleague, Mr. Fitzpatrick, for a brief introduction of 

our first witness. 

Mr. FITZPATRICK. Like to thank the chairman and the ranking 

member for the opportunity to participate in the hearing and to introduce Ms. Kristen Ruell. 

Ms. Ruell is a law school graduate, practicing attorney, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and a former law clerk of the Pennsylvania 

Supreme Court. 

Ms. Ruell works as a Quality Review Specialist at the Philadelphia Regional Office, which serves tens of thousands of veterans in 

my community and hundreds of thousands in the greater region 

and throughout the country. 

She’s a strong supporter of veterans and has been reporting various types of data manipulation and illegal payments to anyone 

who would listen. Unfortunately, the VA was not listening to her, 

and that brings us to this evening’s hearing. 

In 2012, Ms. Ruell, frustrated that the VA was not responsive, 

reached out to my office for help. I was inspired by her doggedness 

and desire to make the VA a better organization, honored to work 

with her to help to get to the bottom of this. 

And so now, Mr. Chairman, this evening, with this committee 

and America as her audience, Ms. Ruell will tell her story of what 

can be described as no less than gross mismanagement at the 

Philadelphia Regional Office. And I appreciate her courage in coming forward and her patriotism in doing so. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much to our colleague, Mr. 

Fitzpatrick. We appreciate you being here with us tonight to introduce your constituent. 

Would ask that all the witnesses would please rise and raise 

your right hand. 

[Witnesses sworn.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. You can be seated. 

And each of your complete written statements will be made a 

part of the hearing record for tonight. 

Ms. Ruell, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF KRISTEN RUELL 

Ms. RUELL. My name is Kristen Ruell. I have worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs since August of 2007. I work at the 


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Philadelphia Regional Office as an Authorization Quality Review 

Specialist. I possess a law degree and have previously clerked for 

the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. 

Mr. Chairman, committee members, veterans, and guests, I have 

been identified as a whistleblower. I started reporting various types 

of data manipulation and illegal payments and glitches in the 

VETSNET operating system, a system that is responsible for paying out VA benefits since July of 2010. 

I discussed what I perceived as gross mismanagement at the 

Philadelphia Regional Office. I raised many issues, including, but 

not limited to, the proper—improper shredding of military mail, 

beneficiaries receiving improper and/or duplicate payments, legal 

processes with the recovery of funds after an improper payment 

has been made and not returned, data manipulation, and various 

other gross misinterpretations of the law. 

Instead of solving problems, I was and continue to be retaliated 

against by the VA. I have been targeted by middle and upper management at the VA for over 4 years despite the fact that OIG recently confirmed these allegations, as will be reflected in their testimony for today. 

The VA’s problems are a result of morally bankrupt managers 

that through time and grade have moved up into powerful positions 

where they have the power to and continue to ruin people’s lives. 

I can speak from experience. 

I do not believe in manipulating data to achieve monetary gain 

for myself while harming the veterans and their survivors. In 2013, 

the VA issued fast letter 13-10 regarding found or discovered 

claims. 

A simple reading of this fast letter established that these claims 

would be few and far between. To qualify for a new data claim, 

rather than using the date stamped when the claim actually arrived at the VA office, the claim had to be undiscovered and found 

in a claim folder. Upon discovery, a memo was to be attached and 

signed by someone no less than an assistant director. 

Upon completion of the claim, an email was to be sent to the 

VA’s Central Office explaining the circumstances of the claim and 

why this claim was going to have an altered date of claim, a newer 

date. 

Additionally, the claim was supposed to be tracked in a program 

called MAP-D by way of a flash, which could be tracked. 

This fast letter was the VA’s solution for solving the issues with 

the backlog because, by 2015, the VA promised that there would 

be no claims pending older 125 days. 

Philadelphia Regional Office took this fast letter to mean that 

they could change the dates of claims on every claim older than 6 

weeks old, regardless of the circumstances. 

When investigated by the OIG, the Pension Center managers 

pled ignorance and stated they misapplied and misunderstood the 

fast letter. Ironically, there is proof to the contrary. 

The memo was used to minimize the average days pending of a 

claim to make the regional office’s numbers look better. A veteran 

should have a date of claim of 2009, in some cases. But because of 

this memo, the Philadelphia Regional Office instead used a date of 

claim of 2014, therefore making the claim appear new. 


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He or she now has a recent date of claim with no priority attached because the claim has a new date of claim and will not show 

up in any reports for claims pending longer than 125 days. 

I have been admonished and suspended because I was unable to 

work mandatory overtime because of a problem with child care 1 

month and, also, labeled ‘‘fraudulent’’ by the Pension Center management, which after 21⁄2 years were both reversed. No one else 

was given that severe of a punishment for things beyond their control. 

I was not promoted for a job when I was more qualified than at 

least one of the selectees, and I had to file an EEO complaint for 

lack of selection. I was followed around the regional office by management, and my breaks were timed. 

An assistant Pension Center manager had my direct supervisor 

come outside and retrieve me from break, when we are permitted 

flextime. I was falsely accused of slander. I was lied to on numerous times and counseled. 

After my last whistleblowing attempt, my name was forwarded 

to the people I reported. The next morning my car was dented, and 

the following morning I came out to a big mess of coffee thrown on 

the hood and windshield of my car. 

Although I cannot prove that this was done by the people I reported, I do not put anything past the managers at the Philadelphia Regional Office. 

After receiving an annual EEO whistleblowing email encouraging 

employees to report illegal activities as well as taxpayer waste, I 

contacted the numbers provided, thinking I was doing something 

the Department of Veterans’ Affairs would appreciate. 

I had tried using the chain of command, to only find out the 

chain was corrupt and management nor the Central Office had any 

interest in hearing about any problems at the Agency, regardless 

of extent. 

I whistleblew when I realized that the amounts of improper payments could be in the billions and included many supporting comments, sample cases, and case law. 

What I thought was helping the taxpayer, the Agency, and the 

veterans proved to be the exact opposite for me personally and the 

beginning of a horrible nightmare I have been living for 4 years. 

I know that this was not really what the VA wanted and that 

they cover up nearly every impropriety to gain self-benefit via bonuses and promotions and they target anyone that steps in the 

way. 

I noticed many employees around me were depressed and, upon 

seeing me stick up for the veterans, taxpayers, and employees, others began to tell me horror stories of the Agency I was employed 

at. 

I now spend my free time representing employees who have been 

treated adversely by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. I am 

here because I care about veterans and I care about VA employees. 

The people that serve their country and the employees that serve 

them deserve much more respect from the Department of Veterans’ 

Affairs. The Agency is unable to police itself and is operating out 

of control at the employees’ and the veterans’ expense. 


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The unreasonable and unattainable production requirements 

that start in Washington, DC., that are placed on employees have 

required employees to decide between what is right in helping the 

veteran or what is wrong in order to keep their jobs. 

Most employees have taken the easier route and are doing things 

they are bullied into doing to stay employed. Anyone who does not 

comply will be targeted. 

The VA needs immediate reform because it’s filled with a systemic culture of corruption to make unattainable goals set by people that do not process claims. Time and grade is a large part of 

the problem. 

I will be available by email to answer any questions regarding 

what I have experienced at the Agency and welcome an opportunity to meet with anyone that is interested in fixing the many 

problems. 

I would like to thank you on behalf of myself and the many 

voices that could not be here today for my invitation to appear. 

[THE PREPARED STATEMENT OF KRISTEN RUELL APPEARS IN THE

APPENDIX] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Ms. Ruell. 

Mr. Robinson, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF RONALD ROBINSON 

Mr. ROBINSON. Good afternoon, Chairman Miller and Ranking 

Member Michaud—I hope I got that right—and Members of the 

committee. 

On behalf of my fellow comrades and employees, thank you for 

the opportunity to discuss the evaluation of the process to achieve 

Veterans Benefit Administration’s goals, which was established in 

2009 by former VA Secretary Shinseki at 125 days to complete and 

98 percent claims accuracy. 

Serving veterans should never be about arbitrary and unplanned 

goals. But how can we serve them better? It has been proven that 

setting unrealistic and unplanned goals with long-term targets 

without short and intermediate targets to validate their effectiveness are a recipe for disaster. 

The Columbia Veterans Affairs Regional Office had the privilege 

of a visit from Acting Secretary Gibson last week, and it was refreshing to hear our top leader say it’s not about matrices, but ensuring that we are doing everything to serve our veterans and 

building trust one veteran at a time. 

He addressed transparency, accountability, retaliation, of employees. He also acknowledged that it was his job to create conditions for employees to be successful. He is setting the tone for 

changing the culture of a lack of accountability, numbers and manipulation of numbers, retaliation and VA talking points. 

In October 1995, when I arrived at the Columbia VRO as a workstudy, there was a poster in the hall—on the wall in the hallway 

that read ‘‘Making a difference in VBA integrity, professionalism, 

and accountability.’’ I was impressed by the message and embarked 

on a journey to make it a reality as I served my fellow comrades. 

I visited the VA Central Office in February of 2013 and, to my 

surprise, the same poster was hung in the hallway. However, I 


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have learned that words on paper are meaningless without corresponding action. 

The VA is not a factory or a business, but a service organization 

created to serve veterans, their widows and orphans. 

We serve survivors of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, those who have seen horrific acts of war and need comfort, 

those who have been mentally and physically disabled and need 

health care, those who are homeless and need shelter as well as 

support, those who are thinking about suicide and need a lifeline, 

and all the others who have honorably and faithfully served our 

country. 

Again, this is not about meeting goals and matrices, but serving 

those who served and VA providing the leadership, effective tools 

and creating an environment for employees that are conducive to 

providing accuracy and timely decision to our customers, veterans, 

survivors, and their families. 

When unrealistic goals cause leaders to throw out—common 

sense and intelligent analysis out of the window, it is time for a 

reassessment and shift the focus back on our only mission, to care 

for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his 

orphan. 

President Roosevelt, on the day he signed the G.I. Bill, stated: 

The members of the Armed Forces have been compelled to make 

greater economic sacrifice and every other kind of sacrifice than the 

rest of us, and they are entitled to definite action, definite action, 

to help take care of their special problems. 

Gentlemen—ladies and gentlemen of this committee, I served 20 

years serving this country. I have served 18 years on the front lines 

in the foxhole of the Columbia Regional Office. 

Employees deserve better than what we are getting. We need 

tools to effectively do our jobs. We need to be lifted up, not pulled 

down. And this is done not by anybody else but the failed leadership of our organization. It is our organization as well. 

I’ll be here to answer any questions. Thank you very much. 

[THE PREPARED STATEMENT OF RONALD ROBINSON APPEARS IN

THE APPENDIX] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Robinson. Thank you 

for your service to this country. 

Mr. Soto, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF JAVIER SOTO 

Mr. SOTO. I thank the chairman, ranking member, and esteemed 

members of the committee for the opportunity to be here. My statement relates to my experience as a former rater at the St. Petersburg, Florida, VA Regional Office, which I will refer to as ‘‘St. 

Pete.’’ 

In my opinion, the problems at VBA result from setting goals so 

fantastic and unrealistic that the result could have been predicted. 

Management focused on creative number-crunching and not the 

veteran. 

I point out that I tried bringing up problems to management 

through various process that are established for that, but I got nowhere. They also took complaints personally. 


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In my view, presently, we cannot tell what the accuracy rate for 

claims processing may be. Data varies widely, if you look at it locally, regionally, or nationally. 

At St. Pete, this year alone, quality reviewers called four quality 

review errors against Orlando raters that contradict medical evidence. When we brought to this Kerrie Witty, the director, she refused to do anything about it. Presently, to address this, the union 

is preparing to arbitrate claims based on quality issues. 

Employees had been bringing issues to the quality review team 

regarding inconsistencies with their work for some time. When this 

was passed up to management, instead of addressing the inconsistencies, on January 27 of this year, management issued an email directing employees to stop complaining to the quality reviewers and 

just tell their supervisors, which employees reported did not resolve 

anything. 

Shortly after that email, we began seeing what I can only describe as a disclaimer whenever we got quality guidance or advice. 

It stated in so many words—and I won’t say the exact wording so 

I don’t identify anyone—but, ‘‘We don’t know if our advice is right 

or wrong, and don’t rely on it.’’ 

When asked about this at an employee town hall meeting, Director Witty stated, ‘‘I am not aware. I have to check into that. I don’t 

know.’’ This issue remains unresolved. 

The quality issue is further made worse by various changes to 

rating rules. And I will discuss one example. There are many. 

Provisional rating rules simply hid wait times. Once a claim is 

given a provisional rating, it’s not counted toward the backlog. 

However, the claim has no final rating. It’s still unresolved. 

In summary, at St. Pete, the employees work hard to serve veterans and complete their work competently. However, we have 

found that employees avoid appealing quality error calls because 

they fear reprisal. When employees do appeal the errors, they are 

overturned at least 30 percent of the time. 

We did some figuring out, and we believe that, if employees were 

not afraid to appeal these errors, the total number of claims with 

errors overturned may be troubling. 

To date, to excuse the backlog and other processing problems, 

many employees are on performance improvement plans. Where we 

were interested and we checked, not one manager at St. Pete is on 

a performance improvement plan. 

The total number of errors overturned can be great. We just have 

to check. Nobody’s checking. Any employee that complains is met 

with severe consequences. 

Once again, I’d like to thank the committee for providing me the 

opportunity to share my views. I will be happy to take any answers. Thank you. 

[THE PREPARED STATEMENT OF JAVIER SOTO APPEARS IN THE APPENDIX] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Soto. 

Thanks again to all of you for your testimony. We’re going to 

start a round of questioning. Each of us will have 5 minutes with 

which to ask our question. 


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Mr. Soto, I will start with you, sir. And, if you would, just answer 

in a ‘‘yes’’ or ‘‘no’’ fashion, if you could. 

Were you rated anything less than fully successful during your 

time with the regional office? 

Mr. SOTO. No, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. Did you receive a promotion in 2013? 

Mr. SOTO. Yes, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. Now I’ve got some documents here that are letters signed by the regional office director, Kerrie Witty, who you’ve 

talked about this evening. So I want to ask you about them. 

The first is a letter dated July 24, 2013, where the R.O. director 

contested transfer of your official time, which notes, ‘‘Having raters 

taken from their reoccurring duties on a regular basis hampers the 

flow of work.’’ 

Did you get a copy of this? 

Mr. SOTO. Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. The second is a letter that is dated February 26 

of 2014 where the R.O. director denied your leave to attend training, citing that you were needed due to VACO’s all-hands initiative. 

Did you receive this document? 

Mr. SOTO. Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. And the third is a letter dated the 23rd of June, 

just 3 weeks ago, from the director again, which appears to respond 

to an AFTE leave without pay request for you, which reads, in 

part, ‘‘LWOP’’—leave without pay—‘‘is granted at the discretion of 

the department. While I understand that AFGE is preparing for 

various changes within this organization and engaged in various 

national projects, Mr. Soto holds a full-time position as a rating 

veterans service representative and is needed to perform his rater 

duties in that position.’’ 

Did you receive this document? 

Mr. SOTO. Yes, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. So could you tell the committee what occurred 

after June 23rd of 2014. 

Mr. SOTO. On June 24, I published a VSR accuracy report concerning quality review and VSR operations. On June 26, it was distributed to all employees and management. 

During this period, I received calls from fellow employees telling 

me that management was looking into your—specifically Bonnie 

Wax from Human Resources, called our coaches and said, ‘‘Don’t 

tell anybody. I need you to look at this,’’ et cetera. 

On June 30, I was, for the lack of better definition—and I think 

the legal definition is ‘‘laid off’’—I received a letter that said, ‘‘Your 

services are no longer required.’’ And that was the end of my employment. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Ruell, do you believe that the policy at the— 

or at Philadelphia violated the policy direction given in the fast letter 13-10? 

Ms. RUELL. Definitely. 

The CHAIRMAN. And how did they violate that policy? 

Ms. RUELL. In our office, we would receive emails. As we got closer to 2015, the emails would change, but they were instructing us 

to change the dates of claims, on any claims, regardless of the circumstances, if they were older than a certain date. 


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The CHAIRMAN. Do you believe that the management at the regional office intentionally violated fast letter 13-10 or was it simply 

a misunderstanding, as VA has said publicly? 

Ms. RUELL. I believe—and I think it can be proven—that management intentionally violated the fast letter. 

If you read the fast letter closely, the management will allege 

that they didn’t understand what the first part of the fast letter 

said. However, their actions show otherwise. 

The other paragraphs in the fast letter explain that you’re supposed to control these memos by placing a flash in a program called 

MAP-D. That’s the way to track how many memos Philadelphia 

was issuing for changing dates of claims. 

You were also supposed to email Washington after you processed 

the claim and explain the circumstances for changing the dates of 

claim. Philadelphia didn’t do either of those things. 

So it’s my belief that, if you didn’t understand the top part of the 

fast letter, number one, I question why you’d be paid a GS-15 or 

a GS-14 to be in charge of the amount of money that our office is 

in charge of if you don’t understand the language in the fast letter. 

And why then did you prohibit any type of control on those claims 

so that, if they were to be looked into at a later date, no one could 

find them? 

Similar to the VHA paper waiting lists, our memos were all on 

paper. So if you wanted to find out how many memos were done 

in Philadelphia, you would have to go to the file room and open up 

all the claim folders to find these memos, if they’re still there. 

But MAP-D is not a program that the managers aren’t familiar 

with. And emailing they do every day. They email us lists nonstop. 

So if they didn’t understand the fast letter, at least the top portion, I know that they understood the bottom portion. And they 

failed to do any of those things to control it. So I think it was to 

hide it. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Michaud, you’re recognized. 

Mr. MICHAUD. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

The first few questions should be a quick ‘‘yes’’ or ‘‘no.’’ And I’ll 

start with Mr. Soto and just work down the panel. 

Do you believe that production is being driven over quality? 

Mr. SOTO. Absolutely. 

Mr. ROBINSON. Yes. 

Ms. RUELL. Definitely. 

Mr. MICHAUD. And do you believe that non-rating workload is 

being provided enough resources to be done in a timely and accurate manner? 

Mr. SOTO. No. 

Mr. ROBINSON. Definitely no. 

Ms. RUELL. No. 

Mr. MICHAUD. And do you believe that VBMS is making VA 

more efficient than it was when you dealt with paper? 

Mr. SOTO. At the present time, I would say that’s debatable. 

Mr. ROBINSON. I say that it’s ‘‘no’’ because the—all the 

workarounds that we have negate the progress that VBMS is making. 


VACREP180 with DISTILLER
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Ms. RUELL. I don’t currently work on VBMS. But anything that 

is electronic at the Department of Veterans’ Affairs has many problems. And if I do a claim with a paper folder, I can see the paper. 

I can page through it quickly. 

When I look at—when it’s in the computer, there’s multiple entries for the same documents. It wastes a lot of time. And sometimes the program freezes, and it halters us from getting our work 

done. I would much rather use paper. 

Mr. MICHAUD. Ms. Ruell, to follow up on the chairman’s question, 

his question was do you believe that the VA, you know, ignored, 

you know, the Pension Center plead ignorance—well, let me back 

up. 

In your statement, you suggest that the Philadelphia Pension 

Center pleaded ignorance with regard to the found or discovered 

claims. 

Do you believe that the VA OIG findings were incorrect in suggesting that the Center misapplied, misunderstood VA’s policy and 

procedure from the OIG? 

Ms. RUELL. I believe that that’s probably not 100 percent accurate because they only found 30 memos. But if they’d stay there a 

lot longer, they would probably find thousands and they would see 

the instances that the claims were changed and it was—some of 

them had no reason at all. They just changed the date of claim. 

That’s not what the fast letter said. 

Mr. MICHAUD. And do you have proof? 

Ms. RUELL. I photocopied a few of those memos. But if you just 

ask any employees that work there how many they did on a weekly 

basis, you would definitely find out. 

Mr. MICHAUD. In your testimony, you highlight that you believe 

a larger number of documents were improperly shredded. 

Can you walk us through VA’s responses to your suggestions that 

more needs to be done. 

Ms. RUELL. Yes. We—did you want me to describe the shredding? 

Mr. MICHAUD. Yes. 

Ms. RUELL. Okay. I was working one day and I received an 

email—a very disturbing email from a triage employee. Triage is 

where the mail comes in and gets stamped. 

The triage clerk has to look at a claim and they have to figure 

out in a very short time—because they are on production as well— 

what type of claim that is and identify it with a veteran in the system. 

A lot of people mail their claims in. And they might not put their 

full name. They might forget to put their Social Security number. 

They might forget to put their birthday. A lot of people have the 

same names in the system. 

If you’re on production and you have to open the mail and you 

have to look at all these things and decide what type of claim it 

is in a very quick time period, there really isn’t time to investigate 

to try and identify who that person really is. 

So what was happening—and various employees told me that the 

clerks were trying their best to identify these things. 

But ones that took a little longer to identify because they were 

lacking all the identifying information they were putting aside in 

a separate pile that eventually were stored in boxes. 


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So I went down to the file room that night after I got this email. 

And I wanted to see for myself what was going on. And I saw these 

boxes that were labeled 2010 claims, 2011 claims, 2012 claims to 

be shredded. 

So I opened them. I took pictures. And I saw things in the boxes 

that are not supposed to be shredded. I saw DD–214s. I saw plenty 

of things that I could identify with just a little bit of effort. 

So I reported it to Washington. Apparently, they stopped the 

shredding of those boxes. Unfortunately, there was a total of 96 of 

those boxes. 

The VA—their answer to that was it’s military and returned 

mail. And the process for military and returned mail is, after you 

told hold of it for one year, you’re allowed to shred it. 

But the law is assuming that you tried to identify it. The mail 

that was in those boxes was not easily identifiable, but a lot of it 

was not impossible to identify. It just took a little bit of time. 

So because of these production requirements, the clerks had a 

choice to pitch it to another box and, hopefully, get to it later or 

lose their job and do it the right way. So most people had good intentions and put these aside. 

Then they had gift cards that they were giving away for people 

who could process the most mail. So they gave incentives to get a 

lot of mail sorted. 

And I saw the boxes with my own eyes. I saw what was in the 

boxes. And a lot of that stuff should not have been shredded. 

The VA told me that, because I didn’t see the shredding happening, that it wasn’t shredded. However, when I did a little research about the shredding truck, I was informed that, in order for 

the mail to be shredded, it gets shredded on the truck and, if I 

would have watched the mail be shredded, I would have been 

shredded with it. 

So I believe there was circumstantial evidence when I saw the 

boxes headed towards the shred truck. However, I can’t say that 

I saw it being shredded because, again, that would be impossible. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Lamborn, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for 

your leadership on these vital issues. 

Last week we had another hearing involving whistleblowers. And 

it is so important that we have employees who come forward and 

disclose what they have seen with their own eyes. 

It can be critical to exposing things that need to come to the light 

of day. So thank you for your work, your service, your putting it 

on the line to do that. 

And I want to ask you—and I think I already know the answer 

to this, but let’s do this for the record. 

Have you experienced or do you know others who have experienced retaliation in response to bringing things forward as a whistleblower in the VA? 

And we’ll just go—Ms. Ruell, we’ll start with you, and go down 

the line. 

Ms. RUELL. Unfortunately, yes. 

Mr. ROBINSON. Yes. 

Mr. SOTO. Absolutely. Yes. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Soto, let’s talk to you for a second. 


VACREP180 with DISTILLER
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You probably saw the letter—the memo from Acting Secretary 

Gibson dated June 13 saying, ‘‘We will not stand for retaliation 

against whistleblowers.’’ 

In fact, in this memo there’s a great line that says, ‘‘Protecting 

employees from reprisal is moral obligation of VA leaders, a statutory obligation, and a priority for this department. We will take 

prompt action to hold accountable those engaged in conduct identified as reprisal for whistleblowing and for that—and that action includes appropriate disciplinary action.’’ 

So that memo says those who punish whistleblowers themselves 

can be subject to discipline. 

And the statutory protection the acting secretary refers to is from 

25 years ago. Congress protected whistleblowers more—25 years 

ago. 

Mr. Soto, is it true that you were retaliated against after this 

memo came out? 

Mr. SOTO. I believe so. Yes. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Could you explain that, please. 

Mr. SOTO. I was, again—and I’m still trying to piece this together. I believe I was laid off June 30. I believe that memo and 

other emails had come out. 

Mr. LAMBORN. This was June 13, the memo I just quoted from. 

Mr. SOTO. Yes. 

Mr. LAMBORN. And what was the reason given for you being laid 

off? 

Mr. SOTO. My services were no longer required. 

Mr. LAMBORN. And had you been acting as a whistleblower prior 

to that time? 

Mr. SOTO. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LAMBORN. And can you explain what you did in that capacity. 

Mr. SOTO. I put out various notices of wrongdoing in the workplace concerning possible violations of due process concerning veterans’ claims and how they’re processed. 

I put out two accuracy reports concerning the quality review 

process at St. Petersburg. One was in December 2013 involving the 

raters and the rating process. 

There seems to be conflict in how we define various laws and 

various definitions of evidence that basically result in what I believe to be due process violation against the veterans. 

Then I came out with a second study, which was in June—June 

26 it was distributed—which addressed the VSRs and the problems 

they were having in terms of receiving inconsistent quality review. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Soto, I have the letter here that was given to 

you when you were separated, when you were discharged, and 

you’ve provided it to the committee. 

There doesn’t seem to be a reason given for you being let go. 

Mr. SOTO. Correct, sir. 

Mr. LAMBORN. How often is it that the VA fires people, number 

one, for any cause, and then, number two, for without giving a 

cause? 

Mr. SOTO. Being involved in the union, I would say I can’t say, 

I can’t answer that question. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Have you ever seen that happen? 


VACREP180 with DISTILLER
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Mr. SOTO. I have not heard of somebody being told their services 

are no longer required. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Without a reason. 

Mr. SOTO. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. Brown, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Soto. Right here. Hi. I am Corrine 

Brown. 

I am from Florida and, of course, I’m very familiar with the system in St. Pete. And you all process most of the case work in Florida. And it really has improved. 

We were having so much kickback, you know, we processed it 

and it wasn’t going through. So I think it’s very important to have 

goals. 

How long did you work at the center in St. Pete? 

Mr. SOTO. Four years. 

Ms. BROWN. You worked there for 4 years. 

Have you seen an improvement in the system in the 4 years? 

Mr. SOTO. That’s a difficult question to answer because—— 

Ms. BROWN. Well, what’s the number of cases that you was processing? 

Because, I mean, you know, for a long time we were having serious problems because you all process most of the cases in Florida 

and we have a very high number of cases in Florida. 

Mr. SOTO. Yes. I did some studies, and part of those studies 

that—I just mentioned. And, essentially, we haven’t corrected errors that have been occurring in the past 3 years. 

No matter what type of training we’re doing, it’s not effective. 

We’re repeating the same errors over and over again. So I would 

tend to say, in answer to your question, that, no, we haven’t improved. 

Ms. BROWN. You haven’t improved. 

Mr. SOTO. We have not. 

Ms. BROWN. And June 30th was your termination date? 

Mr. SOTO. Yes. 

Ms. BROWN. And without cause. 

Mr. SOTO. I was terminated because my services were no longer 

required. I’m not sure what that means. 

Ms. BROWN. I’m not either. But I’m going to find out. 

Mr. Robinson, thank you again for your service. 

You indicated that you all could do a better job if you had better 

leadership at the top. I don’t quite understand what that means. 

When you say ‘‘the top,’’ are you talking about Congress? When 

you say ‘‘the top,’’ what exactly are you talking about? 

Because I’ve worked with every VA secretary we’ve had, and 

some leave a lot to desire. But I certainly think the last VA secretary did a lot, based on what he had to work with, with the Congress. 

Mr. ROBINSON. When I talk about ‘‘the top,’’ I’m talking about 

our leadership. And what—sometimes we don’t understand that 

employees are looking for leaders to lead them. 

We’ve lived through about 9 years with a director at the local 

level. He’s no longer with us. The things that he did and the things 


VACREP180 with DISTILLER
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that happened in my office I began to report in 2006 to the VA 

chain of command. Because being military—ex-military, you take 

things through the chain of command. 

Ms. BROWN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROBINSON. So for—I guess from 2006 to when he retired, I 

reported, sent letters through the VA chain of command, and the 

things never ceased. 

Ms. BROWN. So it hasn’t been working like the military. 

Mr. ROBINSON. It’s not the military. It’s about leadership. Being 

a retired first sergeant, I think I know a little about leadership. 

It was not the director who was the problem. It was the system 

that allowed him to do what he did. 

So when I talk about leadership at the top, when you have a 

problem and you allow it to go on, even to the point of discrediting 

the President of the United States by placing his photo in an obscure place—in a place where no one could see, in a little photo like 

this—when that happens, I know that there’s not an accountability 

issue. 

Ms. BROWN. Ms. Ruell, you indicated that you wanted—that you 

think paper works best. Now, we’ve said over and over again we 

don’t want paper, we want the computer systems. 

I mean, we want the VA to get with the modern system. Even 

though I’m not there yet, we want the VA to get there. And, of 

course, that’s going to take change, working with the employees. 

What would you recommend? I mean, because, you know, you 

cannot process the number of cases and caseloads that need to be 

processed by hand. 

Ms. RUELL. I totally agree. The problem is the computer systems 

at the VA are outdated and they don’t work correctly. So I would 

rather use a paper folder than use the computer systems that the 

VA has to offer. 

The VA had computer systems like—if maybe Apple designed the 

computer systems instead of whoever is, it might work a little better. I can do more on my iPhone faster than I can with—— 

Ms. BROWN. We have given them money to upgrade. I mean, that 

is unacceptable. We have discussed it over and over and over 

again. We’ve got to take them into the next century. We have got 

to have the new technology. 

Ms. RUELL. I totally agree with you. But if you came and sat 

next to one of us for a day and watched us do our job, you would 

see probably why there’s backlog. 

We have to click on a large amount of documents. There’s sometimes hundreds that you need to look at in the computer. 

When you click to open one, sometimes it doesn’t open. Sometimes the wrong person’s information is in the folder and, if you 

care, you need to take time and put it in the right folder. 

Sometimes the computer systems go down and you’re not sure 

when they’re going to go back up again. So when everything’s computerized, you have thousands of employees sitting there and they 

can’t do their job because the only way you can process a claim is 

with all of the information. 

Ms. BROWN. Well, I’m certain this is something we have got to 

work on. Little babies, 2-year-olds, can work the computer system. 

We’ve got to be able to move to the next level with the VA. 


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Thank you. And I yield back the balance of my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Ms. Brown. 

Mr. Bilirakis, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it very 

much. 

And thank you for the testimony and thank you for your courage. 

Mr. Soto, your testimony spoke to the matter that production and 

accuracy measures create hostility in the workplace for employees, 

quality reviewers, and management. 

Could you relate how management’s focus on these metrics is affecting the service-connected veteran who has a claim pending in 

the regional office. 

Mr. SOTO. The aim is production. There, for lack of a better word, 

they want the numbers, and for whatever reason, the number 

seems to validate what they’re doing, it tends to show that, I don’t 

see it, but I gather for them essentially they’re progressing in their 

backlog fight, and what that means is that they start pushing and 

bullying employees into simply following changes in rules that 

sometimes may not serve the veteran. 

And one of the things I saw, for example, and there are many, 

of course, is for whatever reason, to ensure that we clear the backlog, we’ve begun shortening the evidence collection period. Our decisions are based on evidence of record. Anyone that’s an attorney 

knows that if there’s nothing of record, well, we deny the claim. So 

in essence, what I’ve seen is shorter duty to assist periods, shorter 

periods to gather evidence from private providers, and that seems 

to be how we’ve been moving, which shifts the burden to the veteran to prove his claim. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you very much. 

Next question for the panel: There’s been a lot of discussion in 

your testimony about how VBA manipulates data by using certain 

end points, which are not tracked as part of what VBA considers 

backlog. 

First of all, define, whoever would like to go first, define end 

products and then—end products instead of—excuse me, I said end 

points, ends products and how VBA manipulates their use and 

what consequences this has on the veteran. 

Mr. ROBINSON. An end product is a three-digit code that identifies what type of claim that we have. For example, if I say a 110, 

that represents an original claim with less than eight issues. If I 

say an 020, that represents a claim that the veteran has submitted 

after he has submitted an original claim. You only get one original 

claim in your lifetime. Anything else that you submit gets a different code depending on what type it is. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you. 

Mr. ROBINSON. If you use the end product 930, which in most 

cases refer to rating decisions that were prematurely decided, if 

you look at the Monday Morning report, a 930 is not included in 

the rating bundle. So the 930’s, which the majority of them, are 

claims that were rated prematurely, they’re not counted in this inventory of backlog claims. That’s just one example. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you. Anyone else wish to comment? 


VACREP180 with DISTILLER
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Mr. SOTO. I agree with him. I don’t have as much experience 

with that sort of processing, because I work the rater side, but I 

agree with this gentleman. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you very much. 

A question for the panel, we’ll start again with Mr. Soto: Can the 

Acting Secretary, Mr. Gibson, succeed with this current VBA leadership or should we hold the current VBA leadership accountable 

and start with the new leadership? 

Mr. Soto, yes or no? Can the acting VA secretary, Mr. Gibson, 

succeed with this leadership? 

Mr. SOTO. My answer would have to be, and I apologize, I don’t 

know. They’ve been in office for some time now. If the problems are 

still persisting, it’s time for a change. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you. 

Mr. SOTO. That’s my opinion. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Yes. Thank you. 

Mr. ROBINSON. No. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Ma’am, would you like to respond? 

Ms. RUELL. I think that the people under the level of the Under 

Secretary are letting the Under Secretary down. I don’t think 

they’re being truthful to the Under Secretary about the regional offices. So I feel like somebody is responsible for the VA and all of 

its problems, but in my office, there’s far too many people to hold 

accountable. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you very much for your testimony. 

And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Takano, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. TAKANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

So Mr. Soto, I understand you had worked at this office for 4 

years. Is that correct? 

Mr. SOTO. Yes, sir. 

Mr. TAKANO. Had you served the VA in this capacity prior to 

other offices? 

Mr. SOTO. Yes, but I prefer not to discuss that, please. 

Mr. TAKANO. I just want to get sense of how long you’ve been 

serving in the VA. That’s kind of—— 

Mr. SOTO. I’ve been a Government employee for about over 15 

years. 

Mr. TAKANO. 15 years. And all within the VA? 

Mr. SOTO. No. 

Mr. TAKANO. Okay. So how long have you been at the VA in 

total? 

Mr. SOTO. About, I would say over 10 years. 

Mr. TAKANO. Ten years? And Mr. Robinson? Similar question. I 

mean, you’ve been at this office for 9 years. Have you served at the 

VA in other capacities or in a similar fashion longer? 

Mr. ROBINSON. I’ve been in the Columbia VRO office for 18 years. 

Mr. TAKANO. Eighteen years? 

Mr. ROBINSON. Yes, sir. 

Mr. TAKANO. And the past 9 years, you’ve been in this current 

capacity you are now? 

Mr. ROBINSON. In the past 9 years, yes. 

Mr. TAKANO. Okay. And Ms. Ruell? 


VACREP180 with DISTILLER
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Ms. RUELL. I’ve worked at the VA for 7 years this August 20th. 

Mr. TAKANO. And let’s just start with you, Ms. Ruell. Has this 

situation with these narrow metrics and this management regimen, 

which has focused on certain outcomes and which can only be described as sort of perverse incentives, have they existed that entire 

7 years that you were in the current capacity you are now? 

Ms. RUELL. Yes. 

Mr. TAKANO. So you know nothing other than the current—than 

the way that things have been happening at the VA? There wasn’t 

a time that was better? 

Ms. RUELL. No. Now, our office used to have—we started doing 

original claims a few years after I got there. So, Philadelphia didn’t 

have jurisdiction of as many things as we do right now, so when 

I first started there, we had a lower volume of claims, and I believe 

we were able to give more time to the claims. We didn’t have to 

know how to do so many different types of claims. Because each 

claim has so many different laws and rules that go with it, when 

you work at a regional office, if you have 15 or 20 types of claims, 

it’s kind of being a lawyer with 15 or 20 specialties. 

So, the more claims that Philadelphia has, I’ve noticed that it’s 

much harder to know more laws for all these types of claims. 

Mr. TAKANO. Is it fair to say they grew in complexity as far as— 

and variety since you got there? Is that what you’re trying to tell 

us? 

Ms. RUELL. I believe that you can never figure out how complex 

a claim is. Sometimes they think this is a small little folder, so this 

claim should be fast. Every claim has unique circumstances, but 

because each veteran’s service representative is responsible for 

doing so many types of claims and doing them perfect, the more 

that we inherited and the more types of claims we’re expected to 

do, the less accurate I believe it is. 

Mr. TAKANO. Now, we’ve heard a lot about performance bonuses 

in the VA maybe motivating some of this behavior. Can you tell me 

something about what kind of performance bonuses were available 

to employees at your grade level? 

Ms. RUELL. At our grade level, you had to achieve a rating higher than fully successful to get a bonus. So if you received an outstanding or an excellent, you got a small bonus, a couple hundred 

dollars. 

Mr. TAKANO. For the year or for the quarter? 

Ms. RUELL. Yeah. For the whole year. 

Mr. TAKANO. For the entire year, it was a couple. So as much 

as—what was at stake for employees at your level was maybe a 

couple hundred dollars? 

Ms. RUELL. Yep. 

Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Robinson, can you answer that same question? 

Mr. ROBINSON. It depends on what—in my office, the bonuses 

were up to, like, $2,000, over $2,000 and they had different types— 

they had three ways that you could get a bonus. It was production. 

They had a numbering system one to three. If you got a three, or 

you got a nine, you would get a higher bonus, and you would get 

three for production, three for accuracy and three for what they 

called organizational support. It was just—but it was over $2,000 

that—— 


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Mr. TAKANO. So up to $2,000 was at stake for employees in 

your—— 

Mr. ROBINSON. And it was mostly—it was based on grade, so the 

higher your grade, the more money you got. 

Mr. TAKANO. Okay. Mr. Soto? 

Mr. SOTO. Similar. We had fully successful, highly successful, I 

believe, and outstanding. They are supposed to be given based on 

some sort of point structure. You achieve a certain amount of 

points for production or accuracy and you receive a certain amount 

of bonus. 

We pulled a lot of appraisals to see how they were distributed, 

and what we found was that there seems to have been some sort 

of curve in terms of application of the standards at our regional office. The lower level employees that did not achieve points were declared fully successful based on the unique station challenge. There 

were a few employees that were given outstanding without reaching the outstanding criteria based on unique station challenge and 

the middle group that made their production and accuracy were 

simply lumped in with the lower group and just made fully successful, but no use in the appraisal of unique station challenge at that 

time. 

Mr. TAKANO. Well, thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, my time has definitely run out. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Runyon, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. RUNYON. Thank you, Chairman. 

First question is for Ms. Ruell. In the IG’s testimony, it’s reported that there were 32,000 IRIS inquiries that went without a 

response. And IRIS is the precursor to eBenefits. Can you elaborate, I know Mr. Cook would love this, elaborate on a little of what 

that is and why this happened? 

Ms. RUELL. There are different ways to file claims at the VA. 

One way to inquire about or file a claim is through a program 

called IRIS. You can email a claim in, you can call a claim in on 

the phone. Then a little report is generated and we call it an IRIS. 

You are supposed to read these and you’re supposed to figure out 

what the claimant needs and address it. 

At our office, somebody reported to me a couple months ago that 

we weren’t doing these at all and there were 32,000 pending. Why 

that’s a concern to me is, some of those are dates of claims for benefits. You can call in, and that can be called an informal claim 

when you would like to apply to benefits. So if we’re not processing 

the IRIS’s, we don’t know the real data claim for some of those people. Not everybody calls in for IRIS’s and asks the status of their 

claims. Some people use those to file a claim. 

Mr. RUNYON. Thank you. 

And to follow up, I know Ms. Ruell already testified to this, but 

Mr. Robinson, Mr. Soto, did the staffs at Columbia and St. Pete 

also violate guidance provided in the Fast Letter 1310? 

Mr. ROBINSON. I don’t have an incident that it did. 

Mr. RUNYON. Okay. 

Mr. ROBINSON. I don’t know. 

Mr. SOTO. Yeah. Same here. I’m not sure. 


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Mr. RUNYON. Okay. Go back to Ms. Ruell. Talk a little bit about 

duplicate payments, and I know they say they don’t happen all the 

time, but can you give an example on how duplicate payments happen and what a problem this is, because we always used to say it’s 

fixed, it’s fixed, and obviously it’s not, per some of your testimony? 

Ms. RUELL. There’s many ways at the VA that you can receive 

a duplicate payment. Prior to a certain year, veterans stopped receiving service numbers. A lot of the veterans from certain wartime 

periods are in our system, called BIRLS, with a service number. 

When that same veteran or one of their survivors submits a 

claim, they usually put the veteran’s Social Security Number on 

the correspondence. When we put a claim under control and create 

and end product, we then create a duplicate record for that veteran. So that person will have the same name, but they will have 

different numbers, one service number and one claim number. That 

can cause that veteran to be paid twice. 

There are other ways that the double payments happen. The 

VETSNET operating system that pays out the benefits, everybody’s 

looked at by something called a personal identification number, it’s 

just a series of numbers, and that’s how the benefits are paid, 

based on this number. If you apply for benefits and we put your 

claim under control with just your name, and you didn’t provide 

your Social Security Number because you submitted an informal 

claim and you weren’t aware that you had to, we’ll put a claim 

under control with a Mary Smith and no Social Security Number. 

When Mary Smith then comes in and provides us her Social Security Number, we then put a claim under control with her Social Security Number. Our computer system has two different PID numbers for that Mary Smith. Then she can get two checks. I had 

worked on claims where one claimant got five DIC checks per 

month. 

The VA will tell you that the problem is corrected and that they 

have data mining programs to find these duplicate payments. I 

would disagree. Usually every week I find some. I stopped reporting them, because for 2 years I collected them, I reported them, 

and nothing was changed. I really cared about it, because if we 

have the wrong Social Security number for a claimant, that affects 

other benefits for that person through Government matching programs. We had a case where someone tried to apply for food 

stamps. Because we had the wrong Social Security number for that 

person, it looked like they were getting money from the VA, and 

they weren’t. 

So the systems have misinformation. It’s causing them to pay 

people more than once, and the VA will say we have a lot of duplicate records, but they’re not all duplicate payments, but unfortunately every time someone submits a claim, if they have a duplicate record, they can be paid twice. 

Mr. RUNYON. Thank you. 

Chairman, I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. Brownley, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you all for 

being here with us this evening. 


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Mr. Soto, I have to say, I’m just shocked to hear your story about 

being laid off on June 30th and we’ve had a lot of committee hearings over the course of the last month and a half, 2 months. We’ve 

talked a lot about the need for the VA to improve and to become 

a good, positive organization. There is going to have to be real cultural change. We’ve talked a lot about the VHA. 

I wanted to ask you and the other panelists, have you felt any 

sense of change coming down from the top around the work environment, how we want to improve, how we want to encourage our 

employees, how we must serve our veterans, we must be a veteran 

centered operation? Have you felt any of that change in culture in 

your department? 

Mr. SOTO. No. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. Mr. Robinson. 

Mr. ROBINSON. I have a new director now, so I’m not going to 

lump all the directors in one pool, because I don’t like to paint with 

that kind of brush. She’s new. We have been able to get along and 

work together, but it’s a culture—— 

Ms. BROWNLEY. Up until that point, then. 

Mr. ROBINSON. Huh? 

Ms. BROWNLEY. Can you answer up until the point of the—— 

Mr. ROBINSON. Up until that point, no. It was awful. Okay? Employees suffered. And the reason it disturbs me, that the VA chain 

of command knew it and allowed it to be. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. Thank you, Mr. Robinson. 

And Ms. Ruell, have you felt of recent any change? 

Ms. RUELL. No. Actually I believe things are getting worse. I took 

it upon myself to help employees that are targeted by management, 

because I had gone to law school. A lot of employees are petrified 

to stand up for themselves, because they see what happens to me 

and everybody else, and they say, I don’t want to be treated like 

that at work, I have a family to feed, I can’t afford to be fired. 

So I promised them that I would spend every free moment I have 

and represent them against the agency if they need to file a claim 

for discrimination. I feel like the agency has let me down, because 

they promised that you can come into work and have a discrimination-free workplace, and that is not the case. 

And I have spent 2 years helping employees get their jobs back, 

because the VA is not doing it, and it’s only getting worse. I get 

probably four to five calls a week begging for my help. And, honestly, there’s not a lawyer out there that will help you. At that 

early stage, you would have to pay them 15 to $20,000 dollars. 

Most of the employees don’t have that money. 

So if something doesn’t change soon, I don’t know if there’s going 

to be any good workers left in the VA. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. Thank you. 

I wanted to ask all three of you as well, what is your reaction 

when the higher-ups talk about notable progress in reducing the 

claims backlog? And the ranking member mentioned the numbers 

in his opening comments, 630,000 plus now down to 270,000. 

What is your reaction to that? Do you believe that, that progress 

has been made? Do you believe those are accurate numbers? Ms. 

Ruell? 

Ms. RUELL. No. 


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Ms. BROWNLEY. Mr. Robinson. 

Mr. ROBINSON. No, because I think we count numbers and we’re 

not looking—we don’t analyze the numbers that we’re counting. If 

you, you know, the VA says, we say, I like to say—because this is 

my organization as well. We say that the backlog is down 50 percent, but if you look at the number, it’s not down 50 percent. Okay, 

so the numbers manipulation—we can manipulate numbers. When 

I see non-rating—when I see dependency claims, not non, but dependency claims, over 200,000, okay, when I see appeals increase 

to over 27, I mean, 279,000, these are veterans. I mean, somebody 

would have to be asleep at the wheel not to realize that these 

things were going up. 

So you can look at numbers any way you want to, but I’ll just 

give you for an example what I’ve seen during this time. I’ve seen 

failed initiatives, such as contracting out of claim development and 

the IBM created fast track for processing Agent Orange claims. I 

saw failure there. 

I saw ad hoc procedures, the oldest claim initiative, all hands on 

deck, to include suspending quality reviews, provisional ratings, 

unlimited overtime and 20 hours mandatory. I’ve seen that we 

have refresher training. You know, we’ve shut down regional offices. 

We had 30 percent of the workforce that came back to the workforce. That should have been a plus for us. We’ve had changes in 

performance standards twice. We’ve changed the Monday Morning 

report three times. We have excluded the 930’s from the rating 

bundle. We have used EP 400’s, which is identified in the Monday 

Morning report as for correspondence, we’ve changed it and we 

have used that to request evidence. So—— 

Ms. BROWNLEY. Mr. Robinson, I think my time is up. I—— 

Mr. ROBINSON. I’ve seen all these things, so, no. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. Thank you. Thank you. 

And my time is up and I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mrs. Brownley. 

Dr. Benishek, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Dr. BENISHEK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I’d like to thank you all for being here today and for your compelling testimony. And although I can’t thank you for all America’s 

veterans, but I’m sure that American’s veterans thank you for 

being here today, too. 

I sort of agree with Ms. Brownley there. You know, we’ve been 

told by the VA that the backlog has been worked on and really 

making progress, and from what you’re telling me here today, 

that’s all baloney, and that they’re all concerned about numbers 

and not veterans and that you—changing the date of a claim is 

common practice to reduce the backlog. It’s absolutely unbelievable 

to me that this is going on and nobody seems to be responsible for 

it. So I’m hoping that we will make progress through these hearings to make that actually happen. 

I have a question for you, and maybe each of you. Name the top 

two things that you would change if you were in charge, Ms. Ruell, 

to make things better. I mean, how do we change the culture here 

to make it better? And I understand these rules for bonuses is a 

big problem, but just tell me what you think if you were in charge 


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of the whole thing, what would you do? Two things, and I’ll ask everyone else. 

Ms. RUELL. I think that if management does something wrong, 

that they need to be held accountable. They have no problem holding an employee accountable for doing something minor and firing 

them. Many managers at my office have illegally fired people over 

and over again. They should have to pay their legal fees should 

they be found to be guilty of an illegal firing. They use regional 

counsel as their own private attorneys, and I’m spending my own 

time representing employees because they can’t afford an attorney. 

So I feel like the biggest problem at the Department of Veterans 

Affairs is accountability for the people in middle and upper management. 

Dr. BENISHEK. It’s my been my experience, too, that you can 

never find out the name of someone who implemented a policy. So 

I completely agree with you there. 

Mr. Robinson, what would your top two things be if you were in 

charge to make this culture better? 

Mr. ROBINSON. Make the veteran the object of our business. The 

veteran comes first. Okay. 

Dr. BENISHEK. Not the metric, right? 

Mr. ROBINSON. Right. The veterans come first and the employees 

need to be given effective tools, training and leadership, and we 

can’t do that without leadership. 

Dr. BENISHEK. Thank you, Mr. Robinson. 

Mr. Soto. 

Mr. SOTO. Yeah, I agree. We have to establish policies that place 

the veteran first before numbers, and secondly, we have to completely think about restructuring the training programs for raters 

and VSR’s, and it’s time for them to change. 

Dr. BENISHEK. Let me ask another question. For our men and 

women returning home from the service, what would you recommend to them in order to get their claim processed? What 

should they do? Is there something that anyone should do when 

they get out of the service to make any kind of a claim go better? 

Do you have any ideas on that? 

Ms. RUELL. I think one of the main problems is what the VA expects as a complete application is different than what a normal, average, everyday person thinks is a completed application. 

The VA has rules, and at least in my office, that if they ask you 

how much interest you received on an income-based benefit and 

you put zero, we can’t take zero as an answer. We have to ask you, 

did you really mean zero. So if—I know. So there’s some really 

strange rules that we have to follow at the VA that an average person who fills out an application would never know, and the only 

real way to get your claim expedited anymore is to go through a 

congressperson or to claim that you’re about to call the media. 

Other than that, you’ll have to wait in line like everybody else and 

hope that we get to your claim in time. 

Dr. BENISHEK. Mr. Robinson, any ideas there? 

Mr. ROBINSON. We have to educate veterans on the process, and 

that means we have to get out there and do outreach, real outreach 

talking to the veteran and explaining the process, because we get 

a lot of documents that we don’t even need. You know, the veteran 


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will go to his doctor, he’s claiming a knee condition, he’ll go to the 

doctor and he’ll send in all these documents pertaining to everything other—everything and the knee. If we can simplify to get veterans to file medical evidence that only pertains to the things 

they’re claiming, I think that would be a great help in just educating the veteran in the process. I think that’s what—we’ll make 

a lot of money doing that, educating veterans. 

Dr. BENISHEK. Thank you. 

I’m out of time, but I truly appreciate your being here today. 

Thanks. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Kirkpatrick, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. KIRKPATRICK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

You know, this culture of intimidation and retaliation has got to 

stop. And, you know, and I recently introduced H.R. 5054, which 

is the VA Whistleblower and Patient Protection Act, because I 

want to make sure that there aren’t reprisals against the whistleblowers and I thank you for being here today, and we wouldn’t 

have this information without your courage and you’re commitment 

to our veterans. And that is really what it’s about, is taking care 

of our veterans. 

But I’d like to know from each one of you if when you started 

at the VA, were you given a policy for airing grievances or filing 

complaints or anything that you thought was not going on right? 

Is there a policy that directs you how to do that? 

Start with you, Mr. Soto. 

Mr. SOTO. We’re all told to review, I’ll put it that way, this thing 

called the No Fear Act, and we’re told essentially not to have fear, 

and it does not work. 

Ms. KIRKPATRICK. Mr. Robinson? 

Mr. ROBINSON. I came to the VA 18 years ago, and it was a 

whole lot different then, but we didn’t—I didn’t get anything at 

that time. But like he said, we have to read this policy or whatever, 

but that’s about it. 

Ms. KIRKPATRICK. Ms. Ruell. 

Ms. RUELL. Similarly in our office, once a year we get the annual 

whistleblower, no retaliation tolerated type email. That’s exactly 

why I started reporting the duplicate payments, because I read 

that and I thought that’s what you were supposed to do. I 

learned—— 

Ms. KIRKPATRICK. But there’s no defined mechanism for filing a 

grievance or a complaint within the VA? 

Ms. RUELL. Well, we do have a union, and you can file a union 

grievance, however, in my first years, that’s what I tried to do, and 

it took two and a half years to get an admonishment and a suspension off my record. When you go through the grievance process, the 

decisionmaker in my case were the people that punished me, so I 

quickly realized that I’m not going to go through the grievance 

process, because why would I want a biased decisionmaker. 

And I then tried the EEO avenue. Unfortunately, that takes a 

year and a half to even possibly get a court date, sometimes now 

it’s up to 3 years. So when you’re being tormented at work every 

day, that is not a solution. You can report to the Office of Special 

Counsel, but as we all know, they accept about 5 percent of the 

cases. 


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So I feel like there’s laws out there to protect us. I was fooled 

by those laws and tried to use them, and they have all let me 

down. None of them have protected me. It’s kind of like if you say 

that your husband or wife is abusing you, and the police give you 

a piece of paper that says you need to stay away. That piece of 

paper does not protect you from getting beat up by your spouse. 

Ms. KIRKPATRICK. Well, you make a good point, and I have to 

say, I mean, I’m from Arizona and I’m a former prosector, and we 

had a really difficult time getting people to report cases of child 

abuse and neglect until we had an anonymous hotline, and the 

same with elder abuse and one of my thoughts is would it, and I’d 

like to hear from you. 

Would it be beneficial to have an anonymous hotline that you 

could call, not just for employees, but also for patients, because I’ve 

heard from patients who have been treated really poorly, not by the 

medical professionals, but by the administrative staff, a hotline 

outside the system that goes to somebody outside that system to 

address it and look into it. I’d like to know your thoughts about 

that. 

Maybe start with you, Ms. Ruell, and we’ll go the other direction. 

Ms. RUELL. I think that would be a good start, however, the people that you need to report to have to be far removed from the people involved. I noticed that people who work in the same building 

gain relationships with others and they become friends with people 

and the EEO people, they know who I am from helping all these 

employees, so I realized that if there was someone outside the 

agency that has nothing to do with the VA at all and that listened 

and cared, that would be a good start, but I feel like the answer 

is holding the managers accountable when they do this to people. 

I can’t tell you how many people have gotten their firings reversed at my office, and the people are still doing the same acts. 

So I can help 20 people a month, but if the same person is still in 

power, I’m just going to get more people to help. 

Ms. KIRKPATRICK. Yeah. I see your point. 

Mr. Robinson. 

Mr. ROBINSON. I agree 100 percent. I mean, if employees in our 

own organization can’t expect its leaders to protect them, that’s the 

problem. We have to protect our employees and like I said, the Secretary, the Acting Secretary said that he’s going to do that. So now 

we’re going to see whether he does it or not—— 

Ms. KIRKPATRICK. Right. 

Mr. ROBINSON [continuing]. Because I’m going to be watching to 

make sure that we are doing what we say. 

Ms. KIRKPATRICK. Mr. Soto, I have 5 seconds. 

Mr. SOTO. I’d like to see, similar to the EEO process with the 

right to sue letter, some sort of individual right of action against 

the managers so that we can take them to court and get legal fees 

for it. 

Ms. KIRKPATRICK. Thank you. 

My time’s expired. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Coffman, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 


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And I just want to thank you all for your courage in coming forward. I think without the whistleblowers, the employees at the VA 

who really care about meeting our Nation’s obligations to the men 

and women that have served this country, without you all, we 

wouldn’t have any idea really what the magnitude of the problems 

within the Veterans Administration. 

One question, but let me say first that, I think there’s a real 

emotional component to your stories in the way that you’re treated 

once you’re identified as a whistleblower within the organization, 

and I think you’ve all kind of expressed that. 

Ms. Ruell, I think you gave some very specific examples about 

how tough it is, I think, to go into work every day when things like 

that happen to you. We talked about your car being damaged and 

the other things that had occurred to you, but one question that 

I have in the manner in which all of you were retaliated against, 

are you members of the union and what was the role of the union 

in terms of protecting the employees in your specific case? Let me 

start with Mr. Soto, could you talk to that for a second? What recourse did you have using the organization that, I assume you’re 

a member of? 

Mr. SOTO. Yes. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Okay. Were a member of. 

Mr. SOTO. I guess essentially, and we’re still trying to figure out 

what happened, but what I believe was that it was retaliation for 

the whistleblowing done through various processes. We have a 

process of claims processing, and there’s no other way to address 

them, including the quality issues, other than through whatever 

mechanism there is and we found ourselves in the strangest situation where we had to rely on the union or legal to kind of help veterans, and that brought conflict. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Okay. Sir. 

Mr. ROBINSON. Well, I’m actually the president of Local 520. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Okay. 

Mr. ROBINSON. And we’ve been, as a matter of fact, in June of 

2012, we had a rally to bring to attention to what was going on, 

and the VA Police Department had cameras and video trying to intimidate us. So, can I say any more? 

Mr. COFFMAN. Sure. Ms. Ruell, in your testimony, you talked 

about as a lawyer that in your free time, that you were defending 

fellow employees that were, for one reason or another were having 

difficulties with VA leadership. Could you speak to that and could 

you speak to what representation or access to representation they 

would have had from the union as well? 

Ms. RUELL. The main problem with the union is that it takes forever to get anything resolved in my office. Like I mentioned before, 

I had an admonishment on my record, because I didn’t have anyone 

to watch my child and was ordered to do mandatory overtime, and 

I wasn’t able to do it all for the month, so I got written up. The 

following month, I was told I was fraudulent for not putting in 

unmeasured time, and I was suspended. 

I went to the union for help, and two and a half years later, my 

record was reversed by the director that just left our office and had 

he not been there, Robert McKendrick, I believe my record would 

still have an admonishment and a suspension on it. 


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The problem is when you go through the union and you file a 

grievance, the decisionmaker are people that work in the agency. 

So I have taken matters into my own hands. I represent myself 

and I help anyone else that wants me to represent them, because 

unfortunately, people don’t have two and a half years to wait, and 

the union decides whether or not to take your case to arbitration. 

So you could lose your grievance, and if they don’t vote to take you 

to arbitration, you’re stuck with whatever the agency has done to 

you. 

Mr. COFFMAN. One question I have on the claims process, for all 

of you if you can answer quickly, because I’m running out of time, 

is that it’s my understanding that the claims processes are that the 

one who does that within the VA is kind of a generalist, that you 

do all kinds of claims and would it expedite the process if people 

became specialized in a given area such as, you know, somebody 

did Agent Orange and somebody did PTSD? Would that help move 

the process along a little faster? 

Ms. Ruell, we’ll start with you. 

Ms. RUELL. Definitely. Would you want to go to an ear, nose and 

throat doctor for a heart surgery? 

Mr. COFFMAN. Okay. Yes. 

Mr. ROBINSON. We tried that before. I mean, we’ve kicked around 

all kinds of things. The most important thing is that when the 

claim comes in, we need to do an analysis of the claim, what it 

needs, and get it done. It happened in the past, it can happen 

again. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Mr. Soto. 

Mr. SOTO. Yes. We tried that with the Nehmer claims, and we 

got most of the Nehmer claims through, and that sort of specialization. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Faster. 

Mr. SOTO. Yes. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Ruiz, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Dr. RUIZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing, 

and thank you to the panelists for taking the time and for your 

participation. 

We must focus on disability claims and we must also provide the 

full range of services on which our veterans depend. Improving the 

VBA’s efficiency and accuracy in handling the growing appeals 

backlog must also be a top priority. 

I’m committed to addressing the appeals backlog as well and 

helping veterans resolve their claims timely and accurately. I’ve introduced the Veterans Access to Speedy Review Act, which would 

increase the use of video conferencing during the appeals process 

as a substitute for the veteran being there in person if he or she 

chooses not to or if it’s cost prohibitive. This bill aims to reduce the 

appeals backlog by making the VA appeals process as efficient as 

possible, but more must be done. Our veterans and their families 

cannot afford further delays in the handling of their claims or appeals. 

So my question is more on the practical, pragmatic steps to 

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sources. Mr. Robinson, you said in your opening statement that employees are craving tools, that they want tools to help them do a 

good job. What tools do you suggest? 

Mr. ROBINSON. Well, VBMS is on us now. I mean, we have no 

choice. It’s there, it’s not going to go away. We just have to improve 

it as we go along. I mean, if you put something out and it doesn’t 

work the way it should and then you come up with something to 

try to alleviate the problem, but that brings about another problem. 

Okay. So get it right the first time. 

You know, don’t give me a—don’t take away my chainsaw and 

give me a new chainsaw and tell me that the chainsaw is faster, 

but then when I go and cut the tree down, the chainsaw gets stuck, 

so I have to pull it out, try it again, and then now you’re going to 

get on me for not cutting the tree down faster. Okay? 

So we have tools out there, but we need to get tools that work 

in the beginning. That means it has to be tested, it has to be tried. 

Okay? 

Dr. RUIZ. If you were to plan a training session or a system of 

training for the employees, what would you include there that 

you’re not receiving now? 

Mr. ROBINSON. We have a training, I guess, Web site with all the 

things that we need. It’s not that we don’t have lesson plans and 

all this stuff. It’s having trainers that can train. There’s a big difference, and I think that’s the problem. Training people—we talked 

about specialization. Well, when you specialize people, you take 

away their ability to learn the whole process. So it’s training—it’s 

having quality trainers to train. That’s the problem. 

Dr. RUIZ. Okay. 

And, Ms. Ruell, you mentioned that the technology is very outdated. Do you have any suggestions? Have you seen or heard of 

other software technologies that you would recommend the committee to look at? 

Ms. RUELL. I just know that when I file my tax return every 

year, it gets done in a couple weeks, and the questions that they 

ask me aren’t that different than the VA pension program. 

Dr. RUIZ. So who do you use? 

Ms. RUELL. Turbo Tax. 

Dr. RUIZ. All right. 

Ms. RUELL. But I know that there are other agencies, that my 

mom applied for Social Security and she got her benefits quickly. 

So I don’t believe that with as many employees the VA has that 

we should have these problems. 

In my office, we don’t have enough printers. If I have to make 

a photocopy, I have to walk and hope that I find one that works. 

If a veteran needs their application mailed to them because it’s incomplete, it’s hard to find a photocopier in my office to just copy 

the application to finish that claim. Some days all the printers are 

down. So it is—there are employees that come to me and say, I’ve 

been put on a PIP because I didn’t get my points, but they spent 

an hour trying to print something else. So we could start with simple tools in my office. 

Dr. RUIZ. One last question. I have 15 seconds. How would you 

apply this to a veterans-centered process? 


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Ms. RUELL. I think if a veteran had a place to go and it was a 

one-stop shop, and they looked at their claim—we looked at their 

claim, and if something was missing on the application, they had 

to come back when it was complete; if they had that step completed, they moved to another area in this one-stop shop, kind of 

like when you get your oil changed, you have choices, and they 

could get rated on the spot. If they needed more things, then they 

could come back another day, but that would hold their spot. 

We don’t have any communication with veterans. We’re discouraged from calling them on the phone and explaining what they 

need, because that takes time, and there’s no communication anymore with the people we’re supposed to help. 

So I think if we did that, it would take a little longer to do it 

the first time, but it would be done right and there wouldn’t be so 

much rework. 

Dr. RUIZ. I think that’s an excellent suggestion to have a comprehensive one-stop shop so they don’t have to run all over the 

place, and also the frequent feedback. 

Thank you very much for your time. And thank you for your 

service, Mr. Robinson. 

I yield back my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Doctor. 

Dr. Wenstrup, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank all of you 

for being here tonight. 

You know, when I hear about the Fast Letters and see the email 

that we saw tonight, it’s just beyond me how anyone could look at 

that and say, yes, this is a good idea, this is what we’re going to 

do, that’s a great idea. 

Did you all get those emails that we saw tonight? Did you receive 

those emails with those types of instructions on how to process 

claims and keep them moving along? Was that something that you 

received, any of you? 

Ms. RUELL. Do you mean the same exact email or—— 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Or to that effect. 

Ms. RUELL. We receive emails that tell us that we need to do certain things, and when you read the law, you can see that it’s not 

correct, but people just follow along with the plan in fear that if 

they don’t, it could give them an adverse consequence. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. What strikes me is that through this time, 

there’s no talk of promoting the veteran, the human being; it’s all 

about numbers, moving things along. Did you ever get anything 

from leadership that emphasized that point, that it’s about taking 

care of our veterans? Or is that something that’s just way out there 

and doesn’t come up? Any of you can comment, please. 

Mr. ROBINSON. We get a lot of, you know, we get a email with 

all these numbers and what we’re accomplishing, and in that email 

it may say that we are taking care of veterans, I mean, you know, 

but it’s not about an email, it’s about a communication between 

your superiors and the employee. When you care about veterans, 

first of all, you have veterans in your office that are employees. 

How do you treat them? 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Okay. 


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Mr. ROBINSON. I think that’s the key. Okay? And I’ve seen where 

we’ve not treated our veterans employees well, so how can we say 

we treat other employees well? 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Let me go on that concept for a minute here. 

And, Mr. Robinson, you know, 20 years in the military, achieved 

the rank of first sergeant. No one just hands you that. You spent 

years developing trust amongst soldiers, commanders; people look 

up to you, admire you; you had commanders that I’m sure over 

time you trusted, you admired, there was a mutual respect that 

you had there, and you know in that role, that you have to lead 

by example—— 

Mr. ROBINSON. That’s correct. 

Mr. WENSTRUP [continuing]. And this is something that you 

would do every day, and you were also willing to let those under 

you come to you with problems and present solutions and have a 

conversation. I know the role that you were in and I know that, 

I think deep in your heart, that’s what you’re saying is totally 

missing right now, is that ability to steer the ship to make things 

right, and that right is right and wrong is wrong. 

Mr. ROBINSON. Exactly. We need a conscience, and I’m trying to 

be that conscience for my organization, for my fellow comrades and 

for the employees. The employees are the ones that really have to 

serve our veterans. If we don’t take care of our employees and give 

them the tools, give them the encouragement, give them the workplace, give them the processes, and be honest. That’s all we’re asking. 

This is an awesome undertaking that we undertook, it was awesome, it was massive, right? And I commend Under Secretary Hickey for putting us into getting out of paper. Okay? I see the advantages of paperless, but I’m saying that leadership have to listen, because if they don’t, they’ll take us over a cliff, and I’m telling you, 

we’re at, close to the edge. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Is there anyone in your career’s recent years and 

more your immediate VA leadership that you felt you admired and 

trusted and could go to with anything? 

Mr. ROBINSON. He’s deceased now. We had a—I had a—David 

Chapman. He was out there with the employees, you could talk to 

him about anything. I mean, you know, he would bring you the 

paper, say, this one’s getting to be over a year old. What’s going 

on with it? Okay? And we would talk about it and we would get 

it done. 

I mean, we just need for our leaders to listen and act. If we have 

a situation that something is wrong, listen to us. We’re the ones 

down in the foxhole, we’re on the frontline of battle, we know 

what’s going on. Don’t disregard it when we tell you this is not 

working. That’s all we want: someone to listen and to let us serve 

our Nation’s veterans together. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you very much. 

My time has expired, but I would love to have heard from all of 

you on that. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Kuster, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. KUSTER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you to all of you for being with us tonight. We truly 

appreciate it and understand the sacrifice that you’ve made. 


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I want to follow up on this notion of a comprehensive one-stop 

shop and the whole aspect of your job that is trouble-shooting and 

the challenges that you have, the difficulties that you face in that. 

We’ve heard a lot about the VA adding 2 million veterans, this is 

during the time of Secretary Shinseki’s leadership, including Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange and newly separated veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, so we understand the 

volume problem that you have, but I’m not sure until tonight I 

completely understood the sort of disarray of this process of trying 

to put these claims together. 

We had been hearing from the VSO’s about their process of fully 

developed claims, that they would try to get the claim to the place 

where you could make your decision in a timely way and I’m just 

trying to understand, has that not been effective, and is there 

something else that could be done in a preliminary way before 

these claims even get to you so that you could do your analysis and 

your task in a more timely way? 

And let’s just start, Mr. Soto, and we’ll go right down the line. 

Mr. SOTO. The fully developed claims, FDC, as we call them, it’s 

a good idea, overall it’s a good idea. The problem that I see from 

my viewpoint is that we sort of shifted the burden to the veteran 

to prove his claim, and we’re supposed to be non-adversarial, and 

we’re kind of skirting the edge of the duty to assist, in terms of providing all sorts of assistance in gathering records and that sort of 

thing. The veteran will sign a statement that says he’s waiving certain duty to assist help that we can provide. 

So it’s not a bad program, but for veterans that don’t understand 

the process, they may not get the best service if they don’t have 

the proper help. The perfect example is I think everyone here may 

be familiar with the 5,000 attorney initiative that the VA has announced, or something to that sort, where they’re going to have attorneys help work, gather, putting together FDC’s. That’s what I’ve 

been told. Since they started it, yes, it has helped, but then attorneys now began appealing more and calling almost every day asking why aren’t you done? Why aren’t you done? That sort of stuff, 

and that’s the information that we’ve gotten. 

So the FDC program is a great idea. When we get to it, we could 

probably decide it faster, but we’re kind of, again, shifting the burden to the veteran to have his claim all finished for us so that we 

don’t have that much work to do in terms of doing what we’re supposed to do, duty to assist, help gathering records and that sort of 

thing. That’s my view. 

Ms. KUSTER. Okay. Anything to add, either of you? 

Mr. ROBINSON. FDC has been around since 2008, so if it was effective, it would have been effective by now. 

Ms. KUSTER. Okay. 

Mr. ROBINSON. So that’s my answer. 

Ms. KUSTER. Sure. 

Ms. RUELL. And I agree as well. I think that the FDC just gives 

us even less communication with the veteran, because it says we 

gave you what you need, the evidence you need, we told you ahead 

of time this is what you need to prove, and it’s on a formed piece 

of paper written in small print. 


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Most of our claimants have trouble understanding what any of 

that means and if they don’t submit everything round one, they get 

denied. So I think it’s a great idea if you want to process more 

claims, but if you’re trying to grant more benefits, I think it’s a 

horrible idea. 

And I call all—if I have a claimant and they’re missing something, I call them on the phone and I stay friends with veterans 

that I’ve met years ago from helping them and I get emails once 

in a while from their families, and I don’t have a problem getting 

my work done when I do it the right way. I spend a little more 

time doing it right the first time, but in the end, the people aren’t 

coming back complaining about what awful service they got. 

Mr. ROBINSON. Amen. 

Ms. KUSTER. So my time is almost up. 

The other question I had is that you’re mentioning that there’s 

no communication with the veteran? Is there any way for a veteran 

to track their claim or keep track or stay in touch? I mean, I have, 

you know, it’s been brought up that going through your congressional office is the best way to get a claim done, and we’ve done 

a lot of that in our office, and it’s been very effective, but now I 

understand why that’s necessary. Is there no communication with 

veterans? 

Mr. ROBINSON. Yes, there are communication with veterans. It’s 

like eBenefits, you know, they can use eBenefits if it’s working 

right, okay, and we call veterans, but we call them most of the time 

to say, do you have anything else to add, okay, to get the claim out 

of the door. That’s our communication with veterans. 

But we do call a lot of veterans, but it’s to get that statement 

saying, I have no more evidence. 

Ms. KUSTER. So my time is up. 

I thank you for your service, and I’m sure my colleagues will get 

to the rest of the questions. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Colonel Cook, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. COOK. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

You know, a couple of comments have been made about Congressmen and women handling complaints or it just seems like 

years ago, I wasn’t in Congress, but I was on the other side of the 

military, it was all about congrents or congressional interest and 

things of that matter in the military, and now overwhelmingly it’s 

all about the VA. 

And quite frankly, you know, Congress doesn’t get credit for a lot 

of things, but the one thing I think most of the people here, certainly on this committee, they actually cut through the red tape on 

this issue and it’s something that we pride ourselves and I don’t 

have to poll everybody. 

But a couple of things I want to ask you your personal opinion 

of the senior executive service in general; just short, good, bad, indifferent, one word. 

Mr. ROBINSON. In my experience, they think that they’re God. 

Mr. COOK. Thank you. Thank you First Sergeant. Is it okay if I 

call you First Sergeant, by the way? 

Mr. ROBINSON. Yes. 


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Mr. COOK. By the way, I was going to go down. First Sergeant 

is much more powerful, important than Mr. You’re first sergeant, 

you’re like God. So, sorry. I had to throw that in there and I appreciate what you’ve done for our country now. 

Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. RUELL. I think that whatever it takes to become an SCS 

doesn’t mean you’d be a good leader. We recently had a director at 

our facility who had never worked at the Department of Veterans 

Affairs before. To me, I don’t know how you can make a decision 

to see if something’s correct or sign off on a lot of money if you 

have never worked at our agency before, so—— 

Mr. COOK. Thank you. 

Yes, sir. 

Mr. SOTO. Yes. I truly believe that the SCS service needs some 

revamping in terms of training, in terms of how they interact with 

middle management and the lower employees. I just don’t see it as 

effective. 

Mr. COOK. Thank you. 

In regards to manipulating claims, falsifying claims, destroying 

stuff, how many people do you think have been brought up on 

charges or sent to jail for violating those things, or fined? Any? 

Small number? 

Mr. ROBINSON. Well, we had the scanning—we had the shredding 

incident back in—— 

Mr. COOK. But do you have a rough idea? Were there a lot of— 

the point I’m making, you know, we’re talking about veterans, the 

military. You know, that’s a court marshal offense. 

Mr. ROBINSON. Exactly. 

Mr. COOK. There would be a court marshal, there would be a 

trial, and many of them would get dishonorable discharges or at 

least bad conduct discharges; am I wrong? 

Mr. WALZ. That’s right. 

Mr. COOK. So that kind of bothers me quite a bit. 

The DD–214s, everyone, at least when I was in the military, left 

the—that was like the piece of paper or that was it, that you had 

to have that. And to say that DD–214’s, some of them are in the 

file, they’re not in the file, you know, I shouldn’t admit this, but 

a number of years ago when I had leukemia, submitted a claim 

about Agent Orange, and it was denied. Now, I understand that, 

that they didn’t have, you know, the medical evidence. 

And then a number of years later it came out, and so we said, 

we’re going to test the system. So I went back and put the claim 

back in again. It came back, it was denied. Now, I can understand 

that, but it was denied because they had no record that I was ever 

in an area that had Agent Orange used. 

And my question, which I went back to the VA was, where is the 

DD–214, the two purple hearts, the tours of duties, the operations 

that you went to combat as an infantry person? 

Do I have to give every location in Vietnam that I was at? No 

one read the DD–214. And until tonight, maybe it didn’t occur to 

me that maybe that’s not even part of the record anymore. So I’m— 

I don’t know. I get very emotional with these things. 

Ms. RUELL. Can I make a comment on that? 

Mr. COOK. Yes, ma’am. 


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Ms. RUELL. A major suggestion that I would think that the VA 

needs to accept is there are a lot of civilians that work at the VA. 

I have never been in the military, and when I started working 

there, I was expected to know when I looked at your DD–214 how 

to tell with those codes that you were in Vietnam. I had no idea 

how to tell that you were ever in Vietnam, so I took it upon myself 

to learn those things on my own time. The average employee does 

not do that. 

Mr. COOK. But if you get a purple heart in combat, it’s not 

from—oh, I’m going to get facetious, because I’ll say something 

about people in this town here, so I’ll withdraw that, but you’re absolutely right. I just think it’s a basic part of the claim, and I feel 

there’s this tremendous disconnect with Washington and the bureaucracies and, as the First Sergeant said, the veterans. You 

know, we’ve lost that, and that’s what we’ve been talking about, 

but—— 

Ms. RUELL. You should see if you’ve served on a ship what we 

have to go through to prove that you served on that ship or that 

the ship was in that water. So, some people because of production 

standards don’t take the extra mile to look through everything to 

figure out if your ship that you might have served on is on the list 

that were in the waters of Vietnam. 

Mr. COOK. Well, somebody commented on me, they said that it 

was so long ago now, that I was in the military, it was on papyrus 

and it’s disintegrated since that time. 

I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Colonel. And thank you for your 

service, Sir. 

Mr. O’Rourke, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I first want to join all my colleagues in thanking you all for your 

service. Most importantly for what we’re trying to tackle tonight, 

your testimony about what you’ve encountered within the VBA and 

what it might take to turn it around and improve it. 

And I think your comments about leadership, the culture, accountability, ensuring that the veteran is the focus of all the decisions that we make within the VBA, all of those points are well 

taken, and they seem to resonate with feedback that we received 

from other whistleblowers from within VHA and a sharper picture 

is starting to come into focus about what the problems are and 

what it might take and so much of it revolves around culture and 

the environment within which you work. So I want to thank you 

for that. 

But I also have a chance to hear from you who are on the front 

lines of processing all these claims and the appeals that all these 

new claims are generating, and following on some other really good 

questions about ideas or suggestions you have to improve the process, I really like the one-stop shop. I like the idea that you would 

limit the medical information specific to the claim that you’re filing 

so that there’s less paperwork to wade through. 

Someone that I’ve been following on these issues lately is a professor at Harvard, Linda Bilmes, who has been writing a lot about 

the VA. And she brings up an interesting statistic. There have been 


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almost a million Iraq and Afghanistan War claims so far, and only 

1.5 percent have been denied. 

And so her point is, instead of this protracted months- or yearslong process to successfully file a claim, there is some better way, 

some better handoff between DoD and VA, some comprehensive 

medical exam that you go through that identifies these issues perhaps ahead of time, approve mental health claims given the propensity for Iraq and Afghanistan vets to claim them. And with 

that, try to shorten the backlog and speed up the process. 

I think of these two wars, the presumptive condition of Agent Orange, beyond all the cultural issues you all have described, there’s 

an incredible caseload and stress on the system right now. So 

would love to hear either other ideas or something that I’ve asked 

the VHA and I’ll ask the VBA, is this also a resource issue? Do you 

need more people processing these claims, reviewing the claims 

that are being run? Or do we have the resources in place, and it’s 

just a matter of culture and perhaps some ideas like the one-stop 

shop? 

So with the couple of minutes I have remaining, maybe we could 

start with Ms. Ruell and work down the line. 

Ms. RUELL. I think that if someone applies with a medical condition, they don’t really understand what they need prove. We tell 

them, you need to show us this medical condition contributed or 

was caused by service. That doesn’t mean much to the person who 

is sending us tons of medical evidence in. When you call the person 

and you explain what exactly their medical condition has to show, 

then they understand what they need to send in. 

So I feel like we have a call center that you can call. Most people 

in the call center have never processed a claim before. So when you 

call the call center, they do a great job and they do everything they 

can. But if they haven’t processed a claim, they don’t know the burden that the veteran has to prove. 

If we educated the service organizations, I have suggested having 

seminars for nursing home administrators, Congressional liaisons, 

and VSOs to explain what the VA looks for when you submit a 

claim. That way, they could help many more people do it the right 

way the first time. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Thank you. 

Mr. Robinson. 

Mr. ROBINSON. Well we have had BDD Quick Start, okay? We’ve 

had these systems, these programs out there to speed the process 

while the person’s still in the military. You have ides. You know, 

these things have been around, I mean, BDD has been around forever. So if we can’t get those done timely, well, you know, there’s 

no silver bullet, there’s no easy answer. We need to get people who 

know the business together, sit down and discuss what is really 

needed and stop doing these quick fixes, these ideas. You know, we 

work the claims, we know what’s going on with the claims. We 

know how to fix the problem, but no one is listening to us. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Mr. Soto, is it a resource issue? Is it simply the 

culture that you have described? What would you change beyond 

that culture if, in fact, there’s an improvement to be seen there? 

Mr. SOTO. One thing I saw awhile back, and I’ve only seen it less 

than a handful of times, is that when a veteran got out of service, 


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somehow he was given a VA examination as a discharge exam and 

essentially we didn’t have to re-examine him when he applied for 

benefits within a year of discharge. That kind of worked in speeding up the claim. 

I’ve only seen it a handful of times. I’m not sure why it occurred, 

but maybe that could help speed up stuff, they’re leaving service, 

is to give a more comprehensive military exam that addresses service-connection issues. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Thank you. 

Mr. SOTO. In terms of disability rating. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Appreciate that. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Jolly, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. JOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Soto, welcome to tonight’s hearing. Witnesses, welcome. 

Mr. Soto, I have a question for you. You mentioned the June 

24th study that you circulated that seemingly ultimately led to 

your dismissal on June 30th. 

Mr. SOTO. Yes sir. 

Mr. JOLLY. You mentioned in earlier testimony previous reports 

or studies you had circulated as well. Can you speak to those? 

Mr. SOTO. I had circulated a study concerning our VSRs, the rating—the raters and how the accuracy process was impacting rating 

decisions. The gentleman spoke about the DD–214. One of the 

problems we see is that there seems to be sometimes disagreement 

over accuracy as to how we read evidence. If you go to law school, 

you kind of get a real in depth teaching on what is lay evidence, 

what is material, what is relevant, and that sort of stuff. 

And then the VA has these rules where you at these certain 

place, time, and circumstances, and that sort of stuff. There’s a lot 

of people that have problems matching that up not because they 

can’t but because the training is not just not that clear. The training and rules continue to change. 

So the study went into accuracy issues that were impacting rating decisions. We were either not paying, we were either not service connecting, or we were just overpaying. The decisions that we 

found, and which didn’t make a lot of people happy, essentially, 

that there was no central focus in terms of where the mistakes 

were coming from. In essence, somehow exemplifying that we have 

a big problem and we can’t easily fix it. We have to really look at 

the consistency as to what is and is not a mistake in terms of a 

quality error and when are we going to say that somebody’s analysis of an issue is wrong or not. That sort of stuff. So it impacted 

ratings, due process. 

Mr. JOLLY. So you mentioned two studies earlier, though. You 

said you had raised several instances. I mean, was there a pattern 

here? Was it just the two major studies? 

And here’s where I’m going: Were they ever responded to? 

Mr. SOTO. When we did the RVSR study, everybody expected a 

response from both QR, we call it the QRT, Quality Review Team, 

and management. We got none. When we did the VSR study, we 

got none. 


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Mr. JOLLY. How did you distribute them? Did you distribute 

them to all employees via email? Did you send them to management? 

Mr. SOTO. Via email. 

Mr. JOLLY. Via email. 

Mr. SOTO. I believe our union also distributed to management as 

a courtesy. 

Mr. JOLLY. And did you receive any response from management, 

either wanting you not to do it or a substantive response? 

Mr. SOTO. No response whatsoever. 

Mr. JOLLY. No response whatsoever. So you issued or circulated 

the response on June 24th and then the only response you had was 

on June 30th your separation letter; is that right? 

Mr. SOTO. Yes, sir. 

Mr. JOLLY. So no acknowledgment throughout your time at the 

regional office regarding any of these circulated reports or notifications or concerns? 

Mr. SOTO. The only comment I received, and it was through 

other employees, and I believe they—how I say—gave me information that apparently at the quality review team, there was a comment made to the leadership there, is management going to respond? And that’s the last I heard. I got no response from management. 

Mr. JOLLY. Okay. So you would say your June 30th letter, or the 

termination, was a complete surprise. 

Mr. SOTO. Yes, sir. 

Mr. JOLLY. I’m asking—and I’m trying to be helpful here, I’m not 

being critical. 

Mr. SOTO. I understand. 

Mr. JOLLY. But as an employee, if you’re circulating reports 

about management, I would have expected some response. And, 

frankly, I think the lack of response is more damning at times than 

a substantive response; the fact that these concerns went completely unresponded to. That’s accurate; right? 

Mr. SOTO. Yes, sir. We expected dialogue to try to address the 

quality review process. 

Mr. JOLLY. Let me ask you a question. If you had the opportunity 

to remain employed with the VA, would that be your preference? 

Mr. SOTO. Yes, sir. I actually like the job. I found it incredibly 

interesting helping these veterans. I was one who was willing to go 

beyond what’s required to try to service connect everyone, especially it’s very difficult to service connect some of the people who 

serve aboard aircraft carriers and that sort of stuff in terms of the 

Vietnam era because the records are just not there, and I would 

do everything possible to research issues, make legal arguments, 

try get these individuals what they deserve. 

Mr. JOLLY. Very good. Thank you. And thank you to contributing 

to the performance and success of the regional office. As someone 

who represents Pinellas County, I appreciate that. Thank you very 

much. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Walz, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WALZ. Thank you, Chairman. 


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And again, thank you all for being here. It is incredibly helpful. 

You hear the members talk and when the democracy is working 

right, they are channeling what is coming from their constituents. 

And obviously the Nation is focusing on this. And I—it’s incredibly 

disappointing to hear how you’ve been handled. It’s beyond the pale 

that some of this would go on. But I guess the flip side is is that 

they’re dedicated people out there that keep coming back to veteran. 

It’s about doing right for the veteran and I’ve been saying we 

need to figure out a national veterans’ policy. We need to have a 

national focus on this and then getting at it, and I keep hearing, 

and First Sergeant, you’re exactly right on this, that we hear it— 

I’ve been in some units where they told us change was coming; that 

meant the enlisted troops were going to be get hammered. And because that’s the way leadership thought and I was in units when 

they said change is going to come, and we got excited because we 

knew we were going to be the best and we were going to go forward. 

So this issue comes back to leadership. It comes back to how 

they’re enforced. We all went through—they can have the AR-670- 

1, but not every unit looked the same; some were more rag-tag 

than the others and some were more strack. 

And the issue on this is, is that, I would like to get from you, 

and I think you’re bringing up these good points on how we get 

there, we’re talked till we’re blue in the face on seamless transition. We all know there should be one record. We all know that 

DoD and VA should work together. But we get siloed up in the two 

biggest agencies of Government, compete for funds against one another, and that’s why the last 6 months when you’re in the Army 

they don’t do dental exams, because the VA will handle it, and they 

push you out the door. The taxpayers still get it, the VA still gets 

it, and it all comes downhill. 

So my question to you is on some of this as we get there, and 

this is a very interesting point, something you brought up on the 

veterans and my colleague from Texas brought up the good point 

about the claims. It’s so interesting the IRS takes every tax return 

as it’s—you sign it that it’s honest and then they audit afterwards. 

The VA audits on the front end and then spits them out the back 

side. So the taxpayer’s, given the average taxpayer’s given more of 

a credibility on this. 

Now, I’m not saying, because you heard it here, we should not 

be overpaying. We should be stewards of every taxpayer dollar and 

no veteran should receive a claim that doesn’t deserve it. We 

should get this right. But certainly if there’s a group that has the 

benefit of the doubt on their side, it would be this group. Certainly, 

the folks in the VA who are working there are trying to get that 

right also. 

So here’s my dilemma for you. And I ask this to you, Ms. Ruell. 

We have resourced the VA on IT to an obscene amount and we’ve 

got nothing for it; and that definition of insanity, again and again, 

services an accountability from Congress, it’s an accountability 

from the administration and it’s accountability to VA. How do I go 

back to my taxpayers and tell them we don’t have enough there 


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and we need to give them more computers? How would you respond 

on that? Has it been so bungled? 

I mean, when I hear you can’t find a copier, it’s just atrocious, 

the amount that we have put there and should have gotten results. 

So can you comment? Do they just bungle it that badly. 

Ms. RUELL. Yeah. Just the general tools you need to use your job 

are not there. So if we started out by having enough printers and 

copiers so that you don’t have—every time I walk to pick up a print 

that is from here to Chairman Miller’s area, that is wasting time. 

You’re not allowed to have a printer on your desk. I have no idea 

why. But the amount of time you take picking up paper, and then 

if you leave your paper on the printer you can get in trouble. So 

every time you print something, you have to go pick it up. 

And then you run the risk of chatting with somebody on your 

way back from the printer. So simple fixes in our office would help 

a lot. I don’t understand who is making—— 

Mr. WALZ. Isn’t it ironic? I keep hearing from all of you this fear 

of retribution, this real retribution that’s happening, whatever, and 

yet we have a pending act of Congress to go after the managers you 

have. 

So I’m intrigued and nobody will fight for due process. It is sacred. It is sacred. Due process is sacred. But this idea of them 

using regional counsel and taxpayers dollars to defend themselves 

in personnel mismanagement of someone, somebody’s got to have 

a middle ground there. We certainly want folks to be making decisions and be empowered to do so, but not to the point were if I 

make this mistake and I fire somebody incorrectly I’m going to 

have counsel pay for it. You’re not. You’re going to have to pay for 

it. 

My last question to all of you is, how familiar are you with other 

offices? Because many of us, the concern is this, we’re not provincial by choice; it’s the nature of the job. My two offices that I deal 

exclusively with are Sioux Falls and Minneapolis, which I often 

hear are really good. Now I don’t know if I can trust that or not. 

Do you think what you’re seeing in your offices, is it different 

across the country? If you have any inclination as you talk amongst 

yourselves. Just do you think there are offices that are performing 

better or do you systemically it’s pretty similar? 

Ms. RUELL. I think systemically a lot of the issues are probably 

similar. But I think the bullying and the nepotism and the cronyism and things like that are more prevalent in my office. We had 

a help team come in from two different regional offices to process 

claims, and I got to know some of the people and I asked them that 

question. I said, are you treated okay as regional office? Do you do 

these discovered claim memos? And the one guy didn’t know what 

one was. So I feel like not all offices are the same. But I feel like 

there is a culture of corruption in general at the VA. 

Mr. WALZ. My time is about up. If you guys just want to comment quickly. 

Mr. ROBINSON. There’s one simple answer: Do a complete review 

of every one of them. Then we would know. 

Mr. SOTO. Yes, I agree. The problems are systemic. There are a 

very few managers that handle it differently. 

Mr. WALZ. Great. Thank you. I yield back 


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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Dr. Roe, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Dr. ROE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, you know, Sergeant Robinson, I think as a first sergeant, 

I sort of doubt you were very intimidated by a camera and a walkie-talkie, from the first sergeants I have known. 

You know, I know for the veterans that are watching this tonight 

and people around the country, it gets a little confusing with all 

this about what’s going on in the office. I’m looking at it as you did, 

Mr. Robinson, about what’s the veteran see. Here I am filling my 

form out, what can I expect? 

And so what we heard here and I have been on this committee 

5 and a half years, is that we had a huge backlog of claims, that 

was the problem we had and many of these claims not adjudicated 

in a way that benefited the veteran. 

So what did we do. We put a lot—as Sergeant Walz just said, put 

a lot of money in hiring more people and training people to evaluate these claims, that is number one. 

Number two, we decide if we go to paperless claims, Ms. Brown 

brought up, we put the money into infrastructure, and we have put 

an obscene amount of money into infrastructure to make records 

interactive and so. So we did that. Go to the paperless. 

And, third, if you have a fully processed claim, all of this is was 

going to get better and what I hear tonight, after all that has happened, it hasn’t gotten better. So I think Mr. O’Rourke, said have 

we hired enough people? Is it a problem with resources? Because 

every single year I ask the Secretary, and they brought a budget 

up here, do you have enough money to carry out your mission? And 

every year the answer was ‘‘yes.’’ 

So we on both sides of the aisle, we think have provided the resources. But what I’m hearing tonight either they are not used 

properly or we don’t have enough resources. So which is it? And am 

I correct on those things? That’s exactly I think what all of us that 

have been here for a while have heard, and we’ve done those things 

and yet we still have a problem out there. 

And let me just go through two or three questions really quickly 

I want to get the answer to, is, how is an old claim made to look 

new? And is it systemic? That’s something I want to know. 

And I know that another thing, Ms. Ruell, you brought up was 

about how do you prevent duplicative claims. Because if we’re paying a veteran twice, that means that there’s a veteran out there not 

getting paid. 

And I want to be sure that, and our resources are not infinite, 

they are finite. And I want to be sure that veterans two deserve 

that, so I want to know how we do that and stop that as quickly 

as we can so that our veterans who do deserve to be paid can get 

paid in a timely fashion. 

So those are just a few things I’ll throw out there. If you could 

answer them for me. Am I correct in what I’ve said? 

Ms. RUELL. If someone is getting paid twice, it doesn’t mean that 

someone is not getting paid, it just means that we incorrectly processed the claim and allowed for the system to pay them twice. 

I think we have plenty of resources at the VA. I think that employees are beat down. If you came and visited the office and you 


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went to the desks of the employees and you asked them if they like 

their jobs, very few in my office would say that they can’t wait to 

come to work today. We’re not treated very nicely. If you tell your 

child they are bad every single day, they’ll probably think they’re 

bad. 

So there’s no positive reinforcement. It’s just a really corrosivetype atmosphere and—— 

Dr. ROE. So back up to my question. How do we stop duplicative 

payments? How does that stop? That seems simple to do. 

Ms. RUELL. We need slow down. When the claim comes in, they 

shouldn’t be on production to see how many they can get into the 

system that day. They need to have time to do it the right way. 

Dr. ROE. So if I’m a veteran and I put in a claim tomorrow, and 

we did all these things and then the solution was—I mentioned 

paperless, hiring more, backlog, we’re going to get rid of that. Then 

I could expect it to get processed in 125 days at a 98-percent accuracy. That’s what we were told. That’s not happening. Am I right 

or wrong? Is it happening? 

Ms. RUELL. No. I mean, the backlog is only a few types of claims. 

It’s not all the claims at the VA. So that promise is only made to 

someone who is filing an original claim or a claim that needs to go 

to a rating board. If you have a different kind of claim, it might 

not be included in the definition of the backlog. So it depends what 

you file and what end product is on it to determine if you’re included in the backlog or not. 

Dr. ROE. And what I have heard also is that the problem that 

we have, and I haven’t heard anybody say yet we didn’t have 

enough money going at the problem, are unrealistic goals, and then 

basically accountability, no one’s accountable, and I think those are 

the things—and basically just leadership at the local level. 

And so I would assume that in the various regions around the 

country the outcomes could be very different. If my claims are sent 

to one region, I may get adjudicated fairly rapidly. Am I right or 

wrong on that? And another region, maybe not so quickly. So is 

there variability? 

Just like we were told, when you’ve seen one VSO, the IG told 

us a few weeks ago, when you’ve been to one VISN, I mean, you’ve 

seen one VISN. Is that the same thing for the VBA? Or is there 

some—across the country, can you expect the same metric? In 

other words, if you go a surgeon in my hometown, you should be 

able to get the same gall bladder operation you can in another 

hometown from a board-certified surgeon. Can I expect the same 

level of scrutiny at one regional office as another one, I guess is 

what I’m asking? 

Mr. ROBINSON. I don’t think anyone can answer that question because we ship files all over the place. There is no accountability. 

I mean, if I did a claim in South Carolina, if someone developed 

a claim in South Carolina, I send it to Florida for it to be rated. 

If the rater can’t rate it because I made a mistake in South Carolina, who is responsible for fixing it? 

So, you know, it sounds good on paper to move things around 

and all this kind of stuff. But you have to fix responsibility. You 

have to know who’s responsible. Who can I pick up the phone and 

call and says, this is your problem. Why is this? 


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So the veteran, when he makes a phone call, he can be talking 

to somebody in California, he could be talking to somebody in 

South Carolina, he might be getting two different answers on the 

same question. So, no, we need to fix responsibility. 

Dr. ROE. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Huelskamp, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Dr. HUELSKAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I appreciate opportunity to hear from some very courageous employees. I do pause to wonder why you would want to show up 

here. And, but I do understand it must be a commitment. 

But, Ms. Ruell, I want to follow up on part of your testimony reference to the 96 white boxes that—and I was stuck in an airport 

and was a little late to your testimony. But I was reading that. 

What happened? Do you know whatever happened to those 96 

white boxes full of claims from veterans? 

Ms. RUELL. No, I’m not really sure. I tried to check up on the 

boxes, and they got moved somewhere else. They were supposed to 

go through the boxes and make sure the stuff was not identifiable 

before it was shredded. I’m hoping that’s what happened. I go down 

to triage once in a while when I have a reason to be down there, 

and those boxes aren’t there anymore. No one in triage has told me 

that they went through all of them. So I’m not sure whatever happened to the boxes. 

Dr. HUELSKAMP. Any guesstimates how many veterans were part 

of those 96 boxes? One box a veteran or no idea? 

Ms. RUELL. Oh, my. There was, thousands of claims in those 

boxes. Now, some of them probably truly were not identifiable. But 

a lot of the things that I saw in the boxes were not easily identifiable and they took a little bit of work to figure out and there’s no 

time at the VA for investigations or to figure things out. You have 

to move quickly. 

So, unfortunately, probably some of them, when, if you get a call 

in your office at a Congressperson and they say, the VA says they 

didn’t get my claim. I believe that. Because I saw some of them in 

the box. 

Dr. HUELSKAMP. So you provided the committee your emails, or 

you’d have received notice from someone, another employee contacted you and then you contacted your superiors and notified them 

of these boxes and then there was fear they ended up being shredded. Was that the series of events? 

Ms. RUELL. Actually, that employee is sitting here in the audience tonight. And he—we actually contacted Washington immediately when that happened. Because we knew from using the 

chain of command that they would make it probably to the shredder before anybody did anything with that and they actually did 

act on that quickly and I was told that they didn’t go to the shredder. But I don’t know where they went from that date till now. It’s 

been a couple of years. 

Dr. HUELSKAMP. I don’t see that in your notes in the notification. 

Was that an email? A phone call? Or anything in writing from 

Washington about what happened or that, that was taken care of? 

Ms. RUELL. Yeah. Actually, I called a friend who had been illegally fired by the VA and asked him to send an email to Allison 

Hickey, and he did and apparently shortly after, they took action 


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and prevented those documents from going to the shredder. But I 

think had we not done that—— 

Dr. HUELSKAMP. We hope they weren’t shredded, then. Is that 

your understanding? 

Ms. RUELL. Yes. 

Dr. HUELSKAMP. Okay. Mr. Robinson, appreciate you being here 

as well. Want to follow up on—as I understand your claims, it was 

data manipulation or misreporting data? Can you describe it a little bit again why you were fired and what your superiors were 

upset about when they fired you from your job? Was that you, Mr. 

Robinson or Mr. Soto? 

Mr. SOTO. The reports that I authored concerned accuracy and 

how the accuracy data in my view wasn’t being presented, well, accurately. There seems to be a problem in terms of trying to find 

common ground when we’re deciding claims. 

And the common ground seems to be—the problems in finding 

common ground seems to be over some very basic and then over 

complex evidentiary issues. So, in other words, we weren’t reading 

claims accurately, so I just want to bring that to the attention and 

I wanted to get consistent instruction and guidance in terms of 

which way do they want us to go and I think that led to—— 

Dr. HUELSKAMP. And I appreciate that, all three of you. As a 

member of Congress and like all my colleagues we receive probably 

dozens and dozens of veterans’ claims to follow up on and I continue to tell my constituents, as we all do, you shouldn’t have to 

call your member of Congress to get your claim processed. But 500 

times in my 3 and a half years, that’s happened. 

And so when you say that someone gets special treatment if they 

can get through to their Congressman, that really upsets me. I 

think that upsets many veterans as well. We have to fix this system. I appreciate you being here and sharing your testimony. 

And later, and I appreciate follow-up testimony as well after— 

or notice after we hear from VA officials. Because they’re going to 

come and talk about how good the data is. They’re going to say, 

boy, things are improving so much. Honestly, we can’t believe anything on the data because so much of it looks manipulated, falsified, and is only half reporting the facts. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. Titus, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. TITUS. If I could just go back to Dr. Roe’s point. Yes, these 

regional offices vary greatly because the one that serves Las Vegas 

is in Reno. It was the fifth worst in the country and the way they 

reduced their backlog was to send half the cases, broker them out 

to other regional offices all around. We don’t know where all they 

went. 

So I’d also like to kind of follow up on the points you were making. As I’ve listened to all of this, it seems very clear to me that 

we have two levels of problems, and both are very important. But 

we’ve got to separate these and look at them differently if we’re 

going to ever come with any practical solutions that move this forward rather than just have hearing after hearing with no suggestions. 


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Seems like one problem is the policy at the national level. Like 

the fully developed claims or the found claims or the budgeting, 

and what I’m hearing from you is that, as First Sergeant said, that 

leadership level is not listening to the people who are in the 

trenches, on the front lines, dealing with this every day. And if 

they listened more, then some of those policies might have been developed a little differently. 

Second kind of problem seems to me is the personnel problem at 

the regional offices. Now, we just passed a bill out of the House 

making it easier to fire people at the SES level and so a lot of the 

regional offices have folks at that level in charge, but some of them 

don’t. The Reno office, for example, has a G-15, there’s no SES person there. But this person’s obviously not a very good manager or 

we wouldn’t be fifth worst and yet we can’t get rid of them. They 

can’t fire them. He’s still there. Which I can’t understand. 

So maybe you all can address just kind of that specific, how do 

we get rid of the people who are in charge at these regional offices 

as opposed to talking about the leadership that’s in Washington? 

Can you all help me with what might be able, a way to make that 

work better? 

Mr. ROBINSON. Well, if the director at the regional office understood that they were held accountable for the actions and someone 

up there did that, then they would get the message. However, we 

don’t know who is doing what at the regional office level. We don’t 

know if the director can manage or not. Because when they get in 

trouble, they ship their work to someplace else. 

So, was it a resource problem? Was it a leadership problem? We 

don’t know. Because now we’re shipping cases, we’re hiding cases 

by shipping them one place to the other. There is a need for a review of each regional office. It is unfair to a regional director who 

is doing a good job to be lumped in with a director who is not doing 

a good job. 

Ms. TITUS. Or for him to have to take on the burden of somebody 

who has been doing poorly; now he’s got to do double the work because Reno wasn’t delivering. 

Mr. ROBINSON. Exactly. And does he have the resource? So now 

he’s back. Him and his employees who are doing a good job are now 

suffering. Is that right? No, it’s not right. So somebody has to take 

the lead in this. And go to each regional office. 

Because I believe that mail is a problem all over. Okay? We got 

it in Baltimore. We found out the mail ignites and sustain the 

claims process. It’s the piece of document, it’s that thing that we 

need to start the claim and we need to process the claim. 

So, if you look at regional offices and how they handle that mail 

is a key. Okay? And I just want to go on record to saying that this 

centralized mail that they’re coming up with, somebody needs to 

get a handle on that thing and make sure it’s ready. Because we 

saw a claim disappear in cyberspace. That system is not ready, it’s 

not ready and if we don’t do something about it, we’ll be talking 

about that next. 

Ms. TITUS. Ms. Ruell. 

Ms. RUELL. It’s just strange to me how easy it is to fire an employee, but it’s so hard to fire a manager. So I don’t understand 

why we’re not all under the same rules. Because if a manager is 


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found to have illegally fired somebody more than one time, I don’t 

understand why they’re not on this PIP that they put the employees on. If the quality or the production standards across the country, if 56 percent are passing, and that’s your office, has a rate of 

only 56 people passing, how are you getting a bonus at the end of 

the year? 

So I feel like they’re immune unless you can prove that they’re 

acting outside the scope of their employment and I think that that 

legal standard needs to change. 

Ms. TITUS. It’s a pretty vague standard, isn’t it? 

Ms. RUELL. Uh-huh. 

Mr. SOTO. I was just going to add, and I’ll be quick, that maybe 

someone needs to determine that manager, his services are no 

longer required. 

Ms. TITUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Fitzpatrick, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. FITZPATRICK. Thank you, Chairman, for calling the hearing 

and certainly thank the witnesses of the panel for your incredible 

and compelling testimony tonight. 

Ms. Ruell, you testified in your opening statement that you came 

to the VA around 2007 and within a short period of time of your 

tenure at the VA you began to notice things were not working as 

they should. That claims were not being processed timely, claims 

were being lost. Fellow employees were reporting that mail was 

being set aside, and in some cases mail was being shredded. You 

know that we have constituents, perhaps a widow of a World War 

II veteran, who sits down and writes a traditional letter, 

handwrites a letter, puts a stamp on it, and sent it to the Philadelphia VA office believing that that claim would be processed, that 

that request, my simple request might be heard. That letter might 

have been shredded. 

You went on to find and report to your managers that duplicate 

payments were being made and as a dedicated employee of the VA, 

you tried to fix it. You asked that those duplicate claims be recaptured, be brought back in, to be ignored. 

Around the same time, I was sent by the people of the Philadelphia region to come back to Congress to serve them, and I had 

served a previous term. Back in the 109th Congress, 2005 and 

2006. So I had the chance to go back and rehire dedicated case 

workers who served veterans, who had worked with me in the past. 

They are veterans themselves. 

And within a short period of time, 2011, they were reporting to 

me that something was wrong at the Veterans’ Administration. Not 

as they remembered it. Claims were being delayed, they couldn’t 

get answers. They were sending letters, the letters were never received and we were hearing the same from our constituents. 

I did not know you at the time, Kristin. But you were saying the 

same things to your leadership at the Philadelphia Regional Office 

and for that you were criticized, you were castigated, you were 

abused, you were disciplined. And I think you ought to be applauded for trying to change the system from within. I think you 

are owed an apology from the Veterans’ Administration. I think 

your fellow comrades here who are with you, that work with you 


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in other offices, they should be applauded. There are thousands of 

dedicated Veterans’ Administration employees who try to do the 

right thing from within. 

Our Nation’s veterans deserve an apology. Some of them passed 

away while waiting for their claims to be processed. 

Ms. Ruell, you provided information when the administration at 

the Philadelphia office was not listening, to my office, flawed data, 

duplicate payments, which we wrote to General Shinseki when you 

brought that information to us in September 2012. 

And a response was received in February of 2013 from the Under 

Secretary essentially that if there are any problems, they are so 

minor that we don’t need to change any systems in order to address them. 

Knowing what you know, Ms. Ruell, how can the administration 

of the VA provide that kind of an answer? 

Ms. RUELL. I think it’s the easiest answer to just ignore the problem. From working with the OIG the last 4 weeks, they are baffled 

as to datamine this information and find the problem. 

But I don’t think an answer of it’s inconclusive or we’re not sure 

how to figure this problem out, is a fair answer to a veteran who’s 

been waiting for their benefits and they are sitting in a box because they have two claim numbers and we’re not sure what we’re 

going to do with that claim. 

Mr. FITZPATRICK. Ms. Ruell, just last week, the Philadelphia VA 

acknowledged an entitlement and pension backlog of 49.6 percent, 

or 42,141 veterans served by the Philadelphia office, they are waiting more than 125 days for an answer to their claims. Based on 

your experience, is this an accurate statistic for Philadelphia? 

Ms. RUELL. No. If we didn’t have that memo, I think the number 

would be much higher. 

Mr. FITZPATRICK. The Obama Administration has promised to 

end the VA benefits backlog by 2015. With 274,000 claims still 

stuck in the backlog, do you think this promise is feasible? 

Ms. RUELL. Absolutely not. It breeds corruption in the regional 

offices and we might say that claim has been processed, but it’s 

probably not processed correctly, and we probably didn’t help the 

veteran the way we’re supposed to. 

Mr. FITZPATRICK. Are veterans of our Nation passing away while 

waiting for their claim to be processed? 

Ms. RUELL. Many. 

Mr. FITZPATRICK. Can you estimate how many? 

Ms. RUELL. No. But I know that that’s the easiest kind of claim 

to do. If a veteran passes away, you hit one button and you get the 

same amount of credit as if you worked the claim and granted the 

benefit. 

Mr. ROBINSON. That number was 19,500 back in December when 

it was investigated by C.R., CIR, investigative report. 

Mr. FITZPATRICK. Yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Meehan for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for the courtesy of being able to be with you here today. 

And, Ms. Ruell, I see by your testimony that you were warned 

by a supervisor that you were—at the Philadelphia management 

center—that you were not permitted to report issues to your direcVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:30 Apr 02, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00053 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Y:\89-379.TXT PAT

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tor and I greatly regret that and appreciate the courage of you appearing here today. 

In addition, your testimony and those of your colleagues has 

opened the door to the appreciation that we’re seeing exactly the 

same type of cooking the books on the benefits side of the VA as 

has been exposed on the healthcare side. And this is a whole new 

exploration of the management problems at the VA. 

Your testimony is very compelling. You’ve talked about improper 

shredding of documents, you’ve talked about beneficiaries getting 

improper payments, and in many cases duplicate payments, you’ve 

talked about the failure to rectify once those payments have been 

improperly paid, and you’ve talked about the failure to notify the 

IRS of what could be the ability to recapture some of those, all 

very, very significant. 

Let me just drill down on a couple things, because I do want to 

follow up on some of these issues when we are concluded. 

You talked about the number of people who may have been receiving duplicate benefits. You’ve talked about the process of people 

receiving duplicate benefits. Do you have any estimate of how 

many people you believe are receiving duplicate benefits? Did I— 

what was the number of 41,000 duplicate records? 

Ms. RUELL. That was told to me by an employee in the central 

office. That would mean that our claimants are listed in the system 

with more than one PID number. At that point, anybody could get 

paid twice. It’s up to the case processor to identify that it’s a duplicate record and fix it. 

And, unfortunately, after I reported things in 2010, there was a 

list given out for people that were getting paid twice. I provided it 

I believe as an exhibit. I checked that same list last week. I 

checked every claim number on that list. Unfortunately, after we 

stopped the second payment, you have to fix the record so that that 

person that’s looked at is—— 

Mr. MEEHAN. The essence of it is, it may be as many as 41,000 

records that are duplicate? 

Ms. RUELL. Oh, there are probably duplicate records, yes. But 

probably are not—— 

Mr. MEEHAN. Let me ask because my time is limited as well. 

Do you have any idea about the scope of the claims that have 

been paid in excess? 

Ms. RUELL. I only know the ones that I’ve seen. But I’ve seen 

over $2 million, when I researched it, the office of special counsel 

considered it a gross waste of funds was $2 million or more. So it 

was my goal to at least prove that and that wasn’t very hard. 

Mr. MEEHAN. You spoke as well about boxes of mail. What’s the 

difference between military mail and returned mail? 

Ms. RUELL. I’m not actually sure what the difference is. That’s 

just what they call this mail. And it’s mail that we mail to a claimant and returned mail comes back because we don’t have the right 

addresses. We pay by direct deposit now, which is not the best 

thing for a claimant because we don’t know—— 

Mr. MEEHAN. What about mail that’s sitting there and nobody’s 

going through and clarifying it? There is no response to the veteran 

who has sent that piece. Is that accurate? 

Ms. RUELL. Yep. 


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Mr. MEEHAN. So we are waiting for up to 2 to 3 years. 

Now, one my colleagues already questioned you on this, but there 

are 96 boxes. You have testified, and I have in my hand the exhibit 

which clarifies and quantifies not just 96 boxes, but eight separate 

in addition, what were eight other filing cabinets of this kind of 

mail. 

To your knowledge, has any of that been shredded? 

Ms. RUELL. I know that when I went down a week later it wasn’t 

there anymore. So I’m not—— 

Mr. MEEHAN. When you say week later, when was the week 

later? This is going to be important for our follow-up. 

Ms. RUELL. When I reported that and I have made so many different reportings, I’m sorry, I can’t remember. 

Mr. MEEHAN. We have a good record here with your exhibit. You 

have a colleague that brought to it your attention, and from your 

attention, you brought it to the attention of your supervisors, the 

fact that these boxes were sitting there and they were not handled. 

Ms. RUELL. Uh-huh. And then I went down subsequently, probably a week later, and all those file cabinets were empty. 

Mr. MEEHAN. So a week later, you went down and they were 

empty? 

Ms. RUELL. Yes. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Okay. We’ll follow up on that. 

Sergeant Robinson, did you testify that there were some 9,500 

similar kinds of documents in Baltimore as well? 

Mr. ROBINSON. No. There was a report that in Baltimore they 

had boxes of documents that was not processed. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Not processed. But you don’t know whether these 

were those that were the triage documents? 

Mr. ROBINSON. It had to be documents coming in because they 

were not established in the system. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Ms. Ruell, I thank you for that and I will work 

with my colleagues. But particularly, we are particularly concerned 

about the circumstances in Philadelphia. We will work to try to get 

some answers for you, particularly with regard to those boxes of 

documents that appear to have disappeared. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. LaMalfa for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LAMALFA. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, and committee 

members, I really appreciate the opportunity to be able to sit in on 

this committee here tonight. I represent far Northern California, 

very large district with a very significant veterans’ population who 

have been very frustrated, as has our office, with just trying to get 

answers for our vets. 

I greatly appreciate this whistleblower panel being here tonight 

and having the guts to do that and you should not ever feel like 

you can’t speak. So I’ll try and keep it quick here. 

To all three of you, have you ever been told, and if this is redundant, my apologies to the committee but, have you ever been told 

not to take your concerns to members of Congress or to hear from 

members of Congress on how to handle issues, whether it’s an individual claim or just the overall system? Have you ever been told 

not to deal with us, to don’t talk to these members of Congress? 


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Ms. RUELL. We’re told that if we don’t bring our issues internally, we were sent an email that it was an improper avenue of redress. When we got our yearly whistleblower email, we got another 

email that came with it that said recently a lot of employees have 

been contacting the Under Secretary with issues at work. And they 

told us in that email that it was an inappropriate avenue of redress. 

And I immediately reported it and said, are you telling us which 

can’t whistleblow? And they resend the whistleblower memo out 

with new language. 

Mr. LAMALFA. And the other two members of the panel, how 

have you been dealt with? 

Mr. ROBINSON. No, I took up my issues with the VA chain of 

command for X-amount of years and now I started sending letters 

to Congress, and no one has told me that I couldn’t sent them. 

Mr. LAMALFA. Mr. Soto. 

Mr. SOTO. We have not been told. But when, similar experience 

as Ms. Ruell, when individuals contacted the under secretary directly via email, they got back letters from management saying you 

violated the chain of command, et cetera, et cetera, and they received threats and that sort of stuff. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Well we feel we’re different than the chain of command because we handle first hand. We take the phone calls from 

veterans when they can’t get satisfaction with the VA. Our offices 

get those calls. So we intervene on those cases and when we run 

into a brick wall because of management, again, we deal with the 

Oakland regional office, which is now under new management. We 

feel pretty positive about that at this point. 

But under the old regime, we were stonewalled pretty badly. 

Even so much as I had a staff member who decide to hand deliver, 

not try and go through the mail system, a claim for a veteran who 

had waited 36 years to be handled and was denied entry into the 

building. The security was waiting for her. 

So to follow upon that, do you feel you’ve had the freedom or do 

you feel like you should be able to talk to a member of Congress 

or staff because of they’re firsthand dealing with a veteran’s claim 

as they called us when they can’t get through to VA? 

Ms. RUELL. Definitely. I mean, we have a Congressional team in 

our office. So if a Congressperson calls in, they speak to the Congressional team. The problem is, so many people now have figured 

out that’s the way to apply for benefits that we have so many 

Congressionals to work on that those are taking priority over the 

people that have been waiting many years. So it’s not—— 

Mr. LAMALFA. Truly. It shouldn’t be that way. Because you 

shouldn’t have to contact your Congressional office to get results. 

We should only be there to help big-picture things. But, nonetheless, we’re not going to tell them no. As much as we can keep up 

and we’ll probably—one of my offices, 70 percent of their work is 

handling veterans’ phone calls. So there’s something broken in the 

system here. 

Follow up. We’ve had in our Oakland office, again, previous management ordered them to deny or underrate claims or give zero 

percent ratings in order to process claims. 


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Have you ever been ordered to just get them off the books, to 

deny them or find zero percent or low ratings? Have you ever been 

ordered to do that? All three of you again, please. 

Mr. ROBINSON. I don’t rate cases, so I have never been—— 

Mr. LAMALFA. Do you know of that in your office of those that 

do? 

Mr. ROBINSON. I can’t answer that question. 

Mr. LAMALFA. Okay. 

Ms. Ruell. 

Ms. RUELL. I don’t rate cases either. 

Mr. LAMALFA. Do you hear of such thing? 

Ms. RUELL. Indirectly, we hear that the rules aren’t totally being 

followed when processing claims. So I believe that it’s not about 

zero percents or ratings. I believe that people are getting denied because it’s faster to do it that way than granting the benefits. 

And—— 

Mr. LAMALFA. And then they may get kicked to the board of appeals. 

Ms. RUELL. Yes. 

Mr. LAMALFA. Perhaps. 

Mr. Soto, really quickly; I only have a few seconds. 

Mr. SOTO. In talk to other raters. We passed this thing called 

changing the game rules and in that sense, to me, in my view, 

what it meant was that for increased claims, we would try to rate 

the evidence of record that usually resulted in zeros or denials 

rather than ordering an exam for example. 

Mr. LAMALFA. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Members, thank you for your questions. We want to thank again 

the folks for testifying. We appreciate your courage in coming forward. You are now excused. Thank you for being here tonight. 

Go ahead and call the second panel to please come forward. If 

I could ask everybody to go ahead and take your seats. Again noticing that the witnesses are at the table. I’d like to ask the audience 

to go ahead and take their seat. And the witnesses to please rise, 

raise your right hand. 

[Witnesses sworn.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Please be seated. 

Each of your complete written statements will be made a part of 

the hearing record. 

Members, prior to recognizing the witnesses for testimony, I’m 

going to address a recent issue, and I’m going to provide a timeline 

to each of the members for your own information because it’s going 

to be a little hard to follow the timeline as I recount it for you. 

But I instructed the committee staff to make a visit to the Philadelphia Regional Office on the 2nd of July of 2014. As of the 20th 

of June, specific concerns that we’ve heard tonight had been raised 

on the management or more accurately mismanagement of that regional office and I did want our staff to spend a day on the ground 

to perform a technical review of some of the various files, view the 

office and meet with individuals who work there. 

This is a customary thing for our staff to do. So let me run 

through what occurred on this unannounced visit. My staff alerted 


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the Office of Congressional Legislative Affairs of their imminent arrival at approximately 9:00 in the morning and about 20 minutes 

later, they arrived. They were greeted by an employee of the regional office, and they were accompanied to a conference room on 

the fourth floor. Within moments of arrival, while waiting for the 

acting director of the regional office, one of my staff went to the 

rest room on the 4th floor and there was another individual that 

was in the rest room who had set a yellow notepad not far from 

the sink. 

And when my staff member went by the sink, they noticed that 

there was writing at the top of the page that was circled. In fact, 

we’ve got a copy of it. I’d like to go ahead and post it, if we can, 

so everybody can see it. Members, you have a copy of this. It’s the 

yellow legal pad. 

And two names were circled at the top of the page. Now, these 

two employees were from the regional office, and they both had 

acted as whistleblowers to improper activities in the past. All right, 

my staff then looked at the remainder of the page and on it was 

written my staff members’ names for information of their status 

with the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs and then if you will notice 

about midway down, you will see where the word ‘‘ignore’’ was followed by one of my staff member’s name. So you see the word ‘‘ignore’’ located to the left of the pen. 

Before I finish the timeline for the members’ benefit, the person 

who exited the rest room with the yellow notepad in hand was the 

acting director, Lucy Filipov, of the Philadelphia regional office. 

And now, the acting director met with my staff moments later in 

the conference room when requested, who had provided notice of 

the visit she stated she had not spoken with OCLA but instead had 

only spoken with Diana Ruebens moments earlier regarding the 

Congressional staff’s arrival. 

She then began the meeting with two comments, first she said 

that the Philadelphia regional office endeavors to do all things with 

integrity and give proper benefits to veterans and second she made 

a curious statement when taken in the context of Ms. Filipov’s possession of the notepad with the names of two of our whistleblowers 

at the very top that were circled. She said it’s difficult to have employees or ex-employees who say that we are not doing a good job. 

And when we hear from Ms. Holiday for the Office of the Inspector General in a moment I believe that this professed commitment 

to integrity and service to veterans is going to be seriously challenged on the basis of verified data manipulation, the leadership’s 

failure to follow reporting protocols and OIG’s ongoing investigation into a myriad of inappropriate practices. 

Now, while in the conference room on the fourth floor the VSO 

or veterans service manager told Ms. Filipov that the appeals team 

were on their way up for files and computers to facilitate my staff’s 

access. Then, in an exchange that transpired three separate times, 

Ms. Filipov directed that the Congressional staff be accommodated 

in a room on the third floor despite repeated protestations of the 

veterans service manager. 

Both Ms. Filipov and the veterans service center manager then 

exited the conference room. Then they came back and Ms. Filipov 


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dictated that our staff would in fact be directed to be accommodated on a room in the third floor. 

This room was found to be wired with activated microphones and 

an activated camera. So it could be no surprise to anyone that the 

staff requested relocation to a different room. A room that VA OIG 

had vacated which was presumably free of recording devices. 

Now, back to my message. The acting director was in possession 

of a note upon which was written ignore my staff. Am I surprised? 

No. Actually I’m shocked. As my colleague and Ranking Member 

Mr. Michaud observed at our hearing on whistleblowers last week, 

VA is widely known to have a culture of denying problems and not 

listening to feedback. Be it from Congress, be it from veterans or 

from its own employees. 

Now, VA ignores its whistleblowers who report practices that go 

against the principles of the department, Acting Secretary Gibson 

has already been noted tonight that he is deeply disappointed in 

the failure at VA to take whistleblower complaints seriously. VA ignores VSOs when they are found to be inconvenient such as when 

VBA obstructed the American Legion’s regional office action reviews and limited the legion’s ability to fruitfully conduct its visits, 

converse with claims processing staff and review disability benefits 

claims in accordance with its long standing practice of seeking 

quality. VA now ignores committee staff as well. 

Particularly my staff visits to regional offices to perform technical legal claims review. By way of example, on a recent visit, 14 

appeals files were reviewed from two regional offices, 12 of those 

14 were found to have remandable errors. Yet when my staff convened with regional office staff to demonstrate the errors and seek 

correction for the veterans that had been negatively affected, the 

regional staff refused to acknowledge often even the most rudimentary of the mistakes. Quite simply this oversight complicates 

VBA’s messages that they are doing a great work. 

So while VA may ignore employees, ignore whistleblowers, ignore 

VSOs, ignore members, ignore Congressional staff and ignore—let’s 

not forget the veterans they are supposed to serve—let me stress, 

you will not ignore this committee anymore and be on notice: you 

will not ignore our staff that is acting as this committee’s agents 

as well. 

The committee has constitutional oversight and I intend that it 

shall be carried out unhindered on behalf of the American public 

and on behalf of our Nation’s veterans. 

And if you look very carefully—put this note back up—there—are 

some pretty derogatory comments that are on this. Would anybody 

at the table like to comment about the comments that are written 

on this piece of paper? 

Ms. Hickey, you’re welcome to comment. 

Ms. HICKEY. Chairman, without question, without question, we 

respect the oversight of this committee and your staff. 

What occurred on that day was not acceptable and not indicative 

of the normal ways in which Ms. Rubens might behave. 

And I know that she has been on visits with your staff and even 

with members of this committee before, and I think, if we reflect 

on those visits in the last year, you would say she did not repeat 

similar behaviors. 


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But I will not excuse it. I have not excused it with her. And I 

will just tell you, without question, it is unacceptable. 

And I offer on behalf of the Department, my sincere apologies to 

your staff who experienced that, that day, and my commitment 

that it will not happen again and that you will receive, absolutely, 

with open arms and full leaning-in support, anything you need on 

any visit you go on. 

The CHAIRMAN. Under Secretary Hickey, can you explain why 

Ms. Rubens came to our offices to try to cover up what had taken 

place and gave a totally implausible reason? 

In fact, I believe the excuse she gave was that she did not say 

these things. She said that other people were saying these things 

and that, in fact, staff should ignore them. 

So you’re now saying Ms. Rubens did lie when she came into our 

office? 

Ms. HICKEY. Chairman Miller, I was not present when Ms. 

Rubens came to talk to you. I do know her entire purpose for coming to talk to you and to your staff was to express her sincere regret for her comments made on that piece of paper. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. Well, I apologize, but I’m going to take 

just about 2 more minutes. All right? 

On this note, it talks about arrogance, it directs a person to ignore a committee staff person, and then it makes another derogatory statement about a committee staff person. 

Ms. Rubens came to our committee offices and, when she did, she 

did not apologize for that. What she said was she had told the acting director to ignore what other people may be saying about my 

staff. 

And you’re telling me this person is still employed even though 

she gave a directive to not tell an agent of this committee what was 

happening at the regional office? 

Ms. HICKEY. Chairman Miller, I will say again, without question, 

without question, we respect the oversight of every single one of 

you on this committee and in these hallowed halls. 

And any one of you who would like to come at any point in 

time—and many of you have—into our regional offices, we will effect every possible way to support you, your staffs, in any oversight 

you need to exercise. 

I commit that to you, and I would please—ask you to please call 

me directly if you ever see anything different. 

The CHAIRMAN. So I’ll take that as a ‘‘no,’’ that Ms. Rubens did 

not lie, even though she did. Again, your commitment is appreciated, but it is not believed. I appreciate you being here tonight. 

Ms. Halliday, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF LINDA A. HALLIDAY 

Ms. HALLIDAY. Chairman Miller and Members of the Committee, 

thank you for the opportunity to discuss the OIG’s recent oversight 

work within VBA. 

I’m accompanied by Mr. Brent Arronte, the Director of the OIG 

San Diego Benefits Inspections Division. 


VACREP180 with DISTILLER
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OIG provides cyclic oversight of VARO operations and performs 

national audits, special reviews, and reviews allegations to help 

identify and address problems in VAROs. 

We see that VBA is making some incremental progress through 

its initiatives and in response to implementing OIG recommendations, but more work needs to be done. 

We have concerns that VBA’s performance goals are not realistic 

and compromised by data integrity issues. VBA has appeared more 

concerned with reaching its goals than providing a balanced approach to its workload management. 

We continue to find significant claims processing error rates, resulting in improper payments that, in some cases, create hardships 

for veterans. 

Today we issued the results of a review of VBA’s special 2-year 

initiative to clear old claims. This initiative was put in place so 

that the veterans who waited the longest would begin collecting 

benefits. 

VBA implemented a provisional rating process, but we found it 

was less effective than VBA’s existing intermediate rating process 

in quickly providing benefits to veterans. 

Instead, we determined VBA’s policy change removed provisional 

rates from the pending inventory while additional work was still 

required. 

Once removed, VAROs did not place a priority on finalizing these 

claims, which were no longer considered part of the backlog. 

The policy change led to inaccurate reporting of VBA’s workload 

statistics on pending and completed claims. We also projected that 

VBA did not accurately process about 32 percent of the rating decisions completed under the initiative. We estimated these inaccuracies resulted in about $40 million in improper payments. 

VBA set priorities to meet performance goals aimed at clearing 

the backlog of pending compensation claims. This approach has created additional backlogs and delays in other critical workload 

areas, such as appeals and non-rating claims, including changes to 

veterans’ dependents. 

Other claims processing activities, such as the management of 

temporary 100 percent disability evaluations, military drill pay, 

compensation offsets, and benefit reductions also need improved financial stewardship to reduce the risks of improper payments. 

We’ve been told by VBA staff that higher priorities, such as processing the compensation backlog, took precedence over processing 

three other workloads. 

We see that VBA needs to ensure adequate resources are in place 

to reduce the financial risks and the improper monthly benefit payments and, most of all, provide better services to veterans. 

In the wake of receiving a large number of allegations of patient 

wait time manipulation in VHA, we are receiving a number of serious allegations regarding mail mismanagement, manipulation of 

date of claims, and other data integrity issues in the Baltimore, 

Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Oakland and Houston VAROs, and 

today we received an additional allegation regarding the Little 

Rock VARO. 


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VBA reported to us the mail mismanagement problem at the Baltimore VARO that led to confirmation that over 9,500 pieces of unprocessed mail needed immediate attention. 

In response, VBA has moved quickly to take action to process 

this mail. We have teams onsite at three VAROs, and our work is 

not complete at the Philadelphia VARO. And we are sending staff 

to two other VAROs to review the merits of allegations. 

But, more importantly, I am asking my staff to ensure we understand why these problems are occurring and how they are impacting veterans needing benefits so that appropriate corrective action 

can be taken. 

VBA continues to face challenges to improve claims-processing 

accuracy and timeliness. Further, we are concerned at how quickly 

the number of VAROs with allegations is growing, and we are 

working to ensure appropriate oversight. 

Moving forward, should the number of allegations continue at 

this pace, we will need to implement additional oversight and expand our benefits inspections to review more high-risk activities in 

the VAROs. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. And we would be 

pleased to answer any question you or the committee Members 

have. 

[THE PREPARED STATEMENT OF LINDA HALLIDAY APPEARS IN THE

APPENDIX] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Under Secretary Hickey, you’re recognized. 

STATEMENT OF ALLISON A. HICKEY 

Ms. HICKEY. Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Michaud, Members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the 

progress of the Veterans Benefits Administration, as we work hard 

to provide the best possible service to veterans, their families, and 

survivors. 

But before I provide a progress report on our transformation efforts, I want to make it clear to this committee, to every veteran, 

every family member, survivor or supporter of veterans, that VBA 

takes seriously our commitment to provide timely, accurate benefits and maintain the integrity of our systems and processes. 

I have been saddened and offended by recent events within the 

larger VA system where some of my fellow veterans have not been 

served with honor, respect and priority they deserve. 

I know that the number one question on your minds is whether 

the accuracy of data within VBA’s systems can be trusted by members of this committee or by the American people. 

We have many checks and balances on our systems and data, 

and we are working to make them even more trustworthy. Every 

claim has 11 layers of human intelligence through which it is processed, where any of those 11 individuals can catch an error. 

We also have valuable third-party validators, like our VSO partners, who review every claim we work where they hold the power 

of attorney. We don’t close the claim unless they do. 

Our data is held at the national level, not on local data systems. 

It is updated and protected every night with controlled access, 90 


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percent of our work is now completed in an automated system, 

VBMS, which provides a significant audit trail and, as such, is a 

valuable deterrent to data manipulation and misuse. 

We also have a dedicated analytics team that constantly reviews 

our workload data, looking for anomalies within the system so 

management can respond quickly. 

Even with all these controls and more—and I have learned this 

through a 27-year military career, retiring as a General officer, 

that there will always be someone you thought you could trust, but, 

instead, used extremely poor judgment and a total lack of integrity 

as they figured out ways around the system. 

In our VBA business, that means they hurt veterans, and that 

is grossly unacceptable to Acting Secretary Gibson, to me and to 

VA’s dedicated employees, 52 percent of which in VBA are veterans 

themselves. 

When we find these individuals, you can rest assured I will respond quickly to the situation and begin necessary actions. One of 

those actions is to immediately notify the Office of Inspector General, to whom we proactively refer cases on an ongoing basis. 

Intimidation or retaliation, not just against whistleblowers, but 

against any employee who raises a hand to identify a problem, 

make a suggestion or report something in law or policy or core values, is absolutely unacceptable to me. 

I invite people to talk to me. And I have heard tonight that some 

have maybe prevented them from doing that when I invite them 

to, and that is unacceptable to me. 

To ensure our organization is upholding our values, we are doubling down on our efforts to ensure the integrity of our systems and 

processes. 

Acting Secretary Gibson has directed that an expert team be assembled to brainstorm possible scenarios where an individual 

might find a way around the system and determine if further controls are needed. 

Additionally, I have directed a 100 percent facility and desk 

audit of mail and documentation at all 56 regional offices. VBA will 

also continue to provide publicly available performance data on the 

Monday Morning Workload Report and the ASPIRE dashboards. 

Now let me please update you quickly on our transformation 

progress. 

As a direct result of the transformation efforts, yes, we have reduced the backlog of veterans’ claims by more than 56 percent from 

its peak of 611,000 to 271,000 today. 

Last year our employees completed an all-time record-breaking 

1.17 million claims. This year we’re on track to break that record 

again by completing 1.3 million claims. 

We will disburse $67 billion into veterans’ hands. That’s $18 billion more than when I arrived in fiscal year 2011. And as of last 

Thursday, we’ve already completed a million claims this year. 

More importantly, it’s not come at the expense of quality. We’ve 

increased our claim-based accuracy from 83 percent when I arrived 

to 90.3 percent today. 

No matter which way you look at it, how it’s viewed, how you cut 

it, 3-, 12-month, claim, issue, all of them are over 90 percent today 

because our employees are working hard at that. 


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But I get it. I know you still have questions. As a result, I have 

recently directed VBA to apply for the ISO 9001 certification, the 

ultimate global benchmark for quality management. 

As we prioritize disability rating claims, we have not lost focus 

on other areas. We’ve completed 2.5 million non-rating end products, highest we’ve done in 15 years. 

We also need to do a better job on them, though. We need to be 

more timely. That’s why we initiated a seven initiative effort to 

focus on them, and I’m happy to talk to you about it today. 

We’ve not lost focus on appeals either. The appeals rate is 

steady. It has stayed steady for 20 years at 11 to 12 percent. 

However, as we complete record-breaking numbers of claims at 

a 10 to 12 percent rate—or an 11 to 12 percent rate—excuse me— 

I apologize—we are going to get more appeals because the rate 

hasn’t changed, but the volume has. 

It’s unacceptable. And I ask this committee for its continued support, especially in the area for legislative solutions. While the employees have made good progress, we recognize still more work to 

be done. 

I greatly appreciate the support of this committee and am prepared to answer your questions. 

[THE PREPARED STATEMENT OF ALLISON A. HICKEY APPEARS IN

THE APPENDIX] 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Bertoni, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF DANIEL BERTONI 

Mr. BERTONI. Mr. Chairman, ranking member, members of the 

committee, good evening. I’m pleased to discuss the Department of 

Veterans Affairs quality assurance activities and related goals. 

Last year VA paid nearly $54 billion in benefits to 3.6 million 

veterans. Given these sums and number of veterans served, it’s important that the Department have a robust, credible quality assurance framework to ensure all veterans receive accurate and consistent decisions on their claims. 

In prior work, we’ve documented shortcomings in VA’s quality assurance activities, and more recently concerns have been raised 

about the lack of transparency related to changes in the Agency’s 

national accuracy rate for disability claims, which is based on a 

Systematic Technical Accuracy Review, or STAR. 

My remarks today are based on our ongoing work for this committee and discuss the extent to which VBA effectively measures 

and reports the accuracy of disability claims and the extent to 

which other quality assurance activities are complementary and coordinated. 

In summary, the Agency now measures and reports accuracy in 

two ways, by claim and by issue, but its approach has some limitations. 

When calculating STAR accuracy rates for either measure, VBA 

falls short of generally accepted statistical practices in that it 

doesn’t weight the results to reflect that it samples the same number of cases from all offices, regardless of size, and, thus, produces 

imprecise estimates. 


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Absent this calculation, regional office accuracy rankings may be 

skewed and VA may focus corrective action or positive recognition 

on the wrong offices. 

Preliminarily, by taking weighting into account, we calculated 

that VA’s Reno office ranking would actually improve from its current 34th place among all offices to 22nd place. Conversely, the Los 

Angeles office would drop from 46th to 56th place. 

Further, VBA’s approach to measuring accuracy is inefficient due 

to its sampling methods, which cause it to review over 5,000 more 

claims than necessary, thereby diverting limited resources from 

other quality assurance activities, such as conducting more targeted reviews of error-prone cases. 

And, finally, VBA’s public reporting of its methodological information lacks details that could help users better understand the 

distinction between its accuracy measures and their limitations 

and perhaps alleviate any confusion associated with them. 

Beyond STAR, VBA’s quality assurance framework includes 

other complementary activities, such as local quality review teams 

in each regional office that conduct reviews before claims are finalized and provide feedback to staff to avoid future errors. 

However, in three of four offices we visited, claims processed during overtime hours, which can be substantial, were excluded from 

such reviews and may undermine the Agency’s efforts. 

Also, to help claims processors make consistent decisions when 

presented with the same evidence, VBA now uses electronic questionnaires to test for consistency that can be administered to thousands of staff at once. 

However, we found that the Agency has never pre-tested these 

documents to ensure the clarity of questions or the validity of expected results. Pre-testing is a generally accepted practice in sound 

survey and questionnaire development. 

And, lastly, VBA coordinates its quality assurance efforts by disseminating national accuracy and consistency results and related 

guidance to regional staff. The Agency also uses the results of 

STAR to focus training and guide local quality reviews. 

However, regional staff we interviewed noted that there are too 

many sources of guidance and that searching for them is often 

time-consuming, confusing and difficult. 

Staff were also concerned that VBA’s policy manual and national 

training were not sufficiently updated to help them avoid future errors. 

In conclusion, VBA has made enhancements to its quality assurance program, but missed opportunities to fully demonstrate its 

commitment to quality. 

In particular, the Agency is producing imprecise accuracy estimates that are being used to guide program management and improvements and, also, missed an opportunity to win the public’s 

trust when they introduced a new measure absent full explanation 

of its meaning and limitations. 

In other areas, its failure to follow generally accepted practices 

has led to design and implementation shortcomings for some initiatives, which otherwise are representative of sound quality assurance practices. 


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However, all of these issues can be addressed with more focused 

and sustained management attention. In going forward, we will 

continue to work with VA and this committee to ensure veterans’ 

claims are adjudicated accurately and consistently. 

This concludes my statement. I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. 

[THE PREPARED STATEMENT OF DANIEL BERTONI APPEARS IN THE

APPENDIX] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Bertoni. 

First question. 

Mr. Murphy, if you would, sir. Last time you were here before 

this committee, I asked you a question about discovery claims and 

Fast Letter 13-10, and I think you gave me a half an answer. 

You’re the signatory to the fast letter, which directed all employees to apply the date of discovery for the date of claim for tracking 

and reporting purposes. 

However, in your testimony, you said that, if there’s a date 

stamp on it, we receive it 4 years ago and it is sitting in a desk 

drawer somewhere, it goes into the system as 4 years old. 

Then less than 48 hours after I asked you the question you rescinded the fast letter, you deleted it from your repository, and it 

was cancelled; the scheme that was called discovered claims. 

You were sworn at the time to give the truth, the whole truth, 

and nothing but the truth. Do you think that you told this committee the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? 

Mr. MURPHY. Yes, sir, I do. 

Ms. HICKEY. Chairman Miller, may I add? 

It was under my guidance and my direction to suspend the letter. 

And that happened from me to Mr. Murphy, and Mr. Murphy took 

the action. 

The CHAIRMAN. I believe it was a recommendation of the Office 

of Inspector General. So you took their recommendation. 

It was not your idea, was it? 

Ms. HICKEY. In fact, Chairman, we—I did take the recommendation from the Inspector General, but we were concurrently, at the 

same time, considering that as the best thing to do while we investigated further. 

The CHAIRMAN. Then, Under Secretary Hickey, why did somebody send out a memo basically that says, ‘‘Though we may not 

agree with this procedure, it is a national guidance and we will follow it?’’ 

Ms. HICKEY. Chairman, I don’t know what memo you’re referring 

to. If you’d like me to look at it, I could make comment to you. 

The CHAIRMAN. I think the subject line is ‘‘Assistant director 

huddles went out on July 10th,’’ and it was put out because of the 

hearing that we had several weeks ago and this one as well. 

I’ll be glad to provide you a copy of it, but I just think it’s very 

curious that folks would say that they don’t agree with the national 

guidance, but they’re going to follow it. 

Ms. HICKEY. Chairman, I’ll take that for the record and get you 

an answer. 


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The CHAIRMAN. To all of the VA witnesses, I want to ask a few 

questions about the backlog numbers that you report in your Monday Morning Workload Reports. 

It’s important to note that, in your report, you don’t include End 

Product 930, the number which, in fact, has grown substantially as 

of late, and End Product 400, which includes provisional ratings. 

If you were to include the End Product 930, which essentially is 

a place to hold rushed and incomplete claims, your backlog percentage would jump by 10 percentage points to 60 percent. 

In addition, over a 14-month period, March of 2013 to May of 

2014, the inventory of End Product 400, which includes provisional 

ratings, surged from just over 29,000 to over 107,000, by a 367 percent increase. 

So explain to me what you’re doing with End Products 930 and 

400. It simply makes them a secret category whereby you’re able 

to hide incomplete or prematurely decided claims to improve the 

appearance of your backlog numbers. 

Under Secretary Hickey. 

Ms. HICKEY. Chairman Miller, I’m going to—I told you I would 

tell the truth when I put my hand up. So I will tell you the truth. 

I don’t know every number for every end product. So I apologize 

for not being able to cite you what an end product 930—— 

The Chairman. Can you give me who does at the table? Mr. Murphy or Ms. Rubens. Either one of those will know the answer. 

Ms. HICKEY. Okay. I will happily do that, but may I first comment—— 

The CHAIRMAN. No, ma’am. I have 38 seconds left. I’d like—— 

Ms. HICKEY. Okay. Chairman—— 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. To know the answer to my question. 

Ms. HICKEY [continuing]. I will ask Ms. Rubens to please comment. 

Ms. RUBENS. Mr. Chairman, I would point to the Monday Morning Workload Report where, in fact, your numbers on End Product 

400, they are control, correspondence and have been used for some 

development. 

And the 930 end product, which are reviews, including quality 

assurance, are, in fact, reflected in the work that we demonstrate 

for completion. 

Ms. HICKEY. Chairman, now that I know what the titles are, I 

can add to that discussion. 

The CHAIRMAN. No, ma’am. I don’t believe that anybody at the 

table is telling me the truth from VA. I think that you’re using the 

numbers to hide backlog claims. 

I think you’ve selectively chosen not to include End Products in 

your backlog numbers to make the appearance of progress of the 

backlogs. 

So, quite simply, it’s data manipulation that prevents veterans 

from obtaining access to the benefits they have earned. 

Mr. Michaud, you are recognized. 

Mr. MICHAUD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Halliday, as you have done your investigation, you have continued to iterate that a singular focus on rating claims is starting 

to come at the cost of other workload falling through the cracks. 


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What would you—what would be your suggestions to address 

this situation? 

Ms. HALLIDAY. Mr. Michaud, we recently looked at the Quick 

Start program, the special initiative to clear the backlog claims and 

we’ve looked at appeals. 

There’s been a constant reallocation of staffing away from some 

of these initiatives to work the pending backlog of compensation 

claims. 

At some point, if you want these initiatives to be successful, you 

have to dedicate the workload to accomplish the job. 

Mr. MICHAUD. Thank you. 

General Hickey, as I mentioned in my opening statement, dependency claims have risen by nearly 2,000 percent in 4 years, 

with the majority of those being backlogged. 

What—well, when does the VA anticipate ending the non-rating 

backlog? Do you have any specific date or proposal? 

Ms. HICKEY. Congressman Michaud, in 2005 was the first time, 

under a completely different administration, that the 125-day initiative was set. 

In 2009, the former Secretary of VA, Secretary Shinseki, set the 

aspirational goal of no claim older than 125 days. Prior to that, it 

had been an average of 125 days and at 98 percent accuracy. 

All-in-all of these cases, even dating back as far from the history 

that I can take—because I have only been here since 2011—the 

focus has been on the rating work and the priority. And there’s a 

really good reason for that. 

In order to even access, in order to even be able to get a different 

benefit that’s in the non-rating bucket, you first must have a rating. 

So, by example, in order to get a dependency claim, you have to 

have been rated at least 30 percent in a rating claim that you gave 

us; hence, the reason why the backlog is focused on the rating 

claims. 

I can tell you this. I can tell you that we have a really good plan 

around, especially, dependency claims. We have built a system 

called Rules Based Processing System, RBPS, whereby, when a veteran files online for their dependency claim, that they—50 to 60 

percent of the time they are paid in a single day, a single day. 

That’s what we’re moving towards from a technology solution. 

Mr. MICHAUD. Did you—— 

Ms. HICKEY. But for the ones that are waiting Congressman, I 

will tell you, we have also done a contract. 

The contract is lifting them up in paper and putting them into 

the Rules Based Processing System so we can get those done as 

well. 

Mr. MICHAUD. Do you have a date? That’s my question. 

Ms. HICKEY. I do not have a date, Congressman. There’s never 

been a goal set around non-rating work that has a specific date associated with it. 

Mr. MICHAUD. Okay. Mr. Bertoni? Did you find any instances in 

which VA is intentionally manipulating the data to present better 

outcomes than what’s really happening? 


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Mr. BERTONI. I wouldn’t say it’s intentionally manipulating. I 

think, as I noted in my statement, just in several basic areas, they 

are not following general statistical practices. 

That looseness in their methodology translates to numbers that 

aren’t accurate and aren’t very helpful in terms of looking at trends 

over time, in terms of performance, accuracy rates, and are comparing offices in terms of relative performance. 

As I said, when we applied simple weighting, we had several 

swings in offices that suddenly improved in standing, relatively 

speaking. That’s just good—that’s not good metrics. 

And in an organization with a mission as important as this, the 

dollars involved, the numbers involved, you need to have precise 

estimates, and there’s more work to be done to get there. 

Mr. MICHAUD. Okay. Thank you. 

General Hickey, quickly, there are some pretty serious allegations and compelling allegations made by Ms. Ruell with regard to 

the shredding of at least 96 boxes and 8 cabinets of military and 

returned mail documents. 

Can you provide us with any additional information about how 

VA handled this situation when it was highlighted by Ms. Ruell? 

Ms. HICKEY. I can, Congressman. In fact, I reacted very quickly. 

When I first heard the conversation, Ms. Ruell reflected that it 

came down to me via an email. I immediately dispatched my director for pension service. 

He took a complete team up there. They went through every one 

of those boxes to make sure that there was not anything that was 

amiss in those boxes. And, in fact, I can attest to the fact that it’s 

not. 

Let me just explain what is in those boxes. The pension service 

works a little different than the compensation service. They are not 

in VBMS yet, though I would like to see them in VBMS in the future. 

But what they do is they work the claim in paper first and then 

they scan in the documents afterwards. And once they have this 

document scanned in then there is a normal procedure for the 

proper disposition of that paper. 

We will address the same issue on the compensation side. We’re 

working closely with DoD on what do we do with paper that we 

don’t use anymore because it’s all electronically scanned in the system. We will have to address that same thing. 

But I understand. I’m very concerned about any—any idea that 

we might be inappropriately shredding documents, and I will— 

that’s why we’re taking our time figuring out what we do in the 

compensation business around that paper. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Lamborn, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Hickey, how many people work under you at the Veterans 

Benefits Administration? 

Ms. HICKEY. Congressman, there are over 20,000 people. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Okay. And in an average given year, how many 

of them get fired? 

And please consult with Mr. Murphy or Ms. Rubens if you need 

to. 


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Ms. HICKEY. I will probably ask Ms. Rubens to further elaborate. 

What I can tell you is that we go through a fairly extensive process 

before people are fired. 

Mr. LAMBORN. No. No. I didn’t ask you what your process was. 

How many in an average year? 

Ms. HICKEY. I don’t know that I have that information, but I will 

ask Ms. Rubens if she does. 

Ms. RUBENS. Sir, I don’t have the current number that were 

fired, for instance, within the last year. I do know that currently 

across the workforce today we’ve got 66 employees who are on performance improvement plans. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Okay. And they would be ones eligible for firing 

if they didn’t improve their performance? 

Ms. RUBENS. Our goal first, though, is to help them improve 

their performance—— 

Mr. LAMBORN. Right. 

Ms. RUBENS [continuing]. And look for other things that they’ve 

been successful in in other positions within the VA. 

Mr. LAMBORN. But you can’t tell me how many people get fired 

in an average year? 

Ms. HICKEY. We could do that, Mr. Lamborn. I don’t have—or 

Congressman Lamborn. I apologize. I don’t have that immediately 

available. I’m happy to provide it. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Given all the procedure you have to go through, 

it’s probably a fairly small number, I would guess. 

Ms. HICKEY. I believe that it is probably, appropriately, a small 

number. If we can, certainly, remind this great committee that I 

have 52 percent of those employees who are veterans. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Excellent. 

Ms. HICKEY. And I have about 46 percent who are a direct family 

member of veteran—— 

Mr. LAMBORN. And of those who are fired, how many of those are 

for cause versus how many of those are just let go without being 

given a reason? 

Ms. HICKEY. Generally, we do not let people go without giving 

them a reason. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Okay. Well, you heard Javier Soto’s comments 

earlier in response to my and other people’s questioning that he 

was let go on June 30th without being given a reason from the St. 

Petersburg Regional Office. 

Are you aware of that? 

Ms. HICKEY. Congressman Lamborn, I was made aware of it in 

the hearing tonight. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Okay. And he was not given any reason. 

He got the letter on June 30th. On the 24th of June, he had 

given a report—and I believe this was on behalf of Local AFGE 

1594—somewhat critical of the leadership on how they processed 

claims. And then—let’s see—6 days later he’s fired without being 

given a cause. 

Is this a normal activity or is this something out of the ordinary? 

Ms. HICKEY. Congressman, this is not a normal activity. I will 

look into the very specifics of it. I will not discuss, out of privacy 

and protection for Mr. Soto, any specific issues associated with his 

employment that—— 


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Mr. LAMBORN. Well, please give me—— 

Ms. HICKEY. That would not be respectful. 

Mr. LAMBORN. It sounds to me like we could have a whistleblower here who is being retaliated against. 

Ms. HICKEY. I will absolutely look into that. 

Mr. LAMBORN. And that’s a really serious matter to all of us on 

this committee, because we want whistleblowers to come forward 

when there is something going on wrong that the public needs to 

know about or the committee or even you need to know about. 

Ms. HICKEY. I absolutely agree with you, Congressman. 

I want to know about it. I have employees that reach out directly 

to me via email. I was disappointed to hear that they were told 

they could not. That will be rectified immediately. 

I need to be an avenue by which employees can talk about their 

concerns as well, and I am open to that. I do that on a routine 

basis. 

In fact, I have a pulse check call that I do where I will only 

speak to bargaining unit employees, and it starts by saying, ‘‘Management cannot tell you not to talk to me. Management can’t even 

look at you funny. If they slip you a note or anything else that says 

do not tell me something, then I immediately want you to send me 

an email.’’ 

Mr. LAMBORN. Well, you’re saying some things that sound good, 

but the actions, unfortunately, haven’t always matched the rhetoric. 

Ms. Halliday, let me ask you in my short remaining time—you 

talked about how VBA’s process misrepresented the actual workload and its progress toward eliminating the backlog. 

Could you elaborate just a little bit more on that, please. 

Ms. HALLIDAY. Today we issued a report on the review of the 

special initiative to process the rating claims pending over 2 years. 

As I had said in my oral statement, that—VBA used a process— 

a new process they put in place to issue provisional claims. 

What we found was those provisional claims, in spite of not having a final decision, were taken out of the backlog. And what happened then was VBA lost control over some of those claims so that 

they didn’t get worked on a priority basis. 

We felt that, had VBA used its interim rating process, it had all 

the tools it needed to keep the integrity of the date of claim and 

to process these claims. They had to try something. 

They’re working hard to try and clear the backlog, but we feel 

it misrepresented the workload because you essentially took incomplete claims out of a backlog that needed a final rating decision. 

Mr. LAMBORN. Okay. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Brown, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you. 

First of all, before I begin my questioning, I just want to say, on 

this note that was found in the bathroom, I hope no one ever loses 

their job for a note in the bathroom on a pad, and I don’t think 

anyone has any business reading somebody’s pad in the bathroom. 

That’s the first thing. 


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Now, to Ms. Hickey, I am impressed with the amount of—how 

we’ve been able to expedite the veterans’ process not only for the 

veterans, but for the family. 

And can you explain the process? Because it seems like part of 

the problem is that you’re going to a new system to help expedite 

it and it seems as if it’s a problem with you trying to improve the 

system. 

Ms. HICKEY. Congresswoman, I know from having worked in 

changed management environments that everybody adjusts to 

change differently. I’m sensitive to that. 

But I will tell you I don’t know any other Federal agency—and 

I did work in commercial industry for a while—nor any commercial 

company that has fundamentally taken a paperbound process and, 

in less than 18 months, built a system, scanned a billion images 

nearly and now works 91 percent of its work in a paperless environment. 

1.4 million claims our employees have done on this system. 1.4 

million. And you know what that does for veterans? It means they 

get answers faster and better. 

And the system isn’t just a system. There are tools. There are 

helpful things in that system to help make that employee better at 

making that decision more consistently. That’s the whole reason we 

put tools in it. 

I know—I heard the conversations, you know, from our employees up here at the table, and I know that our employees need help 

with the workload that’s out there. I do. That is why we are building additional functionality all the time into that system to help it 

improve. 

What I can tell you is this: You don’t do 1.17 million recordbreaking one year, 1.3 million breaking the previous record this 

year, and have all measures of your quality—I will concede that 

there may be some ways to improve on that even yet—in that 

amount of time and not be doing stuff that’s better for veterans. 

Ms. BROWN. Don’t you have an independent verifier, also? 

Ms. HICKEY. We do. 

So I hear you loud and clear. I know that you don’t trust what 

we’re saying. So I went for the second time to another third party 

to ask for an independent verification of the way in which we assess our quality. 

It’s a person that doesn’t deal with Federal agencies at all and 

has no Federal look about them. They deal with businesses in the 

outside and how they look at quality. 

And, in addition to that, I have directed VBA to go after ISO 

9001 certification because I want every veteran in this country and 

all of you to believe us when we say we’re making good decisions 

not because of us, but because we care so much about those veterans, their family members, and their survivors, and they deserve 

nothing less from us. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you very much. 

You know, some of us come with pre-existing conditions, and perhaps we all don’t have the same goals. I hope the goal is to make 

sure that the veterans get the services that they need and that we 

work together to make sure that happens and not to grandstand. 


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I cannot sit here and say I think all of you all are just trying 

to hide the numbers. I don’t believe that. I think it could be problems with the system, but we need to work together to figure out 

how we could improve the system. 

I, for one, was very excited when we launched the New GI Bill. 

And then, when I turned on the television, it was problems with 

the system, but it was problems with the stakeholders. 

The schools had to verify that the student was in school and they 

were enrolled and they hadn’t dropped a class before they could get 

the additional the funding from us. 

So it is not just the VA. It’s the VA, I keep saying, working with 

our stakeholders. 

Ms. HICKEY. And, Congresswoman Brown, we now put $42 billion into the hands of 1.2 million veterans and their beneficiaries 

in 4.7 days using exactly that model, which is exactly what we are 

trying to repeat, and doing so with some level of success, on the 

claims side. 

It was what is driving more and more of our dependency claims 

getting done. And, frankly, we’ve just released, last week, the ability for half of our survivors during the most difficult time of their 

life, to be automatically paid their burial claim. 

They don’t even have to tell us. They don’t even have to claim 

it. It’s now, at first notice of death, we pay either the $300 or up 

to $2,000 claim and it just goes straight to them. 

Ms. BROWN. Thank you so much for your service, all of you. 

And I yield back the balance of my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Bilirakis, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. 

Ms. Halliday, you remarked in your opening statement that VBA 

has self-reported a decrease in the national backlog by more than 

50 percent since March 2013. 

In your opinion, do you see any issue with trusting these self-reported achievements by the Department? Of course, the Department has been plagued with inaccuracies and inconsistencies regarding reducing the backlog, but I want to get your opinion on 

this. Do you trust those numbers? 

Ms. HALLIDAY. At this point I would say no, I can’t trust those 

numbers. I think we have a lot of work ahead of us to address the 

allegations we have just received. They all seem to focus on data 

integrity, and they need to be looked at very carefully. So I don’t 

want to say I trust them. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you. 

All right. Next question, again, for Ms. Halliday. 

During your numerous inspections of the VA Regional Offices, 

you have consistently reported the same errors, inaccuracy and 

procedures, even after VBA has concurred with the previous reports and recommendations. 

Why do you think this happens over and over again? Why are 

we seeing these errors? Again, you know, it seems like these recommendations are not being followed. Can you comment on that? 

Ms. HALLIDAY. Yes. We select medical disabilities to look at that 

we consider at high risk for processing errors. That’s where we 


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want to target our resources. We think that’s the most important 

focus. 

What we find in something like traumatic brain injury-TBI-type 

claims, the policy is very complex. It’s very hard to ensure consistency in that application. So we continue to see errors with that. 

General Hickey has asked for the OIG’s help in assessing the 

procedure for TBI claims and we just recently put a team together 

so we can show her exactly what our benefits inspectors, the teams 

that Mr. Arronte leads, are coming across so she can put the right 

controls in place. 

Brent, do you want to add anything? 

Mr. ARRONTE. The only thing I think that I could add is this 

year, when we started our inspections—and I’m speaking to Reno 

right now because this is the only office where this occurred—is we 

made a recommendation in the previous inspection of Reno regarding TBI claims to have a second-level review look at these claims 

before they’re finalized because they are very complex. 

When we went back this year, we found an error rate that was 

not acceptable. And what we found was local management discontinued the practice of our recommendation, and the reason we were 

given is to process claims for the backlog. 

So if we make a recommendation and you follow it and it’s working, why do you stop it? 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. I want to know why. 

General Hickey, why? 

Ms. HICKEY. So, Congressman, I absolutely agree with this gentleman. I absolutely agree they should be following that process. 

They should not have diverted and not done a second signature requirement. That is just wrong. I won’t give an excuse for it. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. What are you going to do about it? 

Ms. HICKEY. We are—I’m going to make sure that they are doing 

second signature reviews. And we can do that. 

And so we will send out additional teams from Compensation 

Service to make sure. I will also double down on the resources and 

make sure I’m there doing those second signatures. They are critical. He’s absolutely right. 

They are the singularly most complex kind of condition we can 

do, because every experience a veteran has with TBI can be very 

different. 

So, therefore, there’s not a very clear-cut way to always determine secondary conditions associated with TBI and the like. That 

was a mandate from us to do second signature. If they’re not doing 

it, they’re not doing the right thing. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. All right. General, I have one more question. 

You mentioned in your testimony that employees will not receive 

a performance award unless they meet quality standards as well 

as production standards. 

However, we are all aware that, in previous fiscal years, every 

employee eligible to receive a performance bonus award received 

them. 

Do you still stand by what you stated in your testimony? And do 

you believe that every single employee eligible to receive performance awards did, in fact, deserve them? 


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Ms. HICKEY. So, Congressman, since the day I arrived—and I 

have mentioned to this committee before that I came to this job 

with a deep background in quality management, which is why I’m 

directing the ISO 9001. 

I know something about that and I know something about Malcolm Baldrige and how it makes you better and how it validates 

what you’re doing. 

But here is what I’d say: I have said from the beginning we are 

a production—and quality-based organization, not or. There is no 

‘‘or’’ between those two words. 

I have made serious investments, thank you to this committee 

for the budgets you have given us, in all kinds of capabilities to improve our quality. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. General, I would like you to answer the question, 

please. 

Did they deserve those performance—— 

Ms. HICKEY. If they successfully navigated their production and 

quality, they did. But I will say in fiscal year 2012, no senior leader 

in VBA got a performance bonus. 

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Okay. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Takano, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. TAKANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Halliday, do you know anything about the history of the Federal policy of performance bonuses in management? Can you just 

tell me a little bit about that, if you do. 

I just want to know if it’s always been a part of our system in 

the Federal Government, whether it’s something that was instituted. 

Ms. HALLIDAY. To my recollection, performance bonuses have always been in place to incentivize and reward good results. 

I think for the past few years we really have done a better job 

Federal Government-wide at focusing on results. 

Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Bertoni. 

Mr. BERTONI. Yes. 

Mr. TAKANO. As far as the use of Federal performance—— 

Mr. BERTONI. I can’t speak to the history. 

I would say it’s consistent across executive agencies that performance bonuses are there, and they should be performance-based 

and they should be results-based. 

But certainly, when you combine the allure of performance bonuses with metrics that drive you in a certain way and drive certain behaviors, that’s when it gets perverse and that’s where executive agencies and otherwise have to be careful about the metrics 

they put in place and the performance bonus that they associate 

with that. 

Mr. TAKANO. Ms. Halliday, in this new area of looking at the 

VBA aside from the scheduling issues we’ve had in Phoenix—exposed by Phoenix, is there any indication to you that there’s—that 

the performance bonuses and the metrics have combined into— 

have combined in a similar way, that there have been a—that 

there were some motivation to game the system for financial gain? 

Ms. HALLIDAY. I can’t speak to that. 

Mr. TAKANO. Okay. 


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Ms. HALLIDAY. Sorry. 

Mr. TAKANO. Okay. So you—there’s nothing you’ve—nothing 

you’ve—nothing was revealed so far? All right. 

You say that you’re targeting in your investigation high-risk disability claims. 

Can you say more about the high-risk disability claims that 

you’re looking at. It’s TBI, you said? 

Ms. HALLIDAY. During this round of our fiscal year 2014 benefits 

inspections, we had selected to look at the management of temporary 100 percent disability evaluations, TBI claims, and the SMC 

and ancillary-type benefits that veterans get for the more seriously 

disabled issues that they face. 

Mr. TAKANO. Okay. Something that—arose in the previous panel’s discussion about congressional advocacy. When congressional 

offices call in, it seems to divert attention of the staff and then the 

other parts of the backlog get maybe less attention. 

Do you find that to be sort of corroborated by anything you’ve 

looked at? 

Or, Mr. Bertoni, you can also comment as well. 

Mr. BERTONI. I can’t speak to that issue. We haven’t done any 

work in that area. That was outside of the scope of what we did. 

Mr. TAKANO. Okay. 

Ms. HALLIDAY. I’m not 100 percent sure exactly what you’re asking, but we get a lot of complaints through the OIG hotline and we 

are looking at those complaints as to whether they’re systemic 

problems or isolated problems within VBA. 

Is that what you’re asking? Because I think the congressional offices get many of the same calls. 

Mr. TAKANO. I was just listening to the testimony of the previous 

panel, and one of the complaints was that congressional offices 

often get attended to and they have to neglect what they were 

doing on other claims. Well—— 

Mr. BERTONI. I could speak to that a little bit. 

I just think it’s one of many competing workloads, and there’s a 

lot of lines of work and activity that’s done—that has to be done. 

Congressionals get attention. I know that I get the calls from the 

public. I push it forward to the various committees. 

So it certainly gets attention from us, and I’m sure it gets attention from VBA when they get those calls. So I’m sure it’s a workload that’s—it gets attention and, amongst competing workloads, 

you have to make choices. 

Mr. TAKANO. Ms. Hickey. 

Ms. HICKEY. Congressman, here’s what I will say. We have a 

prioritization for claims and we have some categories of those 

claims where, when you call us about those, they will absolutely 

get attention because they are in the priority bucket. 

If you are a Medal of Honor recipient, a former prisoner of war, 

a homeless veteran, someone who’s very seriously injured—ill or injured, someone who—I’m going to miss a few; so, please bear with 

me. 

But there’s a group of people who need our prioritization, and 

you often call us with people who are in that bucket or if the claim 

right now, today, is 9 months or older. 


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Now, though we have done 99.9 percent of all the 1- and 2-year 

claims, we still are working 9-month-old claims and then we’re 

going on to the next budget. 

But when you call us with an old claim, which typically is when 

you will hear from a veteran—and we understand that—then we 

will do it because it is in the priority bucket. 

If you were to call me for a claim that was just sent in last week 

that didn’t have any of those other priorities on it, you would probably get a letter from us that says we’ll work it when it gets into 

the right prioritization. 

Mr. TAKANO. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, my time has expired. 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Roe, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Dr. ROE. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to just go back to where the chairman began with this 

legal pad here. I really find this offensive. And the reason I find 

it so offensive is because we’ve heard over the last 6 weeks or so— 

and our job, as the chairman said, is oversight. We have a constitutional obligation to do this. 

When you see someone really just rub this in the staff’s face— 

this is their job to go and get this information—I find this astonishing what’s on here. I truly do. I don’t see how anybody could explain and, secondly, anybody who is still working. 

And I think Mr. Lamborn asked a minute ago how many people 

had been fired. Well, there would be one, if they were under my 

watch, who had so rubbed their nose—or thumbed their nose, I 

should say, at the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, whose job—this is 

our job. 

You’re doing your job and you’re explaining it tonight. And when 

we have lost—and that’s one of the things, General Hickey, that I 

am really very concerned about, is the loss of trust that we’ve had 

in our VA. 

I mean, I think, if you look at any organization in this country 

a year ago, we would have held the VA up as the shining star on 

the Hill. I really believe that—shining city on the Hill. I believe 

that. And we’ve truly lost that now. 

When veterans now file a claim that they know what they’re 

going to get—has theirs been moved over to a stack that’s not going 

to get looked at? 

And I think it sounds—you were in my office, and I appreciate 

you coming by the other day. I certainly think you’re making a yeoman’s effort. 

But somewhere downstream, it’s failing, it isn’t working. So I 

know that—you heard me say, if you were here before, about what 

resources do you need. And I certainly have heard the Inspector 

General’s testimony, have read it. 

What resources do you need, if any, from this committee to make 

sure that this backlog is done, that those metrics are made? What 

do you need? 

Ms. HICKEY. So, Congressman, I sat here a few months back in 

a budget hearing, and I believe I said at the time I need an absolute, unequivocal 100 percent IT budget, 100 percent, not a dollar 

less. 


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And now, in a world in which we are now building a new scheduling system, that’s even more critical, because now there’s a heavily competing interest there. We’ve got to have a full and complete 

IT system. 

Dr. ROE. Well, we have—as Sergeant Major Walz said, we’ve 

spent—no pun intended—a widow’s pension on getting you all the 

IT money that—I can’t—it’s mind-boggling to me. 

When I hear somebody say ‘‘money’’ and I’ve seen the VA and 

DoD take a thousand million dollars—that’s a billion—and flush it 

and I have no earthly idea where that money went, to build a system that’s integrated—I don’t even—I asked the secretary, ‘‘Where 

did a billion dollars go?’’ No answer. 

And so I don’t know that adding more money to—I mean, you 

say an IT program. If we give you that money, if we provide that 

money, this very generous Congress does that—because we have 

provided the resources for the VA—is that going to be enough or 

am I going to be sitting here a year from now, if I’m fortunate 

enough to get re-elected, and am I going to hear the same thing? 

Ms. HICKEY. So, Congressman, you were talking about IEHR, 

which is not a VBA program. 

Dr. ROE. I understand. I do understand that. I’m just talking 

about IT money that the VA has used. 

Ms. HICKEY. Let me tell you what you have given us. 

All of you have given us over the last 3 years in VBA—for the 

first time in our history, we have had dollars funding IT systems 

we should have had 20 years ago. 20 years ago we should have had 

a paperless IT system like the rest the world went to, and we 

didn’t. 

We were still 2 years ago—touching 5,000 tons of paper—that’s 

10 Empire State Buildings. That’s—I mean, that’s 10 Mt. Everests, 

200 Empire State Buildings—with little rubber fingertips on our 

fingers. 

And today we are doing it in a paperless environment. You have 

given us the resources to scan a billion of our veterans’ most precious documents into an electronic system so they’re not laying 

around in boxes. 

Dr. ROE. Okay. I understand. 

Let me go. My time is limited and it’s about up. 

And I want to go back to the attorney—to the Inspector General 

and say, how does a claim—I want to make sure that we get this 

for the record—that looks like—that gets moved from way back 

here, that’s supposed to be current, that gets—how does that happen? How does a record go from the time it’s back here, a long-term 

claim, and it gets moved to a stack that is current? How does that 

happen? 

Ms. HALLIDAY. We’re going to let Brent answer that. He works 

with this all the time. 

Dr. ROE. Just walk us through that—— 

Mr. ARRONTE. Okay. 

Mr. ROE [continuing]. Fairly quickly. 

Mr. ARRONTE. There’s—there’s several ways. We could talk how 

they changed the date of claim, but let’s talk about the provisional 

ratings with the 2-year initiative. That report was just issued and 

it should be fresh. 


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When they did the provisional rate, that provisional rating had 

an end product. And you heard the First Sergeant talk and describe what an end product was. So let’s say the end product, just 

to make it easy, was a 110. 

The number 110 controlled this provisional rating. Under their 

special initiative, when they issued that provisional rating to the 

veteran, that 110 was gone. So that—that claim came out of the 

inventory. So they moved it to put it under an end product 400 to 

control. 

But end product 400s are not reported in the inventory that you 

hear from these Monday Morning Workload Reports. So now that 

claim technically doesn’t exist in the inventory. 

When the veteran submits new evidence to support the contentions in that claim, now VBA will create a new end product and 

process that claim in 1 day. 

So it was an old claim pending over 2 years. They moved it to 

an end product that is not reported in the inventory. So that claim 

technically doesn’t exist. When new evidence comes in, now it’s a 

new claim that’s 1 day old or 2 days old. Then they work it in 2 

or 3 days. 

Dr. ROE. Well, why would you do that? Why in the world would 

you do that? 

Mr. ARRONTE. Good question. 

And that’s one of the issues in this report that we found, is if 

VBA would have used their intermediate rating process, one of the 

aspects of that intermediate rating process is to keep that end 

product going. And it stays in your inventory so you have a true 

reflection of your inventory and you can’t lose it. 

Dr. ROE. I thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chair. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. Brownley, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Hickey, I appreciate you being here and appreciate your 

testimony. 

And I’m just having a terrible time trying to reconcile between 

what the IG says and what you say. And the IG says there’s been 

incremental progress, data—and there’s data integrity issues. 

You say that we’re right on the mark, that our data is good, that 

the checks and balances and the audits that you are doing are 

sound. 

And so, you know, when two entities are, you know, at polar opposites, then, yeah, you’re right. I—you know, I lack of trust in 

what’s being put forward. 

So I guess my question is: Do you work with the IG’s department 

to sort of reconcile some of these issues to try to get to a place 

where there is a stronger agreement between the two of you on 

these issues? 

Ms. HICKEY. We absolutely do, Congresswoman, all the time. We 

have a process by which we go in a back-and-forth way from an 

early draft of their thoughts and what they’re seeing. And sometimes we reverse our position and sometimes they reverse theirs. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. And do you agree—disagree—— 


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Ms. HICKEY. There have been a few times where I have not concurred on some of their comments. But, in general, we learn a lot 

from our IG and we value their input. 

I understand that you are—that we’re putting you in a bind. 

That’s why I’m going to go get an independent review by a standard which the world recognizes. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. I understand. Thank you. 

So, Ms. Halliday, do you—I mean, do you agree with what General Hickey just said? 

Ms. HALLIDAY. General Hickey is giving you a big-picture perspective from their view in all the initiatives they’ve worked. 

What I have given you is a very close inspection of certain initiatives that I do not feel have achieved what—that they were expected to achieve. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. But have you had conversations back and forth 

on these specific initiatives that you have—— 

Ms. HALLIDAY. Yes. 

Ms. BROWNLEY [continuing]. Made public? 

Ms. HALLIDAY. Yes. Yes, we do. We have monthly meetings with 

VBA leadership. I bring my teams in. We talk about the issues in 

our national audits. We talk about issues that we can talk about. 

There are some things as far as criminal investigations we may 

not touch on. But, normally, in the audit area, we have very good 

discussions. 

Recently, I feel that General Hickey has tried to say, ‘‘I want the 

information early’’ so that she can take corrective action. And I 

think, if you’ll look, the management advisory that I issued on the 

Philadelphia VRO was done after 2 days. 

My team, even though they only found 30 instances of manipulation of the date of the adjudicated claim, at that point, we knew 

we had a problem. 

And instead of waiting till we completed all the work, did all the 

samples of all the mail bins and everything else, I engaged General 

Hickey immediately so that corrective action could be taken. 

So I do think that there is a responsiveness that is better today 

than it was a couple years ago easily. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. Thank you. 

And, General Hickey, have you—with the new acting secretary 

and the new leadership, really, in the VA, but specifically the acting secretary—we’ve talked a lot about this—is—he believes that 

we’ve got to build back the trust and build it back one veteran at 

a time. 

So what directives has he given you with the VBA? And what 

have you done in terms of, you know, very short-term directives to 

your department and/or changes that you have made in the short 

term? 

We’ve talked a lot about short-term issues and longer-term 

issues, but I’m interested in what you have done differently in the 

short term. 

Ms. HICKEY. So thank you, Congressman. 

I will tell you three things. 

First, the acting secretary has directed that—how we put some 

best and brightest minds together to figure out if there are any 


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other vulnerabilities and the ways in which people can do 

workarounds. 

You all have used a different language around that, but we are 

doing that. We are putting that together so that we can look at it. 

We have already asked a small group of people to do some brainstorming in that respect to see if we have some places we need better, stronger controls. 

Second thing, I have directed a 100 percent facility and desk 

audit—and we even threw in the car—the government GSA cars— 

for making sure we had the full 9 yards for every piece of mail, document, anything that might be out there. So we are doing—and it’s 

been directed, and it’s a rapid-response requirement they must do. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. My time is up. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Runyon, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. RUNYON. Thank you, Chairman. General Hickey, I have a 

couple questions for you. 

Obviously, just to point out to my colleagues again, when we’re 

talking initiatives and workloads, I think Ms. Halliday’s conclusion 

of her oral statement says a lot to that. It’s literally maybe 10 sentences long and a lot of conflict in there. 

General Hickey, when we look at the 125 no-claims-pending initiative, what claims of VBA are exempt from that? 

Ms. HICKEY. So the focus is on the entire rating bundle. And the 

rating bundle claims are the ones that were described and prescribed in the year—fiscal year 2000, well before when I was here 

or many of the folks sitting in this room were part of this process. 

It was done under an entirely different process. We were measuring and reporting 350 different metrics, and it was driving you 

all nuts and driving veterans nuts as well. 

So there was a big effort back in fiscal year 2000 where they 

bundled them together, which is why you hear the term ‘‘rating 

bundle’’ and ‘‘non-rating bundle.’’ They put like things together. 

And so the 125 effort and goal, even back in 2005, before this 

former secretary was here, was put on the table, focused on rating 

bundle. 

So that’s what I tell you. Generally, these are claims that require 

a rating adjudicative decision. 

Mr. RUNYON. Do you have any idea—I get asked this all the time 

at home—how many claims that VBA deals with—don’t categorize 

it—do you hold? No category. How many claims do you hold? 

Ms. HICKEY. So, Congressman, I will ask you the question: Are 

you talking about the education claims we do or outside of this—— 

Mr. RUNYON. Everything—— 

Ms. HICKEY [continuing]. Or are you talking compensation and 

pension? 

Mr. RUNYON. Everything that you hold. I get asked that question 

all the time. I never have an answer. 

Ms. HICKEY. I can get you that number. But when we do 5 million education claims in 4.7 days, disbursing $42 billion to 1.2 million, we count—that’s work we’re doing. When we’re doing loan 

guarantees, which we’re doing record-high levels and rates for 

those as well. 


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Mr. RUNYON. Well, I raise the question because we sit here and 

talk about how none of these metrics add up. And I think the IG 

agrees with some of it. 

But we—we’ll look at the fully developed claims statistic—and 

it’s posted on the VBA administration’s reports Web site—as of 7/ 

12/14, that a fully developed claim took 148.6 days to complete. 

Now, if we—we sit here and we start imagining the massive 

workload that we have, are we ever going to get there when it’s 

taken beyond 125 to spit out a fully developed claim? 

Ms. HICKEY. So, Congressman, I have under my watch done 

some deeper dive analysis on our ability to do this. And I will tell 

you, as a simple description of how we will. 

We have done more than 300,000 claims in backlog in the last 

year. We don’t have that many left in backlog this year. We are at 

272,000, I think, today. That’s less than 300,000. If we did 300,000 

last year, by the dedicated men and women of VBA who are working hard every day, I think we can get there next year. 

And what I do know is this. We’re not just bringing the backlog 

down, we’re bringing the inventory down as well. And when you 

think about flow mechanics, when you’re bringing inventory down, 

you cycle faster on the ones you’ve got in inventory. 

So I believe we will. I think we have data that says we can. And 

I think veterans want us to. 

Mr. RUNYON. But then we’ll go to Ms. Ruell, who was testifying 

under oath that leadership through the fast letter was manipulating what was a backlog and what wasn’t. And this is the dilemma we’re in. 

Ms. HICKEY. I hear you, Congressman. And I heard Ms. Ruell as 

well. I heard her back when she first brought up the issue. I responded very quickly to it. And I will tell you I told her as she got 

up to leave the table, but shame on us for not telling her better. 

We have changed processes because of what she originally told 

me in that email. Fundamentally, we are moving pension into an 

advanced scanning operation away from a back-end scanning operation. Two of the pension management centers have already done 

that. And the last one was Philly, and it was scheduled to do it for 

early fall. 

So she has made a huge impact by raising that issue of that concern, and we have adjusted the process in VBA as a result. 

Mr. RUNYON. I think the one big process—and I think we all 

agree, because we’ve spent a lot of late nights sitting up here together. And we talk about this in the VA committee. I sit in that 

chair all the time. 

And we talk about stakeholders’ input. Your stakeholders are the 

people that were on that panel before you. And that really, really 

needs to be addressed. 

Ms. HICKEY. So, Congressman Runyon, I would absolutely agree. 

I will tell you what I do day to day. So I will also tell you I have 

a high degree of respect for Mr. Ron Robinson, who was sitting in 

my position right here a little while ago, to the point where I was 

one of the people, when I first showed up, he started emailing. 

And I started asking questions about what was going on in the 

regional office where people were not feeling cared for, not feeling 


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compassion, and not being treated very well, to the point I got on 

an airplane. I flew down there. 

I sat with him for a complete day, from 7:00 in the morning till 

way late in the afternoon, and I had the director at that time—regional office director sitting there with him. And I was going with 

them back and forth in conversation. 

As a result of that, that R.O. director was put on a management 

plan that required that R.O. director to take certain actions to improve what was going on in the R.O. And we tracked it hard. 

And when it did not improve—and I still heard from Mr. Robinson—I changed the leadership at that R.O. It now is led by a 

Bronze Star winner who led a team up and down the roads of 

Baghdad, avoiding IEDs, and brought all of her of troops home. 

And I will tell you I’ve been back to that R.O. Since, and the employees in the town hall stood up and said to me—multiples of 

them did—‘‘Thank you for bringing this new leader to us.’’ 

I think I’ve reacted right, and I appreciate what Mr. Robinson 

did in raising that issue to my attention. 

Mr. RUNYON. Thank the chairman. Yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Ms. Titus, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. TITUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, General Hickey, for being here and for coming 

to talk to me. And I know you’re taking a personal interest in the 

Reno office, and I very much appreciate that. Seems like every time 

an example is offered for the way things are not working, it’s the 

Reno office. 

I want just to get some good management in there. But I’ll make 

this—take this opportunity to make the pitch to move the office to 

Las Vegas, where most of the veterans are, and at the very least, 

when we get new management—and I hope that’s sooner rather 

than later—that you put that manager in the Las Vegas office. It 

will be a lot easier to recruit somebody to come take the job and 

live in Las Vegas, I believe, than in Reno. So please keep that in 

mind. 

Having said that, though, I would just ask Ms. Halliday: This— 

the VA believes that the whole problem of the found claims or the 

discovered claims is limited to a particular office, Philadelphia or 

wherever that might be. 

But we’ve seen through numerous hearings that sometimes, 

when a problem crops up in one regional office, it turns out pretty 

soon we find that it’s happening other places, too. 

Do you have any indication that that’s the case? Are you looking 

into it? Are you checking into places like Reno, where they’ve been 

under a lot of scrutiny to move things along so there might be an 

incentive for them to take some of these shortcuts? 

Ms. HALLIDAY. We do have allegations that the same conditions 

that have been identified up at the Philadelphia VRO are occurring 

at some of the other VROs. 

The issue here is now that General Hickey has revoked the fast 

letter. So as that information gets out, the corrective action from 

a national perspective is in place. 

We are still going to look at the allegations we have just received 

in the past month or so and really run them down to the ground 


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so we’re sure that we understand exactly why it happened and to 

what extent it’s affecting veterans because we want to make sure 

that data integrity is put back into the system for these date of 

claims that have been changed. 

One of the problems—I would like to say one other thing. The 

Philadelphia VRO did not report the transactions that fell under 

this fast letter to VBA headquarters. So it made it even more challenging to identify how many transactions there were. 

And my team is still up there looking, and they will probably be 

there for a couple more weeks before we even start to draw sound 

conclusions here. 

Ms. TITUS. If you don’t have whistleblowers from some of these 

offices, are you still going to go to places where there might be the 

potential there? 

Maybe, General Hickey, you want to address that. 

Ms. HICKEY. So, Congresswoman, let me just tell you the minute 

we knew that we had an issue in Philadelphia we immediately did 

a deep dive analysis and pulled up the data to see if there were 

any other data anomalies in the system. 

And we found and immediately sent the list to the IG that said, 

in the data analysis, we think there are some—I won’t say they’re 

doing something wrong because we don’t know that yet. 

But we found that data in some of them worth looking at. We 

forwarded that to the IG. They’ve asked us for the complete run of 

the complete data. We’ve provided that as well. 

But I would ask Mr. Murphy if he has a quick second to respond 

to you on this topic, too. 

Mr. MURPHY. We did an analysis against the percentage of found 

claims that were in the inventory versus the total inventory in the 

station so that we compensated for a little office, like a Reno, as 

opposed to a St. Petersburg in Florida. We didn’t just want to do 

a stack based on total volume. 

And we came out that anything that came too far off of the average was that—those top five regional offices, and that’s the data we 

forwarded to the IG 

And then, in order that we not be looked at as you’re going back 

and changing data in here, I pulled all of those claims and all the 

details of those claims first, then went out to the regional offices 

and said, ‘‘Now let’s go look at these claims and see if they were 

handled appropriately.’’ 

So I can go back and re-create what was there when the flag 

went up for what happened in Philadelphia. 

Ms. TITUS. Can you keep us posted on what you discover at the 

Reno office? 

Mr. MURPHY. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. HALLIDAY. We can. 

And I just want to say one thing about why we did the found 

claim. It was a pro-veteran position to take. And let me explain 

what a found claim is real quickly. 

15 years ago you may have come to us and said your leg hurt 

and you filed a claim and we granted you for your knee. Somewhere in the writing—handwriting documents you gave us you 

have mentioned your ankle hurt, but 15 years ago, whoever rated 

that claim didn’t notice or didn’t do anything about your ankle. 


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Now you come back because your knee is worse. And you came 

in 2 months ago or a month ago, and we’re starting to work your 

claim. And that VSR who’s sitting there going through that claim 

suddenly sees this comment from 15 years ago about your ankle. 

And they’re now in this position of, ‘‘Oh, my gosh. Now am I going 

to go do this really icky, sticky 15-year—I’m going to have this 15- 

year-old claim.’’ 

I wanted to remove the disincentive from our system to grab that 

ankle, give that veteran the effective date all the way back to when 

they first mentioned it rather than have any disincentive in the 

system to doing it and ignoring it. So that’s why we did the found 

claim process. 

Ms. TITUS. So even though the date of the claim was the new 

date of when the benefits were issued, they go back to the original 

date? 

Ms. HICKEY. All the way back to when they first mentioned in 

their handwritten note to us that their ankle hurt, too. 

Ms. TITUS. Thank you. 

Yield back, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Benishek, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Dr. BENISHEK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary Hickey, you mentioned you did an independent—you 

had an independent reviewer study your process? 

Ms. HICKEY. I had one years ago with IDA, and I’m repeating it 

again right now. 

Dr. BENISHEK. So who is that that’s doing the independent—— 

Ms. HICKEY. I cannot tell you what the name of the individuals 

are. We acquired them because they had some experience in doing 

this with health environments—workers’ comp, health environments in the outside industry. 

Dr. BENISHEK. You don’t know the name of the firm? 

Ms. HICKEY. I don’t. I’m sorry. But I can provide that to you. 

Dr. BENISHEK. Did they give you a report? 

Ms. HICKEY. They have not yet. They have given me some interim discussion. 

Dr. BENISHEK. Well, it seems as if you—you said you’ve had an 

independent review and they rated you better than what the IG is 

saying. 

Ms. HICKEY. Actually, we had an independent review by IDA 

years ago. We—this one, they’ve given me some independent comments, but I haven’t got a report yet. 

Dr. BENISHEK. So you don’t really have an independent evaluation yet. 

I’m kind of curious about this mail issue. Earlier you said that— 

or you implied that the mail was destroyed after it had been 

scanned, and that wasn’t the impression I got from Ms. Ruell’s testimony. 

She seemed as if to say that the mail was placed in a box because it was too complicated to understand. So that seems like a 

different story to me. 

I have a question I’d like to further go into a little bit. 

You know, in 2009, the Inspector General audit uncovered improper shredding of mail in several regional offices, and the VA 


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concurred with several of the IG recommendations back then. But 

here we are again 5 years later with the same sort of issue. 

So I guess I have a question. And this relates to many of the IG 

reports that I’ve followed up in my committee and my Subcommittee on Health as well, is that nobody seems to be responsible for following through with the IG reports. 

Because I never can get the name of the individual who’s responsible for complying with the IG report. Even when the VA concurs, 

it seems like there would be somebody who’s responsible for making that happen. And, yet, I can never get that happening—or find 

that person’s name. 

So did that occur in 2009? And why did you stop doing the—you 

know, why did you stop dealing with this—why are we still dealing 

with this mail issue 5 years later? 

Ms. HICKEY. So, Congressman, in 2008, well before there was 

even a records management officer—there is now. 

Actually, as a result of that 2008 effort, there is now in every 

single regional office a records management officer who has that 

responsibility. 

Dr. BENISHEK. He must not be doing a very good job if Ms. Ruell 

had to testify about those boxes and you had to react all of a sudden and do something about it, like it was an emergency. 

Ms. HICKEY. Congressman, I will—I can’t answer that question 

at this point. 

Dr. BENISHEK. Well, that’s the problem, you know, because of the 

fact—like with Mr. Robinson you mentioned, too, that he—he 

talked to you. You took it under your interest to solve his problem. 

Well, the problem is, Ms. Secretary, that you’ve got 20,000 people 

working for you. Is every one of them who has a problem going to 

come to you and then you’re going to solve that? 

I mean, this problem that Ms. Ruell spoke of, you know, a supervisor who has been firing people and is still there, you know, after 

apparently providing retribution to people trying to improve the 

system, you need to have a system where those people are removed 

and you need to make it stick. 

Because not everybody can reach you and have you intervene 

and solve their little problem. You need to have a—you need to 

have a management that can manage 20,000 people in an effective 

manner. 

Now, how are you going to do that? 

Ms. HICKEY. So, Congressman, we have several complaints that 

we forward to the IG that come directly from our leaders and our 

staff. 

They are raised by an employee, up a trusted chain of command. 

The chain of command raises the issue, and we forward it over. 

I will give you by example—and Ms. Halliday mentioned it 

today—the Baltimore Regional Office mail situation was raised by, 

through the chain of command. The IG was called by the chain of 

command and invited the IG to go and assess what was going on. 

We have that happen all the time. I know there are places—I am 

very sensitive to the comments I heard specifically by Ms. Ruell, 

but the others as well. 

We have to have an environment where our employees can—— 

Dr. BENISHEK. Are you going to do that? It’s not working now. 


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Ms. HICKEY. Congressman, it works in some places. It doesn’t 

work well in others. And where it does not work well, we will address that situation. 

Dr. BENISHEK. I’m out of time. 

But none of us have any belief that—unless something radically 

changes with the whole system, that there’s really going to be some 

change. 

I’m out of time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Kirkpatrick, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. KIRKPATRICK. Many of my constituents in Arizona Veterans 

Service Organizations believe that the focus on ending the VA 

claims backlog has incentivized some VA claim processors to provide zero percent disability ratings or low ratings in an attempt to 

quickly complete claims and reduce claims backlog numbers. 

Files from several veterans in my district and files that the Disabled Veterans of America gave my office suggest that some of 

these claims were improperly given a lower rating based on the evidence submitted with the claim. As the claims backlog numbers 

continue to decrease, we have seen an increase in the number of 

appeals by 18 percent. 

So my question, General Hickey, is: What is the VBA doing to 

ensure that claims are properly adjudicated the very first time? 

What mechanisms are in place to prevent examiners from rushing 

through claims and improperly awarding lower disability ratings? 

In other words, can you describe your quality assurance process? 

Ms. HICKEY. So I will start the discussion, and then I will ask 

Mr. Murphy, who has oversight for that for me, for all of VBA, to 

discuss it. 

I will tell you we have significantly ramped up our efforts in this 

area. As indicative—and I think even the GAO commented—there 

has been some extra effort that’s been put into this. 

We have now the following: We have now quality review team 

specialists that I took 600 people off the line doing claims—that’s 

how much I value giving the right answer to the veteran the first 

time—650 people that could have improved our backlog numbers 

faster. 

But I said no. It’s an and equation. We have to do them better. 

So there are now quality review team specialists in every single regional office. 

They, like their STAR counterparts, must take and pass the 

skills certification test to hold that position. That’s not an absolutely easy test to do and to pass, but they do. They are in the regional offices doing two things. 

One, they are doing something new for us called in-process reviews. It is, basically checking areas where we typically make mistakes and pulling and looking at them on a higher level frequency. 

And if I find it while the claim is in process, I’m going to come to 

you, as an employee, and not say ‘‘gotcha.’’ 

I’m going to come to you, as an employee, and say, ‘‘Let me show 

you what you did. If you fix it right now, it doesn’t count against 

your performance standard’’ so that we got out of the ‘‘gotcha’’ culture and got into a ‘‘help you’’ culture and a ‘‘train you’’ culture. 

We do 250,000 of those nationwide every year. 


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The second thing we did was those quality review teams do a 

five-employee poll at the end of the month for their claims to see 

what their overall individual quality is. 

The next thing we did was a fundamental change of our Challenge system. I thank this committee for the resources to do that. 

But we take and pull everybody in, just like basic training, when 

you become one of these individuals, and you go through an intense 

program to be trained on how you do it. 

The next thing—and thank you for the omnibus add on this. 

We have recently—and we’re doing it right now, less than 60 

miles that direction. But we have what we call SPARC training, 

which is employees identified either through volunteerism or people challenged or both—either their production or their quality or 

both. We are running them through a refresher program that specializes in helping them with problems they make. 

The special monthly compensation that the IG just discussed, is 

hard to do. We built tools into the VBMS to help do it. But we are 

also retraining out there with the people who have been challenged 

to do that. 

So any number of other things. And if there’s time, I’ll let Mr. 

Murphy add. If not, happy to come over in a full roundtable with 

you and lay out every part and piece of what we do in this area. 

Ms. KIRKPATRICK. I have about a minute left. Let me ask another 

question. 

The first panel suggested that using specialized case managers 

to review the claims might speed up the process. 

What’s your thought about that? 

Ms. HICKEY. I think that is exactly what we are doing in the segmented lanes. We did it in record-breaking—we got into a completely new organizational model as part of this transformation effort. 

We have the express lane. One or two medical conditions, not extraordinary complex. We have the special operations lane with really complex claims that require high-journey-level capability and experience. 

And then we have the core lane, which is sort of the same thing 

we do over and over again, but lots of medical conditions, just not 

in that special operations category. 

I think that is what we do well in terms of segmentation. 

I did hear and listen closely to the idea that some employees feel 

like they can’t pick up the phone and call a veteran and get a piece 

of information they need. 

I hope they’re watching right now and hearing me say not only 

can they, they should. I would love for them to engage in a conversation and get a piece of information they need to drive it all 

the way home. 

Ms. KIRKPATRICK. Thank you. 

My time has expired. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Huelskamp, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Dr. HUELSKAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

One thing—I want to follow up first on an issue from a couple 

years ago with Ms. Halliday in reference to the security—the VA 


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database. And we tend to have a lot hearings, but not as much follow-through as I would like. 

Any assessment today whether the VA has secured their database, as insecurities were revealed in that hearing? 

Ms. HALLIDAY. Are you talking about our Federal Information 

Security Act compliance? 

Dr. HUELSKAMP. You testified before this committee that the 

database of 20 million veterans and their families was—had significant potential to be hacked. And, of course, we had a whistleblower. 

Of course, the VA denied that occurred, the whistleblower. 

There’s a pattern here. I want to follow up on that hearing, I think, 

from last June. 

Ms. HALLIDAY. When we did our current review this year for 

2013, information security was still the most—the last standing 

material weakness in the VA. There are still problems. There are 

still many security vulnerabilities that need to be corrected. OINT, 

within VA, had put together a CRISP initiative to try and work 

some of these vulnerabilities. They—they improved last year, but 

our contractor still said that there were problems. 

There was not a formal process in place to really make sure that 

we didn’t have repeat findings from the year before. And the current audit is in progress for this year. 

Dr. HUELSKAMP. I look forward to seeing that. And I ask that 

question, Mr. Chairman and committee members. 

Because we had a lot of testimony and very concerning testimony 

about hacking. And the VA, again, denied that occurred, finally admitted what the whistleblower brought forward, and said, ‘‘We’re 

going to fix it.’’ 

And what I heard from you is, ‘‘We’re not for certain, but we 

think it’s not quite fixed yet.’’ 

Ms. HALLIDAY. It’s not. 

Dr. HUELSKAMP. It is not fixed yet. And we hear from Ms. Hickey, ‘‘We’re going to fix this one as well. We’re really going to get 

to that.’’ 

And I want to ask a question about—you brought outside this 

room a listing of your current disability claims backlog. 

Does that include every disability claim or only those that make 

the performance reports? 

Ms. HICKEY. They include, Congressman, all the ones that were 

decided in fiscal year 2000 as part of the rating bundle and then 

confirmed in fiscal year 2005 as part of the rating bundle. 

Dr. HUELSKAMP. What does it not include? This would suggest 

that all VA—— 

Ms. HICKEY. Congressman, it does not include non-rating work. 

That is not included in there, for which we are working hard on. 

Dr. HUELSKAMP. Are those disability claims? 

Ms. HICKEY. They are not. They are a byproduct. Once you get 

a disability claim decision, then you have the opportunity to apply 

for other kinds of benefits. 

Dr. HUELSKAMP. Now, we heard from Ms. Halliday today that 

this data may have been manipulated. That may be inaccurate. 

And you’re still—but do you still stand by this claim, even 

though it doesn’t include all your performance data, which I think 


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was why Mr. Soto lost his job, because he revealed that? Is that 

accurate? 

Ms. HICKEY. Congressman, it includes everything in the rating 

bundle. I can provide you a list that shows you we’ve done 44 percent more work since 2011 in the non-rating bundle. I left that out 

there as well. 

You can see that we are doing far more work than we have done 

over the years and we’re scheduled—— 

Dr. HUELSKAMP. And you also make a claim on accuracy. 

Remind me again how you determine independently whether it’s 

accurate or not. 

Ms. HICKEY. We do it now four different ways, as was described 

by the GAO. We do it claim-based, which is our historical way. We 

do it issue-based, which is the new way. 

Dr. HUELSKAMP. Is that independently verified or is that internal 

to the VA? 

Ms. HICKEY. Our process has been independently verified by IDA 

before. And in the IDA report, they—— 

Dr. HUELSKAMP. It is not an ISO 9001 certified—— 

Ms. HICKEY. I directed ISO 9000. And I’m sorry that I—I’ve said 

it a couple times, but maybe I didn’t say it clearly. 

Dr. HUELSKAMP. You said you were looking to receive certification. 

You’re not certified today, are you. 

Ms. HICKEY. No. I’m directing that we be certified under ISO 

9001. 

Dr. HUELSKAMP. Okay. There’s a long ways between certification 

and actually achieving that. You do know the difference, and I 

know the difference. You have not achieved ISO 9001 certification. 

Ms. HICKEY. I just made the decision last week to go after ISO 

9001 certification because I want to build confidence from our veterans—— 

Dr. HUELSKAMP. That is the only way that this committee is 

going to gain trust, is that if you independently verify your data. 

And every bit of data here is not—none of this is independently 

verified. It’s coming from internally to the VA. 

Am I wrong on that? Who has independently verified this claims 

data? 

Ms. HICKEY. So, Congressman, I—that is why I’m going to do 

what we’re going to do, because I want you to have confidence in 

it. 

Dr. HUELSKAMP. Okay. So there is no—I want this for the record. 

Is there independent verification of these backlog numbers, these 

claims work numbers, outside the VA or is that all internal? 

Ms. HICKEY. I’m not going to say it’s all internal. I don’t know 

the answer. I will take it for the record and find out if there are 

outside people, other than IDA, that have already done it. And I 

have another group that is on contract right now to give us an 

independent verification. 

Dr. HUELSKAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Kuster, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. KUSTER. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

And thank you very much to all of you for being with us tonight, 

tomorrow. 


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I wanted to get back to the focus on veterans and, in particular, 

the issue about the fully developed claims because this is something that we’ve heard a lot about from the VSOs. And I, for one, 

thought that we could have a great deal more confidence in this. 

We’ve heard testimony this evening from our initial panel that 

this has not been a particularly successful process. 

And I just wanted to see if we could start at this end of the table 

and get comment from all three parties here as to whether you feel 

that the fully developed claim process is helpful to getting the veterans the decision that they need. 

Mr. BERTONI. Starting with me? 

Ms. KUSTER. Yes. Thank you. 

Mr. BERTONI. I could say we were in on this early when we 

looked at init—2011, looked at the backlog initially. And fully developed claims were key to the transformation plan. 

The issue we have with that—conceptually, it made sense to sort 

of have this—this conceptual model to move more claims and serve 

more veterans in a way that was going to help the backlog. 

My issue, my concern, was that, when I looked at the numbers 

in the transformation plan, VBA was banking on doing a lot more 

in using that to break the backlog. 

When they—they were—at that time, they were at 4 percent. 

Their projection was to be at 20 percent. So they were make some 

pretty large assumptions that they were going to get from 4 percent to 20 percent in an effort to break the backlog. 

At that time, I didn’t think they were going to get there. I don’t 

know where they are in terms of percentages. But if they don’t, 

that’s a significant amount of claims that aren’t going to be processed and aren’t going to be applied towards breaking that backlog. 

It’s about 70,000 per year. 

Ms. KUSTER. Okay. Thank you. 

Ms. HICKEY. Congresswoman, we are at 40 percent today. Our 

VSOs out there, your State and County service officers out there, 

are really driving home this effort. So we are at 40 percent, which 

is well ahead of where we expected to be. 

And so I have got to tell you I’m extremely appreciative of how 

seriously all of our Veterans’ Service Organizations across the Nation are doing in this regard. 

Yes. Some of them—so, by the way, they still are done faster 

than the claims—we are doing not in a fully developed environment today. But we had been clearing out some old ones. So it’s 

hitting the average. 

But we are working them. They are part of the prioritization 

bundle. In fact, that’s how you get an early claim done in the current prioritization bundle. You submit it as a fully developed claim. 

We’re basically doing those, working them back from oldest to newest. 

Ms. KUSTER. And Ms. Halliday. 

Ms. HALLIDAY. We also thought it was a good idea. But we are 

going to be looking in this year’s protocol and our benefits inspections as to doing some testing there to see if it’s really hitting the 

mark or if it could be improved. 

Ms. KUSTER. Thank you. 


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I think it would be very helpful. And I know the VSOs definitely 

want to be a part of the solution and help the veterans. 

And I think that you can appreciate this is a bipartisan effort in 

this committee, which is very rare in this Congress right now, that 

we are all veterans-focused and want to get these responses as 

quickly as we can. 

The next question I have is with regard to communication with 

the veteran during the process of the claim pending. And what is 

your experience? 

I was a little disappointed in the first panel, the expression that 

it was difficult to communicate with veterans, that because of the 

pressures on the employees that were processing the claims and because of their performance metrics, they didn’t feel that they necessarily had time. 

And, yet, it seems to me, you know, that’s sort of a false positive 

because, if you don’t have time, you’re not going to get the answers 

you need to process the claim. 

So, again, let’s just start at that end, Ms. Halliday, if you would 

comment, and then General Hickey and—— 

Ms. HALLIDAY. I definitely feel communications directly with the 

veteran would help to make sure that you’re very clear on what 

evidence and what conditions are present so that you can process 

the claim tightly, you know, very quickly. 

Ms. KUSTER. Great. Okay. Thank you. 

General Hickey. 

Ms. HICKEY. So part of what I would say is we do that by also 

working with the VSOs. In fact, we highly, highly, encourage our 

veterans to work with a Veterans’ Service Organization. 

We know this is very complex. We know it’s tough. We do it 

every day. We really feel strongly. And we train to that. We teach 

it in mandatory TAP. 

We say, ‘‘Please use a Veterans’ Service Officer to help navigate 

this system,’’ a system that has been connected in law for many, 

many years and connected in process for many, many years. 

Ms. KUSTER. It’s complex. 

My time is up and I’m sorry to cut you off. But I’m being respectful to the chair at this late hour. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Coffman, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

As a Gulf War veteran, Secretary Hickey, I’ve got a question for 

you. 

After an April 2014 IOM report recommended using the term 

‘‘Gulf War illness,’’ you pushed back, instead favoring VA’s current 

terminology, ‘‘chronic multisymptom illness.’’ 

It was subsequently reported that the Department has DoDged 

references to ‘‘Gulf War illness’’ and research into the condition because officials fear a flood of new disability benefits claims and 

costly payouts, greatly complicating your highly publicized goal to 

eliminate the backlog of benefits claims by the end of 2015. 

This is confirmed by your December 2013 testimony before the 

Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, where you stated—and I 

quote—‘‘Every time we get—we get a new thing—you are right. I 

am telling you I will get to 2015 in 125 days except if I have a 


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large perpetration of something like we experienced in the Agent 

Orange environment, 260,000 claims in our inventory overnight in 

October 2010. That will kill us.’’ 

In response to IOM, VA stated that the chronic multisymptom 

illness technology was preferred because it could be experienced by 

veterans from multiple conflicts, including the current conflicts. 

However, I note that 38, CFR, section 3.317, VA’s regulation governing compensation for a disability due to undiagnosed, diagnosed, 

and medically unexplained chronic multisymptom illness, states 

specifically that it pertains to a ‘‘Persian Gulf veteran who exhibits 

objective indications of a qualifying chronic disability.’’ 

Further, I note that 38, CFR, section 3.2, VA’s regulation governing persons of war, provides that the Persian Gulf War period 

extends from August 2, 1990, through a future data to be prescribed by the President, meaning that, legally, there is no difference in presumptive eligibility for veterans of the current conflict. 

Given VA’s regulations cited above, can you further explain your 

comments on refusal to adopt the phrase ‘‘Gulf War illness.’’ 

Ms. HICKEY. Congressman Coffman, I did not refuse to adopt. I 

merely had a conversation. And my conversation was because I 

have concerns that we do not disenfranchise other veterans from 

other areas that may experience similar medical conditions that 

have been put into that category. 

Do we not think that veterans from World War II or Korea or 

even today’s wars have fibromyalgia? They just didn’t know what 

it was back then. But we do not think that they do? Do we not 

think that they weren’t exposed to some of the other things that 

have been lumped together in that bucket? 

Mine was not to say Gulf War may not be experiencing those 

conditions. My comment was to say other veterans from other eras 

might be as well. And is it fair to categorize that under one era 

of a veteran rather than under the conditions themselves that 

might apply to any veteran from any era. I didn’t want to disenfranchise any other veteran. 

Ms. COFFMAN. In a March 2013 hearing before the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Joseph Thompson of the National Academies testified that, in order to achieve the 2015 goal, ‘‘everything 

will have to go exactly according to plan.’’ 

He also noted that the department lacked any search capacity, 

in other words, VA could not accommodate the addition of new presumptive benefits. 

Based on these statements, are VBA’s 2015 goals restricting the 

Department’s ability to adequately assess veterans’ benefits needs? 

Ms. HICKEY. Congressman, absolutely not. If I had IOM come to 

me tomorrow and say there was a highly connected issue—and, 

frankly, they don’t really come to me. They come to the secretary 

or the acting secretary to say that. 

And if they said that, in those cases, that—there was a presumptive that should be declared, all bets are off and I’ll be sitting over 

here telling you that I cannot meet 125 98. 

And we will do the right thing by veterans that deserve the answers to those questions. And if not is a new presumptive, that is 


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a new presumptive. I won’t stop a new presumptive because that’s 

hurting veterans. I’m not here about doing that. 

I’m here about taking care of veterans. And, no, absolutely not. 

I would never try to prevent that from happening because that is 

just absolutely not in my DNA. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. O’Rourke, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

To Secretary Hickey, I want to thank you for the progress you’re 

making across the board and specifically at the Waco Regional Office in Texas, which serves the veterans that I represent in El 

Paso. 

We’ve seen wait times for first-time service-connected disability 

claims. You know, we’re at 470, moving much closer to our ultimate 

goal of 125. 

For the IDES process, which had soldiers in the Wounded Warrior transition unit languishing at Fort Bliss because of delays at 

VBA, we’re starting to make progress. 

And I share everyone else’s concerns that these—that this 

progress and these numbers be verified by independent third parties who can confirm that this progress is real. 

But from everything that we’re led to believe, things are moving 

in the right direction and at a pretty good clip. 

To Ms. Halliday—or, actually, before I leave Secretary Hickey, a 

lot of serious allegations raised in the previous panel by Ms. Ruell 

and Mr. Robinson and Mr. Soto. 

Can you provide answers to those that come back to this committee so that we could share them with the public? 

Ms. HICKEY. Yes, I can, Congressman. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Thank you. 

And to Ms. Halliday, one of the things you said in your opening 

comments that struck me was that some of the success may be 

compromised by data integrity issues. 

Anything that Secretary Hickey has said tonight that alleviates 

those concerns that you raised in your opening statement? 

Ms. HALLIDAY. No. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. One of the numbers that you cited in your opening statement was—and I didn’t catch the full statement; so, I’d 

like you to elaborate—32 percent of rating decisions were inaccurate. Those weren’t all rating decisions. That was within a certain category. 

I wanted to better understand that and the discrepancy against 

the 90 percent accuracy rating that we hear from VBA. 

Ms. HALLIDAY. Under our review of the special initiative to process rating claims pending over 2 years, we pulled a sample of 240 

rating decisions that included both final ratings and provisional 

ratings and found that 77 of those ratings had some inaccuracies. 

That’s where the 32 percent is coming from. It was focused on just 

this initiative. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Got you. 

Ms. HALLIDAY. General Hickey did agree to go back and review 

all the provisionals. So many of those we are very hopeful would 

be corrected as this process moves forward. 


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Ms. O’ROURKE. And also for Ms. Halliday and then for Mr. 

Bertoni, we’ve heard in El Paso that perhaps a consequence of this 

focus on first-time service-connected disability claims is a rise in 

appeals. 

Now, the Secretary has told us that the appeals—the rate of appeals has not changed over the last 10 or 20 years. But, you know, 

we’ve heard anecdotally, again, at our town hall meetings that we 

hold every month veterans whose appeals, when they sign in to the 

eBenefits, haven’t been touched. You can see when—the last time 

a ratings officer, or the appropriate title, has looked at one of those 

appeals. 

And, you know, veterans stood up at my town hall in April and 

said, ‘‘It’s been 2 years since anyone’s touched this claim.’’ That’s 

anecdote. But that’s also how I started to understand that we had 

a problem within VHA. 

Anything that you can tell me that would either confirm that we 

have a real problem there or, as the Secretary states, you know, 

that’s natural, given the number of first-time claims that we’re 

processing and they’re coming through at the same rate and we’re 

processing them apace? 

Ms. HALLIDAY. Our numbers—well, we had a key point of concern at the increased appeals inventory at the VROs. The workload 

has continued to grow at an alarming rate. 

We had 220,600, approximately, as of September 2011. And as of 

June 30th, 2014, we see 268,000, just shy of that, which is about 

an 18 percent increase. 

We see that there is a significant increase of 25 percent on the 

notices of disagreements waiting for appellate review. I think that 

that’s significant. It’s growing over time. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. And, Mr. Bertoni, I only have 10 seconds. I don’t 

know if you can quickly add to that. 

Mr. BERTONI. In our review of the backlogs in 2012, we did visit 

several locations. And there was concern and anecdotal statements 

among staff that the focus on the backlog, the front-end focus, did 

divert staff away from that back end and was one of the causes 

for—— 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Divert staff from appeals? 

Mr. BERTONI. From the appeals side. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. Chair, thanks. 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Westrup, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Dr. WESTRUP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Hickey, you know, we talk about independent reviews. 

And those are key in any business that you have, anything that 

you’re running. The question comes in what do you do with the information that you get. 

And you talk about getting certification with ISO 9001, which obviously would be a feather in the cap. But there’s also from that— 

I read something about ISO 9004 that makes recommendations on 

improving what you’re doing. 

So I guess the—the question I have is: With either method, independent review or outside review like that—like ISO 9001, what do 

we do with the information? How do we go ahead and institute improvements that make us better? 


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Ms. HICKEY. So, Congressman, I will tell you that at the heart 

and core of what I bring to the table, and there’s a negative side 

of it, which is a DNA that talks about process improvement. 

I don’t sit on anything. We don’t relax. We continue to look for 

ways to get better and to apply what we’ve gained and what we’ve 

learned. 

So, by example, we—and Mr. Murphy’s organization gathers data 

consistently on the number of errors we make and what we make 

them on, not much different than sometimes what the IG looks at 

in terms of the way they look for errors. 

We take and immediately turn—when we start seeing a trend 

line on a particular error where we’re seeing a rise in it, we turn 

that into training immediately. 

We turn that into conversations with our quality review teams 

and, in fact, tell them to start looking harder at those issues and 

to start to make improvements there as well. 

I’ve also mandated that we start doing more face-to-face in the 

morning—we call them huddles—at regional offices. 

Dr. WESTRUP. Are there obstructions in the system, though, that 

slow you down or prevent you from making improvements in the 

overall system? 

Ms. HICKEY. Certainly there are. I made mention of it, and I will 

tell you this is even more significant in the appeals process. 

And that is the appeals process looks akin—and you all will 

know this well—to the Tax Code that’s been wired together by law 

over many, many, many years, and it is hard to unwire it to make 

any process improvement in it. 

And so we struggle, frankly, with the appeals process in finding 

definitive major improvements to make in it. 

And when I don’t have an issue with law, I will sometimes hit 

a stakeholder-vested interest, as we did, for example, on something 

that should make sense to everyone, which is a standard form that 

we should have in the application for a benefit. 

We heard from our stakeholders. They had some concerns about 

that reference. And it’s still in rulemaking; so, I can’t talk about 

it. 

But I will tell you we’ve heard them and I’m hoping we will have, 

very early this fall, a solution that makes a difference to both. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. You talk about law and you talk about some 

blockades and you talk about trust. Congress is a body that doesn’t 

have the highest approval rating itself, and trust in the American 

people is sometimes absent there as well, not just within the agency that you’re working with. 

But I’d like to discuss your vision of oversight on the part of Congress, the OIG, GAO, and the VBA itself going forward. 

I mean, are there—everyone’s got a role. But are we actually accomplishing something within our role? In other words, everyone 

weighs in. But at the end of the day, are we getting something 

done? Are we making changes? 

Ms. HICKEY. If I stood from the veterans’ perspective, I would tell 

you that 200,000 veterans this year alone will get answers to 

claims at a higher quality rate than they have ever gotten before 

in the history of this organization. 


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So I think you all have made a difference. I think your staffs, 

when they come and visit us, sure, they put me on a little warning 

and a little heads-up and I get a little tighter in the way I look at 

things. When the IG tells me certain problems, then we look to see 

how we can apply solutions to fix it. 

Dr. WESTRUP. But do you feel you have access going in the other 

direction as well? You mentioned you’re sometimes bound by laws. 

So do feel you have access to come back to us and say, ‘‘Hey, can 

Congress enact some changes so that we can make this better? 

Here’s where I’m bound?’’ 

Ms. HICKEY. I understand what you’re saying, Congressman. 

I will tell you I will often times, before I take one step, come to 

you, find out what my stakeholders might think of my taking that 

direction. 

And often times, when I don’t come to you, it’s because my stakeholders have concerns about changing the law. They are my partners. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. I understand that. 

Ms. HICKEY. And I don’t want to bring you something for which 

they have little to no support. And I know you all well enough to 

know you’re not going to do anything if we don’t have the Veterans’ 

Service Organizations—— 

Dr. WENSTRUP. But I would hope you’d feel free to have a dialogue. 

Ms. HICKEY. Thank you. I do. And I appreciate that. 

Dr. WENSTRUP. Thank you. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Walz, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WALZ. Thank you, Chairman. 

Thank you all for coming here tonight. 

And I feel like I’ve reached an age, Ms. Halliday, where I say 

things like, ‘‘We go way back.’’ And I appreciate the work we’ve 

done. And the quality of work you’ve done consistently over the 

years has improved the quality of care for our veterans, and you 

and your staff should be proud of that. 

General Hickey, it’s—you’ve earned the gratitude of this Nation 

for what you’ve done in uniform and the work you’re trying to do. 

You knew when you took this job it was a hard time and it was 

a hard job, and that’s why you took it. It would have been easier 

to have retired after a groundbreaking career. And for that, I’m 

grateful. 

And you also know, like I know, is—that we’re part of organizations that we get judged on the organization over individual merit. 

And if you think you’ve got a tough job, we’ve got one to do, too. 

That’s okay. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. 

And that’s why I do bring up—and I do want to make note that 

this note, to me, is more than just a note in a bathroom. This is 

a tangible example of the cultural problems. 

And this note and the disrespect shown to these staffers—this 

was not an ignore the staffer. This was ignore the people of Southern Minnesota’s 1st District, ignore the people of the 8th District 

of Pennsylvania. 

And this attitude—I’m—they were doing exactly what I’ve sat 

here and encouraged them to do, go out and investigate for this 

committee so we could get data and prove it, be welcomed in there. 


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And I can tell you—imagine if you’re a Congressional staffer 

going out to find information. Imagine how intimidating it is to be 

an employee who tries to say what’s right. 

And you heard these folks come forward. And it’s just heartbreaking to me to hear folks who are trying to make it work to 

choose in there. So I know this troubled you. I know deeply. 

And I want to ask this question. You come from a successful career as a general officer in the United States Air Force. 

Did the Air Force work better than the VA? 

Ms. HICKEY. Congressman, every organization—every large organization, has those people who are all in, as I use the words with 

my employees, who do absolutely everything right to the absolute 

max of their ability. And every organization has people that don’t. 

And so you watch things that happened in my former beloved Air 

Force, and you’re watching things that happen occasionally in my 

current beloved VA. 

I love them both because of the missions they do and because of 

the great people who participate in them day in and day out, working their tails off to make a difference for this Nation. 

Mr. WALZ. And maybe—Ms. Halliday, maybe you, with the General, can together chime into this. 

This is not unusual in a large organization, for the disconnect between the 40,000-foot strategic vision and the granular level of 

somebody doing the work to have somewhat of a disconnect. 

But I would make the case that the lack of a national strategy 

and a clear mission up and down is causing us to see that. 

Do you see the disconnect when you do your work? 

Ms. HALLIDAY. We do see some disconnect with that. I think you 

have to have very clear policy guidance and I think some of the 

Fast letter guidance that has gone out has really hit the core values of some of the staff in the VAROs, and that’s why we’re getting 

all the allegations we’re getting today. I think you have to be very 

clear on your policy, you have to understand what the intended 

consequences are and the unintended consequences. You have to 

deal with both. 

I personally went up in Philadelphia to take a look at the issues 

up there, and when I met with the Deputy Under Secretary for 

benefits, they said they did recognize that a misapplication of the 

guidance was a risk and time and time again, my problem is, put 

in the controls if you recognize it’s a risk. And I didn’t see that, 

and I think—— 

Mr. WALZ. General Hickey has the responsibility. 

Ms. HALLIDAY [continuing]. We have to work very hard. 

Mr. WALZ. Does she have the power to make those changes, if 

you will? 

Ms. HALLIDAY. She has the power and is responsible to put the 

controls in place, and I think that’s where our oversight can help 

VBA the most. 

Mr. WALZ. Tonight I was fascinated by this, because, General 

Hickey, and I said again knowing you and knowing you want these 

changes and knowing how personal it is to you, you mentioned that 

Ms. Ruell’s suggestion came up and warranted change, and she 

didn’t know that and didn’t know it went down. That seems to me 

to be almost—why that wouldn’t happen, and I almost half faceVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:30 Apr 02, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00098 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Y:\89-379.TXT PAT

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tiously asked, did she get a bonus for making those changes? Because the issue here is you’ve got employees trying to improve the 

system, trying to make it, and there is such a disconnect there, 

that those things never connected. 

Ms. HICKEY. So, Congressman, everything we are doing today 

was an employee initiative. It was an employee who said segment 

the work, do it according to these ways. It was—— 

Mr. WALZ. It’s amazing how disenfranchised they felt, though 

and would you say—this is my last question. Was that panel an 

anomaly or do you think that’s a fair representation? 

Ms. HICKEY. Congressman, I would refrain from—because that 

would—to me that would feel like if I made a comment like that, 

that would feel like I was being disingenuous about the real feelings that they had, and I won’t do that to my employees. 

Mr. WALZ. Well, in all fairness to you, I am out there enough to 

say I would say that’s fairly typical. Just so you know, from my 

perspective, that the expressed concerns were fairly typical of what 

I hear out there, whether they’ve spoken out whistleblowing or just 

confiding on the side conversation. 

I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Jolly for 5 minutes. 

Mr. JOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Hickey, first, thank you for your service and incredible 

career, and I appreciate your clear dedication through your comments tonight. Frankly, I’ve got a soft spot for the KC-135, so I 

thank you for your career as well. But tonight you find yourself 

representing the VA. We can have as many oversight hearings as 

the day is long, but at the end of the day, short of major legislative 

changes, it’s up to the administration to address the issues. 

Did the leg affairs office review your written testimony tonight? 

Ms. HICKEY. Yes, they did, Congressman. 

Mr. JOLLY. Okay. 

Ms. HICKEY. They do all the time. 

Mr. JOLLY. So in your testimony, you say you appreciate the 

President’s involvement in improving the claims processing. What 

has the President done to show leadership lately on that issue? 

Ms. HICKEY. So, Congressman, the budgets start in VA, the 

budgets come to you all through the OMB process, through approval in those processes that exist there, and so from that perspective, absolutely. I will also tell you that the whole effort on 

fully developed claims was an effort to bring some focus to that. 

Every day I get up and I have to make decisions, I need to have 

good leadership in front of me, and—— 

Mr. JOLLY. I understand. 

Ms. HICKEY [continuing]. The President makes those—— 

Mr. JOLLY. Look, I appreciate that. And I’m saying this constructively. It’s not a gotcha question. 

We’re begging for leadership, everybody’s begging for leadership 

and I’ll tell you, I think the political establishment is always too 

late to identify a crisis and it’s too quick to declare it resolved, and 

I’m afraid that the President of the United States it’s going to do 

that in this instance, which is why I ask. 

You also mentioned in your oral testimony that you would appreciate the support for legislative solutions by this body. Your answer 


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to Mr. Roe was a fully funded IT budget. Would that be the number one priority or are there other things we should consider as a 

Congress who’s responsible for doing our job as well? 

Ms. HICKEY. So, Congressman, one of the things that I would tell 

you first of all, yes, is a fully funded IT budget, and not just at one 

year, but all years, a fully funded IT budget. We are in a world 

that requires that in order to create real efficiency and effectiveness. 

And the second thing I would say is, and I thank the chairman 

for this. The chairman put together a round table that brought us 

all together to have discussions about appeals, and in that, he 

brought forth the VSOs and he brought us and he brought the 

Board of Veterans Appeals and other stakeholders to the table, so 

I thank the chairman for that effort. 

I will tell you that what’s resulted in that is, frankly, the Disabled American Veteran leadership sat down and looked at me and 

said, listen, if you’re having a hard time moving something forward, why don’t you let us take the leadership with the other VSOs 

and we’ll move forward. My daddy always said, there’s no limit to 

the amount of work you can do if you don’t care who takes credit. 

I don’t care who takes credit, but we’ve got to do something about 

the appeals process. 

Mr. JOLLY. So do we need legislative solutions that this body 

needs to enact? And I have to ask you very quickly, because I 

have—— 

Ms. HICKEY. I believe we do, and I would like for DAV to take 

the leadership on having that discussion with you. 

Mr. JOLLY. Okay. My next question is related to Mr. Soto. I am 

in an interesting position tonight, because Mr. Soto works for a regional office that’s in my district, and he essentially has now 

claimed that there’s an office in my district that has retaliated 

against him. I’m going to meet with him in the morning and I will 

get a privacy release. 

I understand tonight you cannot discuss the circumstances of his 

case, but I think every member, and I know I receive them often, 

receive complaints from employees, and we try to handle them very 

judiciously. We understand that there are two sides to every story, 

and I understand that in this situation as well, but I cannot go to 

his supervisor and expect an impartial answer. So once I receive 

that privacy release tomorrow, I’m going to come to you and to leg 

affairs and I’m going to ask for an explanation and I hope that the 

VA is found to be in the right. I’ll be honest. I don’t sit up here 

ever hoping that the VA is found to be in the wrong. I hope it’s 

in the right—— 

Ms. HICKEY. Thank you, Congressman. 

Mr. JOLLY [continuing]. But I need an answer, because I can tell 

you this, every member of Local 1594 is going to call my office, not 

the VA, and they’re going to ask what I’m doing in my capacity. 

So I’m sharing that with you on the record tonight simply to let 

you know how serious it is; not that I would expect you to have 

an answer tonight about Mr. Soto’s case, but to tell you that I will 

be bringing that to you and to leg affairs very soon, and I need an 

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Ms. HICKEY. And, Congressman, I’ll provide it with the documentation that you told me that you will provide. 

Mr. JOLLY. And if it’s not timely provided, I will continue to come 

each week. 

Ms. HICKEY. I will work to make sure it’s timely provided, Congressman. 

Mr. JOLLY. Okay. Otherwise, I will come to your office, which I 

have recently done with another agency, and it’s very effective 

when a member of Congress sits in the lobby of an administration 

office. So I appreciate your understanding. Thank you. 

Ms. HICKEY. Thank you, Congressman. 

Mr. JOLLY. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Fitzpatrick for 5 minutes. 

Mr. FITZPATRICK. Thank you, Chairman. 

Ms. Halliday, I just want to follow up on some questions that Mr. 

Takano was asking about performance measures and evaluations 

and how long that’s actually been going on within the Federal Government and you indicated that the Federal Government over the 

last several years has actually been doing better in providing bonuses pursuant to performance objectives, goals and objectives set 

at the beginning of the year and evaluation at the end. You weren’t 

talking about the VA, were you? Were you talking about other Federal agencies? 

Ms. HALLIDAY. I was talking across Federal Government. There 

had been a change to really look at performance in terms of results, 

which is different than in the past. You know, years ago it was just 

if you had a good attitude, if you were trying hard, almost like a 

report card in school. 

But I really think that the government, Federal Governmentwide and OPM has made a strong effort to judge performance on 

results and it’s very important. You could have an outstanding employee in one year, and that employee could be a fully satisfied person in the next year if they don’t produce the results that are defined in their performance plan. I think that there’s been a general 

improvement in that. 

Mr. FITZPATRICK. And where is the VA going wrong in that? 

Ms. HALLIDAY. I don’t have specific information. I know they had 

problems with their certification of their performance plan, I believe it was last year, and that a lot of the ratings were actually 

reassessed after the first and second level review to make sure that 

they were tied to results. 

I think that right now that there’s a strong feeling that senior 

executives are getting bonuses for underperforming programs. I 

think you have to look very carefully at that, because in some 

cases, you’re having a senior person come in. 

I’ll use General Hickey as an example. She took over a tough assignment. You may not be able to turn that assignment immediately into a top performing organization, but you can move it forward with each step and I think sometimes you have a leader that 

actually can produce results, but it isn’t as immediate as other people want, and you have to recognize that and incentivize it. 

Mr. FITZPATRICK. General Hickey, I also want to thank you for 

your incredible service to our Nation, but as Ms. Halliday said, 

you’ve taken on a very tough job here at the VA. You were here 


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earlier when Kristen Ruell was giving the testimony about flawed 

data and duplicate payments within the VA. She was claiming 

there were duplicate payments. Her managers at the Philadelphia 

office, regional office, were claiming that wasn’t the case. We wrote, 

you responded. 

Would you say now a couple years later, that she was more correct than the managers at the Philadelphia VA office on that question? 

Ms. HICKEY. So, Congressman, there are duplicate payments and 

I can tell you that we do about 10,000 pension claims a month, and 

about 64 of them are duplicate payments. 

Mr. FITZPATRICK. But she was calling out a problem that she 

saw. You know, she deals with these issues every day, and she was 

identifying a problem that she did not think upper management 

was concerned about or understood or was even involved in. 

Ms. HICKEY. Congressman, I can tell you that the management 

at the office did raise the issue to us and did have discussion with 

the pension business line leadership. So I think there has been conversation, but I appreciate the situation that she found herself. 

Mr. FITZPATRICK. And I appreciate that, you know, you have indicated, you know, to this committee and members of Congress 

that your door’s open and you want transparency and you indicated 

that it isn’t acceptable to you that others don’t share that same 

commitment. 

You know, with respect to this memo that was provided to us 

midway through the hearing, there’s been a lot of talk about the 

staffers’ names that are on there, and that is very, very concerning, 

because of our constitutional obligation to oversight, but there are 

two names at the top of the memo with a circle around it, Cease 

and Ruell, not committee staffers, but employees of the VA, both 

whistleblowers, I believe, Ryan Cease, who was here today in the 

audience, and Kristen Ruell and I was wondering, perhaps Ms. 

Rubens, you can indicate for us, why is their name—they knew 

nothing about this meeting. They weren’t involved in the meeting, 

they weren’t invited in the meeting. Why is it that the two whistleblowers, who were doing, as the Secretary indicated, you know, 

changed processes, made a huge impact, improved the agency in 

the Philadelphia office, why are these people being singled out? 

They should be applauded, but they’re being denigrated, they’re 

being singled out and they’re being made an example of. Why is 

their name even on this memo, if you know? 

Ms. RUBENS. Congressman, thank you. I will tell you that when 

I got the call that the committee staff was on the way, I conveyed 

to the folks in the Philadelphia Regional Office a list of things that 

had been described to me to make available, parking and a room 

to meet in and claims files. And I said, I would expect they may 

want to meet with the IG, who was still on station—— 

Mr. FITZPATRICK. Why is Kristen Ruell’s name on this document? 

Ms. RUBENS. I also indicated to the staff that I thought, in addition speaking to the IG, that the committee staff may want to 

speak to those whistleblowers. I didn’t know who they were and did 

not know if they were going to be available that day, and suggested 

that we needed to make sure, if they were requested, that we make 

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Mr. FITZPATRICK. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Meehan for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Ms. Rubens, I’m not sure I understand that answer. You said you didn’t know who they were, and yet their 

names are on the top. 

Ms. RUBENS. Sir, the Acting Director at the time was familiar 

with the employees and wrote down their names to make sure that 

if they were in the office that day and wanted to be addressed by 

the committee staff, that they be made available. 

Mr. MEEHAN. You had the Philadelphia office. You’ve heard testimony that there are 96 white boxes of essential return mail and 

eight small cabinets of military mail, some of which were holding 

claims that had been existing for as much as 3 years. Were there, 

in fact, 96 white boxes and eight small cabinets with that kind of 

mail? 

Ms. RUBENS. Sir, I was just appointed to the Director’s position 

in Philadelphia. My understanding from the report is when that 

was initially raised, the Under Secretary asked the pension fiduciary service director to send a staff up there and I would need to 

review the final report to identify—— 

Mr. MEEHAN. This was raised in February of 2012. 

Ms. RUBENS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MEEHAN. It’s now 2014. 

Ms. RUBENS. Yes, sir. And there is a report and I apologize—— 

Mr. MEEHAN. Where are those boxes? What happened to those 

boxes? 

Ms. RUBENS. My understanding is that those were boxes of mail 

that needed to be scanned into the system, that those claims had 

been processed and I believe that was the finding from the pension 

and fiduciary service. 

Mr. MEEHAN. That is not what was explained. What it said was 

they were important pieces of mail, potentially. Do you know how 

many there were? 

Ms. RUBENS. No, sir, I don’t. 

Mr. MEEHAN. So there were 26 boxes, and you have no idea how 

many claims could have been associated with those boxes? 

Ms. RUBENS. My understanding of those—the mail in those 

boxes, were that those claims had already been worked and—— 

Mr. MEEHAN. Well, that’s not the testimony. The testimony was 

they were claims that had not been sufficiently identified, and 

therefore, they were incomplete and as a result of their incompleteness, those veterans who had made those claims were not being 

communicated with, some of whom were not being communicated 

with for months and even years with respect to the claims that 

they were making. 

Ms. RUBENS. I will be happy, upon arrival at the regional office, 

to investigate further and ensure that the full answer is provided. 

Mr. MEEHAN. What happened to those 96 boxes of documents? 

We have heard testimony that they may have been shredded. 

Ms. RUBENS. Sir, my understanding is that those were boxes of 

mail that needed to be scanned into our virtual VA system, that 

the regional office has continued to make progress in that regard 

to ensure those documents on claims that have been completed are 

also part of the electronic virtual VA system. 


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Mr. MEEHAN. General, do you have—do you know more about 

this? 

Ms. HICKEY. Congressman, I believe the number, if I’m recollecting correctly, and I’ll ask the IG to correct me 100 percent if 

I’m wrong, is 68 boxes, and I believe it was documents that were 

in paper that—— 

Mr. MEEHAN. It’s 96. This is the document. 96. 

Ms. HICKEY. Is that what it was? 

Ms. HALLIDAY. We think it’s a different number that Kristen 

Ruell has identified. In our review—— 

Mr. MEEHAN. But is there a different set of boxes? So there’s 

Triage A. Is there Triage B? 

Ms. HALLIDAY. When we went into the Philadelphia VARO, we 

identified 68 mail bins full of claims and associated—— 

Mr. MEEHAN. Are they different than the 96 other mail bins? 

Ms. HALLIDAY. I can’t answer that. 

Mr. MEEHAN. So we might have over 150 mail bins of unresponsive—on which we don’t know how many hundreds of, potentially 

thousands of pieces of veterans’ correspondence could be included 

within them? 

Ms. HICKEY. So, Congressman, the mail has been used to do the 

claim already. The claim has been completed. It’s—— 

Mr. MEEHAN. No, General, it has not been completed. The testimony we received is that, that document was not able to be appropriately—it was either return mail or other kinds of correspondence in which identifiers required further follow-up to be able to 

identify. Am I missing something? 

Ms. HICKEY. Congressman, I will take and go deeply into this 

and come back to you personally and meet with you and bring whoever I need to explain it so that it can meet your needs and your 

understanding so we ensure that you are well informed. 

Mr. MEEHAN. And I need to know how many there were, how 

many bins, and how many of these, if I’m hearing testimony, that 

there could be as many as 150 separate bins. This is not ambiguous. This is clear—— 

Ms. HICKEY. Congressman, I’ll look into it and get back to you 

and make sure that we bring people capable of explaining to you 

what work is done. In fact, I would invite—if you have the opportunity, I know you’re very busy, I would invite you to actually come 

up to the regional office where we do this work and—— 

Mr. MEEHAN. General, I will be there. I’ve been in Horsham and 

I have been in the Philadelphia hospital as well. We didn’t expect 

that we were having these troubles on this side of the aisle as well, 

too, with benefits, and I will be there. 

Ms. HICKEY. Great. I will make those arrangements, Congressman. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you, General. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Meehan, it’s my understanding that Ms. 

Ruell talked about the 92 boxes some 2 years ago, and the 68 boxes 

that we’re talking about are boxes that were currently discovered. 

Mr. LaMalfa, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LAMALFA. Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, and colleagues 

on the committee. 


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First, what Mr. Jolly had mentioned a few minutes ago to General Hickey: We hear the same concerns on people that have 

stepped forward to provide information in the Oakland office that 

have been retaliated against or interviewed or practically harassed 

about other issues when they thought they were coming forward to 

help, instead they’re hauled in for review hearings on things that 

they actually were helping on, instead or made to feel like they’re 

in trouble over that. So I would like to have the opportunity to approach you later, as Mr. Jolly mentioned, with some of these folks, 

because they’ve been retaliated against, and I think one is even on 

at least suspension or maybe been let go. So I would like to have 

that opportunity. Okay? 

Ms. HICKEY. That’s fine. 

Mr. LAMALFA. And then as well when we talk about the bonuses, 

you know, I think you reward the people that are grinding out the 

work at the ground level, making veterans’ claims be finished and 

finished accurately and with good quality. That’s what we’re talking about bonuses, especially catching up on the backlog. 

When you start getting to mid level management or the top level 

executive management, there’s a little less justification when we’re 

talking about these backlogs, these, you know, veterans living in 

their car because they can’t get an answer back or waiting years 

and years and years, or hearing about 96 boxes or 56 or 58 or 

14,000 files in Oakland, California. You know, the captain of the 

ship goes with the ship, and if the ship goes down, the captain goes 

down with the ship. 

So at the upper level, I think it’s highly inappropriate for veterans that are living in their car or contemplating suicide even, 

when we’re seeing top level people receiving bonuses. So I would 

like to consult with you as well on who’s receiving them at the top 

level and why and how we justify that, and I’d like to see that reformed as we’ve done legislatively a couple efforts to limit that 

around here. So, and that’s just—again, that’s a small part of the 

problem, but it’s big in the eyes of the people. 

Ms. HICKEY. And, Congressman, I did not give any bonuses to 

any VBA executives at the height of the backlog in 2012. 

Mr. LAMALFA. Well, they call them different things, and that’s to 

kind of give us the—— 

Ms. HICKEY. They got basic salary. They got no bonuses. 

Mr. LAMALFA. We’ll investigate that more later. 

Now for other reference, how many claims are currently pending 

at the Board of Appeals? 

Ms. HICKEY. I have appeals at the Board of Veterans Appeals, 

but because they’ve already been—claims decisions have already 

been made, 72 percent of those are already being paid. 

Mr. LAMALFA. I mean a raw number. How many are—how many 

have been appealed? 

Ms. HICKEY. I can get that for you in just a second, sir. I don’t 

have off the top of my head. 

Mr. LAMALFA. We don’t have a lot of time, so maybe a general 

number. 

Ms. HICKEY. I’ll flip quickly. Right now I have 276,000 appeals— 

things that the Board of Appeals at the board—— 

Mr. LAMALFA. 270—— 


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Ms. HICKEY. Not at the Board of Veterans Appeals; in the whole 

end-to-end process. That includes VBAs portion, BVAs portion, 

VSOs portion, because they have a chance or opportunity to do 

things, and it does not include the court. 

Mr. LAMALFA. Whatever it is, that’s a huge number. How long 

do you expect for them to grind through that with veterans who 

have already waited years in many cases to get through the first 

point, and then to find out that their case has been tossed and 

pushed back to the Veterans Board of Appeals? 

Ms. HICKEY. So, Congressman, I’m not going to blow any smoke 

on this. We need a better way to do this process, this appeals process. It is not—we are not doing the best we can do by veterans in 

this appeals process. I can tell you we are—— 

Mr. LAMALFA. Because 97 percent of them get remanded back, 

is my understanding, to the regional office once again, and so it’s 

time lost for veterans—— 

Ms. HICKEY. It is—— 

Mr. LAMALFA [continuing]. Big time, especially when they’re in 

a bad way. 

Ms. HICKEY. First of all, VBA’s part of this is to do three things. 

Those three things that we do, we have done 25 percent more than 

we did 4 years ago, but I will tell you this, the remand is not necessarily because we made a wrong decision. The remand can be because the veteran came in in a very open process that never ends 

and brought in a brand-new thing that didn’t exist at the time of 

the initial decision. 

Mr. LAMALFA. And additional information is a good thing—— 

Ms. HICKEY. It is. 

Mr. LAMALFA [continuing]. But it shouldn’t have been in the appeal board probably to begin with because of bad decisions made 

at the local level. 

Ms. HICKEY. It should be a new claim. There should be a claim 

for increase or a new claim. I agree with that. 

Mr. LAMALFA. And there’s some funny business, as Mr. Arronte 

kind of alluded to, with what’s a new claim, what’s an old claim 

on the date. We don’t believe that the dates are still being maintained back to the—we’re getting information on that, that once it 

becomes a new claim, that it’s hard to go backwards, like on the 

ankle example you had, forward. 

Ms. HICKEY. We can do that for you, Congressman, and we are 

working on that right now. I can tell you those claims, the full complete body of those claims, 14,000 of those, 10,000 of which we were 

able to grant on provisionals, that we would not have been able to 

take care of those 10,000 veterans the way we did by doing that 

provisional process. That said, I understand, so that’s why we are 

doing a 100 percent review—— 

Mr. LAMALFA. Thank you. 

Ms. HICKEY [continuing]. Of them. 

Mr. LAMALFA. Thank you. 

Ms. Rubens, in the Oakland office, 14,000 claims were found 

stored in cabinets back in 2012. You had visited that office and discovered these files were actionable; not just stored, what have you, 

these were actionable claims that needed to be taken care. They 

dated back to the early 1990’s, and you directed the office to procVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:30 Apr 02, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00106 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Y:\89-379.TXT PAT

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ess these claims immediately, yet we find until very recently, they 

hadn’t hardly even been moved. 

So what was your follow-up on seeing to those files, those claims 

that were stored in the cabinets somewhere dating back to the 

1990’s? 

Ms. RUBENS. Sir, in fact, in 2012 when we identified the volume 

of work that needed to be addressed in the Oakland Regional Office, there were a number of steps undertaken, to include a large 

number of claims to be brokered so that they would get immediate 

attention by some of our highest performing offices. We also provided many help teams to come in to Oakland to help to train 

them, to identify the system issues and to ensure that they continued to work those claims, oldest claims first. 

Mr. LAMALFA. We know that some of those are still not done, we 

know some of them are stashed and still not completed, so the—— 

Mr. Chairman, I’ll yield back. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Lamalfa. 

Thank you to the members, thank you to the witnesses, both the 

first and the second panel. 

I think, Ms. Hickey, the concern that we have is that the American public, when you say you have cut the backlog in half, they 

think that half the veterans have gotten their disability, but that’s 

not true, because the Veterans Board of Appeals is going through 

their process, there are other machinations that are being handled. 

So, what we’re trying to do is get to the bottom of how many veterans are actually receiving a check for their disability claim, not 

how many you have moved out of the VA, because we know that 

you don’t count them when they go to the court. Is that true? 

Ms. HICKEY. Congress—or chairman—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes or no. 

Ms. HICKEY [continuing]. We have three different processes. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes or No? No, ma’am. Yes or no. When you goes 

to the Veteran Court of Appeals, it goes—— 

Ms. HICKEY. The Veteran Court of Appeals is not counted in any 

VA metric. It’s not a VA organization. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, but understand there are still veterans—— 

Ms. HICKEY. Absolutely—— 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. That are—— 

Ms. HICKEY. Un—— 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. That are—— 

Ms. HICKEY. Totally agree with you on that. 

The CHAIRMAN. So it is true to tell the American people that the 

backlog that veterans are now experiencing is still there? 

Ms. HICKEY. Congressman or, Chairman. I am so sorry. It’s late 

and I’m getting a little flustered with my words, so forgive me, 

please. 

Chairman, the backlog is of rating claims. That has been the 

commitment—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. 

Ms. HICKEY [continuing]. From the beginning. 

The CHAIRMAN. I got that. I got that. 

Ms. HICKEY. That group—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Ma’am, will you—— 

Ms. HICKEY [continuing]. Has been reduced. 


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The CHAIRMAN. Will you please admit, though, that there are 

still veterans waiting for their disability claims, because they have 

gone to the court. 

Ms. HICKEY. I will admit, Chairman, that there are veterans 

waiting on particular decisions on an initial claim, which we are 

paying, 72 percent of everybody in the appeals process is already 

getting resources from VA for any number of medical issues they 

have claimed. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. I apologize members. I thought would be 

an easy yes or no answer, but obviously it wasn’t. 

And I would ask unanimous consent that all members would 

have 5 legislative days with which to revise and extend their remarks. Without objection, so ordered. 

This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:57 a.m., the committee was adjourned.] 


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APPENDIX 

Prepared Statement of Jeff Miller, Chairman 

Good evening. I welcome everyone to tonight’s hearing. 

We will review the Veterans Benefits Administration’s 2015 goals for disability 

benefits claims processing as well as the viability of those targets, which, the 

former-secretary established several years ago at one hundred and twenty five (125) 

days to complete, and ninety-eight percent (98%) claims-based accuracy. 

We are going to delve into the actions that VBA has taken in its singular focus 

to declare victory on disability claims in 2015, and we will endeavor to determine 

what price is being paid by veterans, by employees—the human capital of the regional offices—and by the American taxpayers. 

We have spent significant time on the Veterans Health Administration in recent 

weeks, and have exposed the rampant corruption and dishonesty, the bullying and 

retaliation, the corrosive culture, and the work-place fear that has flourished within 

that administration. 

Now, we look to VBA and seek answers on its part in creating the same, the very 

same, environment within its ranks. I received correspondence from a VBA employee, who is with us tonight, who wrote: 

I quote, ‘‘here are excerpts from the report by the white house deputy chief of 

staff, Rob Nabors,’’ detailing, one: the VHA’s fourteen day scheduling standard is 

arbitrary; two: the VHA needs to be restructured, it lacks transparency or accountability in management; and, three: a corrosive culture has led to personnel problems; highlighting poor management, distrust between VA employees and management, and a history of retaliation toward employees raising issues. 

The employee then stated in the letter, quote ‘‘if ‘VHA’ is replaced by ‘VBA’ and 

‘14 days’ is replaced by ‘zero claims over one-hundred and twenty five (125) days 

and ninety-eight percent (98%) accuracy,’ these excerpts from the report apply 

equally to the VBA.’’ End quote. 

To determine the scope of this statement, at the end of last week, the committee 

asked AFGE to inquire whether employees nationally agreed, or disagreed, with the 

sentiment . . . and, in less than two days, fast responses were received from eighteen regional offices. 

Not one RO employee responded in disagreement. In fact, sixteen ROs agreed, unequivocally. Let that sink in—VBA is still running, guns blazing, on this questionable path, without a real plan, without real change . . . 

Let’s begin tonight by reminding everyone again of VBA’s real mission, quote, ‘‘to 

provide benefits and services to veterans and their families in a responsive, timely, 

and compassionate manner.’’ 

You have seen the perverse consequences of the fixed-metric goals within the Veterans Health Administration . . . tonight we look at VBA’s targets, and we will 

hear what is being done to push claims out the door, at any cost. 

One hundred and twenty five (125) days and ninety eight percent (98%) claimsbased accuracy would be a laudable goal, if it were at all realistic. Weeks before 

tonight’s hearing, we asked VBA to provide this committee information on the research and analysis that was conducted prior to setting this goal, as well as information on performance standards. 

VBA declined to provide timely and complete response, and, in fact, emailed just 

hours before this hearing. The purported responses fail to fully answer the questions 

asked, which we will discuss again later. 

The VBA’s 2015 goals were outcomes directed by the then-Secretary of Veterans 

Affairs, to make progress. They were a call to action. However well-intentioned, they 

have now become a distraction from accomplishing true progress. 

Employees have been working for a year on 20-hour-per-month mandatory overtime schedule, with no end in sight. In fact, we know that VBA has not ruled out 

actually increasing the 20-hour overtime mandate. 

We will hear from GAO later about how seventy-five percent (75%) of the regional 

offices they surveyed have agreements with the local unions that all veterans’ disability claims’ work done on this candle-burning overtime shall be exempt from 

quality review. 

I look forward to hearing from VBA on how that is being sold as a ‘‘veteran friendly’’ practice . . . Essentially, it’s the equivalent of saying, ‘‘just make a decision and 

we’ll hope the veteran doesn’t appeal.’’ 

Chronic incidence of unchecked, oppressive, and vindictive management fester 

within many of the regional offices, and the honest, expert input of VBA employees 

has been silenced, ignored, and, at times, punished. 


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I am told that the performance requirements on ‘‘production’’ and ‘‘accuracy’’ have 

been weaponized, to keep employees in check. To what end? It is certainly not in 

the name of service to the veteran. 

It is, instead, to create an appearance of success—just as VHA attempted to do, 

by cooking the books on scheduling times and, notifications involving disease. 

VA OIG will testify to the potential of over $1.3 billion dollars of improper payments. 

The oldest claims initiative, a push that required all claims that were two years 

old, or older, to be rated within sixty days, introduced a scheme called the ‘‘provisional rating.’’ This was another hard and fast deadline dictated by central office, 

and VBA promised, ‘‘don’t worry, we’ll get them done right . . . ’’ 

‘‘They won’t be going out the door without service treatment records, without medical exams, if necessary.’’ What was found within the Regional Office? 

Guidance that read, I quote, ‘‘a new VA exam request will have a negative impact 

on our ability to meet the goal that has been mandated by our leadership.’’ End 

quote. 

So, VBA employees were directed to move forward with the evidence of file . . . 

even if a medical exam was necessary to decide these aging claims. 

Contained in the guidance, I quote, ‘‘I understand that this may be difficult to do 

and may appear to go against the values of how we do work.’’ 

‘‘I want to assure you that . . and, here it is typed in bold face, ‘‘there will be 

no negative consequences for you, the employees, as a result of following this guidance. The only possible negative consequences are those that exist if we fail to meet 

our goals for this project, and for any actions that keep us from doing so.’’ End 

quote. 

VA OIG’s report, issued earlier today, found that regional office staff incorrectly 

processed eighty-three percent (83%) of the provisional rating decisions reviewed. 

Who is paying the price for VBA’s self-defined ‘‘success? ’’ There are the roughly 

two-hundred and eighty thousand (280,000) veterans languishing in three, four, five 

years of appellate backlog . . . and the nearly two-hundred and forty thousand 

(240,000) veterans waiting on dependency award adjustments. 

We then have the complicated cases, the old cases, which were ‘‘lost’’ and then 

subsequently ‘‘discovered’’ under a contrived and disingenuous interpretation of 

VBA’s guidance of May 20, 2013. 

Even more egregious, VBA has recently put out guidance to the regional offices 

that, unless a veteran puts specific words on their claim form—a form that provides 

no space for comment—that the claimed condition has existed, quote, ‘‘since service,’’ 

then a medical nexus exam will not be ordered; the claim will be denied. 

Robert Gates, former Secretary of Defense, recently released his memoir, entitled 

‘‘Duty,’’ which he dedicated to the men and women of the United States Armed 

Forces. He writes about VA, and about his dealings with a former VA Secretary. 

Secretary Gates notes, ‘‘I was staggered when he said his Department was in good 

shape and had no problems;’’ and, he continued, ‘‘I had been around long enough 

to know that when the head of a cabinet department says his organization has no 

problems, he is either lying or delusional.’’ 

So, I will close my remarks by speaking to VBA directly. Whatever ‘‘hooray’’ you 

shout, whatever ‘‘win’’ you attempt to claim in 2015, you shall not be celebrated. 

It has been made clear that there is not a corner that VBA leadership will not 

cut, nor a statistic that they will not manipulate, to lay claim to a hollow victory. 

What we all want to see . . . both my Republican and Democrat colleagues . . . 

is progress, not deception. With that, I now recognize Ranking Member Michaud for 

his opening statement. 

Chairman Miller Statement before Panel 2: 

Prior to recognizing our first witness for testimony, I am going to address a recent 

issue, and I am going to provide a timeline for the Members’ information. 

I instructed my Committee staff to visit the Philadelphia Regional Office on July 

2, 2014. As of June 20th, specific concerns had been raised on the management, or 

more accurately, mis-management, of that Regional Office. And, I wanted staff to 

spend a day on the ground, to perform a technical review of various files, view the 

office, and meet with individuals who work there. 

So, let me just run through what occurred on this unannounced visit. My staff 

alerted the office of congressional and legislative affairs of their imminent arrival 

at approximately 9:00 a.m. My staff arrived at approximately 9:20 a.m., and were 

greeted by an employee of the Philadelphia Regional Office; they were accompanied 

to a conference room on the fourth floor. 


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Within moments of arrival, while awaiting the acting director of the RO, one of 

my staff went to the restroom on the fourth floor. There was another individual in 

the restroom who had set a yellow notepad not far from the sink. 

When my staff member passed by, she noticed that there was writing at the top 

of the page, circled, which contained the last names of two employees at that Regional Office, who had acted as whistleblowers to improper activities in the past. 

My staff then looked at the remainder of the page. On it was written my staff 

members’ names, information of their status as Committee staff . . . 

And then the word ‘‘ignore,’’ followed by my staff member’s name. And, I find that 

it is time to address this attitude point blank. 

But before I do, to finish the timeline for the members’ benefit, the person who 

exited the restroom with yellow notepad in hand was the acting director, Lucy 

Filipov, of the Philadelphia Regional Office. 

The Acting Director met with my staff moments later in the conference room, and 

when questioned on who had provided notice of the visit, stated that she had not 

spoken with OCLA, but instead had only spoken with Diana Rubens moments earlier regarding the Congressional staff’s arrival. 

Ms. Filipov began the meeting with two comments. First, she said that the Philadelphia Regional Office endeavors to do all things with integrity, and to give proper 

benefits to veterans. And, second, she made a curious statement, when taken in the 

context of Ms. Filipov’s possession of a notepad with the names of two validated 

whistleblowers written upon it—— 

She said that ‘‘it is difficult to have employees, or ex-employees, who say that we 

are not doing that.’’ 

When we hear from Ms. Halliday of the Office of Inspector General in a moment, 

I believe that this professed commitment to integrity, and service to veteran, is 

going to be seriously challenged on the basis of verified data-manipulation, leadership’s failure to follow reporting protocols, and OIG’s on-going investigation into a 

myriad of inappropriate practices. 

While in the conference room on the fourth floor, the Veterans Service Center 

Manager told Ms. Filipov that the appeals team was on their way up with files and 

computers, to facilitate my staff’s access. 

Then, in an exchange that transpired three separate times, Ms. Filipov directed 

that the Congressional staff be accommodated in a room on the third floor, despite 

repeated protestations of the Veterans Service Center Manager. Both Ms. Filipov 

and the Veterans Service Center Manager exited the conference room, and upon 

their return Ms. Filipov dictated that my staff would be accommodated in a room 

on the third floor. 

This room was found to be wired with activated cameras and microphones, and 

so it should be no surprise to anyone that the staff requested relocation to a different room—a room that VA OIG had vacated, which was, presumably, free of recording devices. 

Now, back to my message—the acting director was in possession of a note, upon 

which was written ‘‘ignore’’ my staff. Am I surprised? Based upon the bureaucratic 

arrogance that VA has consistently demonstrated, I should not be surprised, but in 

fact . . . I am shocked. 

As my colleague, Ranking Member Michaud observed at our hearing on whistleblowers last week, VA is widely known to have a culture of denying problems and 

not listening to feedback—be it from Congress, veterans, or its own employees. 

VA ignores its employees, who highlight concerns on inconsistent quality reviews, 

who convey the irrationality of performance standards; not based not upon scientific 

study or even upon an understanding of the tasks and workload, but are fixed with 

an eye towards the 2015 deadline . . . standards that have been increased as of 

May 1, 2014, despite the workforce’s inability to meet even the less stringent ‘‘standards’’ that were in place. 

VA ignores its whistle-blowers, who report practices that go against the principles 

of the Department. And Acting Secretary Gibson has noted that he is deeply disappointed in the failures within VA, to take whistleblower complaints seriously. 

VA ignores Members of Congress, such as highlighted when members have been 

denied access to VA facilities. VA ignores VSOs, when they are found to be inconvenient, such as when VBA obstructed the American Legion’s Regional Office Action 

Reviews and limited the Legion’s ability to fruitfully conduct its visits, converse 

with claims processing staff, and review disability benefits claims in accordance 

with its long-standing practice of seeking quality. 

And, VA ignores Committee staff. Frequently, my staff visits Regional Offices, to 

perform technical, legal, claims’ review. By way of example, on recent visits, fourteen appeals-files were reviewed from two regional offices; twelve were found to 

have remandable error. 


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Yet, when my staff convened with regional office staff, to demonstrate the errors 

and seek correction for the veterans’ affected . . . often, the Regional Office staff 

refused to acknowledge even the most rudimentary of mistakes. Quite simply, this 

oversight complicates the VBA’s messaging of ‘‘we’re doing great.’’ 

So, while VA may ignore employees, ignore whistleblowers, ignore VSOs, ignore 

members, ignore Congressional staff, and ignore, let’s not forget, the veterans . . . 

let me stress that you will not ignore me, nor my colleagues who are here with me 

tonight. And, be on notice that you will not ignore Congressional Committee staff, 

acting as my agents. 

This Committee has a constitutional oversight duty, and I intend that it shall be 

carried out unhindered, on behalf of the American public, and on behalf of our Nation’s veterans. 

f 

Prepared Statement of Mike Michaud, Ranking Member 

Thank you Mr. Chairman. 

Good Evening. Tonight, we will have an opportunity to continue an important discussion we‘ve touched on in several of our previous oversight hearings: the Veterans 

Benefits Administration, and their progress in reaching goals related to the claims 

backlog. 

With the scandals at the Veterans Health Administration weighing heavily on us, 

tonight the Committee wants to assess the current state of play at the VBA. The 

agency appears to be making some progress on its goal of eliminating the claims 

backlog by the end of 2015. 

I do, however, have concerns, and the VAOIG shares the concern, that the resources needed to achieve VA’s backlog goal are being directed and applied disproportionately, ultimately harming other veterans’ services. 

I refer in particular to non-rating workload, Quick Start, Benefits Delivery at Discharge, Independent Disability Evaluation System and appeals to name a few. 

We have heard, over and over again, of the dangers and failures of a system 

geared toward defining success based on narrow, fixed metrics. 

That is not how good customer service is delivered, and it is not how our veterans 

perceive success. And why should they? What good is it for a veteran if VBA processes his or her rating in an acceptable period of time, but then takes years to add 

a dependent? 

From July 2010 to July 2014, the number of backlogged dependency claims cases 

has gone from 9,367 to 192,322. This represents a nearly two-thousand percent increase. Since March of last year, the number of pending appeals has gone up 12 percent 

and continues to increase. 

And there are personnel issues, as well. We have heard reports of unacceptable 

practices and challenges in many VA facilities. 

At the Baltimore VA Regional Office, the OIG found that as many as nine thousand-five hundred documents—including claims, claims-related mail and various 

other documents containing personally identifiable information, had been improperly stored. 

Lax measures and practices with regards to veterans’ personal information is simply unacceptable. 

Again, to me, this says VA’s focus on narrow performance measures are not realistic for defining success. 

Veterans define good, timely care and service on their whole experience—from 

start to finish. That’s what makes sense, and it’s something we must confront in 

today’s hearing and in the longer-term, as we continue our important work to reform the VA. 

The VA cannot morally claim success in delivering better care to our veterans by 

touting their progress on the backlog if that progress has come at the expense of 

delivering other key services to veterans in a timely manner. 

This work takes on increased urgency as more and more veterans are coming 

home from service abroad, in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring 

Freedom. 

To fix the current shortcomings in the delivery of services, we need all the facts. 

And we need honest, frank discussions. That’s what I’m hoping to get out of today’s 

hearing. Because if we do not base our reform efforts based on what is realistically 

achievable and what the facts are, we are setting the VA—and more importantly, 

our veterans—up for failure down the road once again. And I think we can all agree: 

that is not an option. 


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So, tonight Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your calling this hearing because it gives 

us a chance to take a hard look at what VBA need to do to ensure that it is providing its claims workforce with the training and other tools needed to deliver timely and accurate benefits to our Nation’s veterans and their families in all areas of 

their responsibility. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and I yield back. 

f 

Prepared Statement of Kristen Ruell 

My name is Kristen Ruell. I work at the Philadelphia Regional Office as an authorization quality review specialist. I possess a law degree and have previously 

clerked for the PA Supreme Court. 

Mr. Chairman, committee members, Veterans, and guests, I have been identified 

as a whistleblower. I started reporting various types of data manipulation and illegal payments and glitches in the VETSNET operating system, a system that is responsible for paying out VA benefits, since July 2010. I have met with Congressman 

Mike Fitzpatrick’s office, contacted the OIG, OSC, Department of Justice, Oversights and Investigations, the Secretary and Under sectary’s of the Department of 

Veterans Affairs, the IRS, ORM, EEO, the media and have filed many other complaints since July of 2010. I discussed what I perceived as gross mismanagement 

at the Philadelphia Regional Office. I raised many issues, including but not limited 

to; the improper shredding of military mail, beneficiaries receiving improper and/or 

duplicate payments, illegal processes with the recovery of funds after an improper 

payment has been made and not returned, notification of IRS referral regarding 

waived awards in error, and various other gross misinterpretations of the law. Instead of solving the problems, I was-and continue to be-retaliated against by the VA. 

I have been targeted by the middle and upper management at the VA for over four 

years. 

Significant problems arose after the conversion of the VA’s operating system from 

the Benefits Delivery Network to the Vetsnet Operating System. The old system, 

the Benefits Delivery Network paid a recipient of VA benefits by a claimant’s social 

security number. The new system, VETSNET, however relies on a PID (personal 

identification number). The PID is supposed to be a unique number assigned to one 

person only. However there is no way of determining if one individual has 2 or 3 

PID numbers under 2 or 3 different names. Therefore, one individual could receive 

2 or 3 times the payout and the system would never know unless the claimant selfreported duplicate payment or an employee noticed multiple payments for the same 

person. 

The VA has incorrectly stated that the benefits received by a claimant, even if 

they are 2 or 3 times what the claimant is entitled to, are non-taxable. This is untrue. Only the first payment is not taxable. In other words, the IRS has lost money 

as a consequence of the overpayments and incorrect payments paid by the VA. 

The payment of benefits by the VA under an incorrect Social Security number can 

result in significant problems for individuals who apply for other benefits with the 

Federal Government because of matching programs. These persons are told by other 

federal agencies that, according to their Social Security numbers, they are already 

receiving benefits from the VA and therefore may not be entitled to other benefits. 

This can cause significant hardship to citizens entitled to benefits who, through no 

fault of their own, are listed under their Social Security numbers as receiving benefits from the VA when in fact, someone else is receiving those benefits. 

The VA’s problems are a result of morally bankrupt managers that through time 

and grade have moved up into powerful positions where they have the power to and 

continue to ruin people’s lives. I can speak from experience. I do not believe in manipulating data to achieve monetary gain for myself while harming the Veterans 

and their survivors. 

After receiving an email from an employee in the Philadelphia Pension Management Center’s triage department regarding improper handling of military and returned mail, I decided to investigate. See EXHIBIT 2. I was told that boxes were 

being taped up to be sent to the shredder. The contents in the boxes were claims 

that allegedly could not be identified. There were 96 total boxes. An employee informed me that the mail could be identified; it just could not be easily identified. 

Philadelphia had huge amounts of returned and military mail that was not looked 

at for years, due to the claims assistants being on production. If a piece of mail 

could not be quickly identified, it was tossed aside until a later date when more 

time could be dedicated to identifying the mail. Because of the backlog, that day 

never came and the mail sat in boxes untouched for years. The law says after you 


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attempt to identify it, you need to hold it for a year (this has veterans dates of 

claims on it to prove the date payment of benefits should start, etc...) and then it 

can be destroyed (but not if you do not try and ID it and only certain types of things 

may be destroyed after a process of attempting to ID) there were also many other 

things in those boxes and they just held it to be shredded without following proper 

procedures. I found out about it from various employees who were scared. I stayed 

late to open the boxes and took pictures, reported it to Washington and Congress, 

and was told no shredding was done because I could not prove I saw it being shredded (which no one could because the shredding happens on the truck). There was 

circumstantial evidence it was getting shredded...I was then targeted and instead 

of doing something about this, they enacted a policy of no picture taking in the 

building! I saw DD 214s in these boxes and easily identifiable mail, and other things 

that are not supposed to be shredded. 

In 2013, the VA issued fast letter 13–10 regarding ‘‘found’’ or ‘‘discovered’’ claims. 

A simple reading of this fast letter established that these claims would be few and 

far between. To qualify for a new date of claim, rather than using the date stamped 

when the claim actually arrived at a VA office, the claim had to be ‘‘undiscovered’’ 

and found in a claim’s folder. Upon ‘‘discovery,’’ a memo was to be attached and 

signed by three people, one being no less that an assistant director. Upon completion of the claim, an email was to be sent to the VACO explaining the circumstances 

of the claim and why this claim was going to have an altered date of claim, a newer 

date. Additionally, the claim was supposed to be tracked in a program called MAPD, 

by way of a flash, which could be tracked. This fast letter was the VA’s solution 

for solving the issues with the backlog, because by 2015, the VA promised that there 

would be no claims pending older than 125 days. The Philadelphia Regional Office 

took this fast letter to mean that they could change the dates of claims on every 

claim older than six weeks old, regardless of the circumstances. When investigated 

by the OIG, the Pension Center managers pled ‘‘ignorance’’ and stated that they 

misapplied and misunderstood the fast letter. Ironically, there is proof to the contrary. 

One member of the Pension Center management team, a GS 14, was instructing 

her employees to change dates of claims for many years dating back to 2007! SEE 

She has managed to move up the ranks of VA management to now teach other management supervisors the tricks of the trade. How could someone make such important decisions regarding our tax payer dollars and our Veterans but not understand 

a simple fast letter? If this was not intentional, why did Philadelphia skip the steps 

that would identify the large number of these ‘‘memos’’ indicating a manipulation 

of the date of claim? Why is the only trace of these cases a paper memo? Why is 

there proof of the same illegal behaviors years before fast letter 13–10 was introduced? Because these behaviors are intentional. They are used to minimize the average days pending of a claim to make the regional offices numbers look better. A 

veteran should have a date of claim of 2009 in some cases, but because of this 

memo, the Philadelphia RO instead used a date of claim of 2014, therefore making 

the claim appear ‘‘new.’’ He or she now has a recent date of claim, with no priority 

attached because the claim now has a new date of claim and will not show up on 

any reports for claims pending longer than 125 days. I personally witnessed supervisors state that they disagreed with these practices, but out of fear they complied, 

with thousands of these claim manipulations being done in the Philadelphia RO. I 

was appalled at the way this was manipulated and reported it through a friend that 

is now retired because of a VA settlement. This is currently being investigated, and 

demonstrates the systemic lack of morality haunting this agency. 

I have been admonished and suspended because I was unable to work mandatory 

OT (I had a problem with child care one month) and labeled ‘‘fraudulent’’ by the 

Pension Center management, which after two and a half years were both reversed. 

No one else was given that severe of a punishment for things beyond their control. 

I was not promoted for a job when I was more qualified than at least one of the 

selectees and can prove it (and will because my case is pending an EEOC hearing). 

I was followed around the RO by management and my breaks were timed. An Assistant Pension Center Manager had my direct supervisor come outside and retrieve 

me from break, when we are permitted flex-time. I was falsely accused of slander. 

I was lied to on numerous times and ‘‘counseled.’’ After my last whistleblowing attempt, my name was forwarded to the people I reported. The next morning, my car 

was dented and the following morning I came out to a big mess of coffee thrown 

on the hood and windshield of my car. 

I am currently awaiting the resolution of both an EEO complaint and an OIG investigation. Without some resolution to either one of these situations, I am not sure 

what my future holds. After receiving an annual EEO/Whistleblowing email encouraging employees to report illegal activities as well as taxpayer waste, I contacted 


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the numbers provided thinking I was doing something the Department of Veterans 

Affairs would appreciate. I had tried using the chain of command, to only find out 

that the chain was corrupt. I did just that when I realized that the amounts of improper payments could be in the billions and included many supporting documents, 

sample cases, and case law. What I thought was helping the taxpayer, the agency, 

and the Veterans proved to be the exact opposite and the beginning of a horrible 

nightmare I have been living for four years. I noticed that this was not really what 

the VA wanted, and that they cover up nearly every impropriety to gain self-benefit 

via bonuses and promotions and they target anyone that steps in the way. 

I noticed many employees around me were depressed and upon seeing me stick 

up for the Veterans, tax payer, and employees, others began to tell me horror stories 

of the Agency I was employed at. I am here because I care about Veterans and I 

care about the VA employees. The people that served our country and the employees 

that serve them deserve much more respect from the Department of Veterans Affairs. 

I would like to thank you on behalf of myself and the many voices that could not 

be here today for my invitation to appear here. 


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Prepared Statement of Javier Soto 

I, Javier Soto, thank the Chairman, and esteemed members of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, for the invitation to participate in this process and state: 

• The pressure to focus on production and complete cases has resulted in less 

attention on quality to meet ‘‘numbers’’ goals 

• Various changes, like ‘‘changing the game,’’ and ‘‘provisional ratings,’’ seem to 

shift the burden to the veteran to prove the claim, or hide claim processing 

times, and may violate certain goals of the duty to assist (38 USC 5103A) 

• While quality control methods are touted nationally as the measure of overall 

claims processing quality, local internal employee quality reviews show high 

error rates locally, and disagreements on what is a quality error and how to 

evaluate evidence 

• In order to move cases faster, it seems the focus is on less time for Veterans 

to submit evidence or for VA to obtain it, to close the record faster, with the 

observation that there may be an increase in denial of claims at my former office as a result. 

1. My statement is derived from experiences as a ‘‘rater’’ or Rating Veterans 

Service Representative while employed at the Veterans Benefits Administration, St. 

Petersburg VA Regional Office (‘‘RO317’’), where in four years I was promoted from 

GS–9 to GS–12, and received at least fully successful ratings. 

2. I was hired to work on a Night Shift. We were promised verbally, by Kerry 

Witty, Director of RO317, and Mr. Scott Posti, Assistant Director, RO317 (at the 

time), that Night Shift would never go away as this program was meant to meet 

the goals of ending the backlog. Less than a year later, Night Shift went away. Further, about 60% of hires on the night shift rater class are no longer raters or employed as raters. 

3. It is my observation VA has steadily shortened evidence wait periods for various evidentiary items—private medical record requests, duty to assist time periods, 

research for certain other records, and so on. The result is usually a small window 

to get evidence ‘‘on the record’’ for consideration for the claim made. When the evidence submission window closes, the claim is rated based on the evidence of record. 

As a consequence, a denial for benefits results if no evidence arrived during the new 

shortened period of time. 

4. There have been times at the Orlando office when managers will tell raters 

how to rate a claim (mostly urging closure without further review of issues that may 

need more review) but refusing to follow written procedure that would alert the Veteran of a difference in opinion as to how to develop or evaluate a claim. VA rules 

call for differences in opinions between management and a rater to be documented 

in a written memorandum. Management has refused to comply with such requests 

by employees. 

5. RO317 management developed mitigation to the national 2013 standards that 

I could not find approval for from VA Central Office. Employees at the lowest levels 

(not meeting standards) were declared fully successful based on ‘‘unique station 

challenges,’’ or similar statements. Later, I learned the HR manager, Bonnie Wax, 

directed the use of this terminology (while engaged in helping one employee on a 

performance issue at Orlando—when the Orlando office manager passed the employee based on unique station challenges—‘‘as instructed’’ by ‘‘HR’’). Also, this term 

appears to be used to ‘‘assign’’ certain employees as ‘outstanding’ without those employees meeting the outstanding criteria. An additional concern was that employees 

that did meet production and accuracy requirements received no upward mitigation 

(the ‘‘middle’’ group) despite an appearance of a ‘‘curve’’ for the standards at the 

high end and low end (those that managed to meet standards were lumped in with 

poor performers). On some occasions, to avoid litigating training issues a ‘‘unique 

station challenge’’ was declared and the employee made fully successful, when the 

employee filed EEO or other complaints. 

6. Accuracy figures differ between RO317, STAR (National), OIG, and so on. At 

RO317, individual quality reviews (that evaluate employee performance on claims— 

not station performance that is reviewed by STAR) seem subjective or based on preference of the reviewer. Accuracy impacts production because it is used punitively 

against employees. Because of confusion over accuracy demands by the local quality 

review team, some employees report shifting rating practices to accommodate reviewer ‘‘preference,’’ not law. 

7. Employees have reported to AFGE comments by managers of ‘‘let the Veteran 

appeal’’ or ‘‘that’s what appeals are for’’ when questioning claims processing concerns. 


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8. We can’t agree when raters and quality reviewers view the same evidence and 

differ as to what it means. VA law calls for one standard of review, but quality reviewers show no consistent standard locally, making it difficult to pinpoint a fix, 

and causing errors in rating claims. For example, consider the following sample of 

errors made by ‘‘quality’’ reviewers: 

a. Three errors were called by the local quality reviewers (QR) when I granted 

the earliest possible increase effective date on a claim (based on VA medical 

records). QR ignored my clear explanation that I relied on VA records and stated 

‘‘private records were too old.’’ When the QR would not change their decision, which 

would have denied the Veteran thousands of dollars, the matter was challenged in 

various labor forums because VA would not consider it. Many months later the director finally relented and overturned the error—but refused to admit problems 

with the quality review process, and refused to issue guidance to QR that would 

avoid similar error calls in the future. 

b. An error was called when QR decided the word ‘‘and’’ means ‘‘or’’ in manual 

reference concerning who is covered for purposes of ‘‘Agent Orange’’ claims in locations other than Vietnam. The rater noted that the ‘‘manual’’ (M21–1MR) states 

Veterans that meet two criteria (i.e., ‘‘x’’ AND ‘‘y’’) are to be referred for further review. The QR panel advised the argument ‘‘AND’’ means ‘‘AND’’—was not persuasive. On further challenge, management relented and stated: ‘‘in fairness, if QRT 

finds it necessary to clarify this particular reference with Compensation Service, 

then [employee name omitted] should not be charged with this error.’’ However, they 

denied a request to prevent such errors in the future. 

c. In early FY2104 four quality review errors were called on raters at the Orlando Office of RO317 based ‘‘interpretation’’ of medical evidence. Raters at the Orlando office resubmitted the claims to VHA for clarification. VHA noted the raters 

were correct. The errors were reported to the director of RO317. Veterans Services 

Center Manager Sandra Smith has not answered calls for resolving the matter, and 

Director Kerrie Witty has refused to address this matter. The claims sit 

unaddressed as to the error concerns. 

9. During the focus on initial claims, RO317 reported that appeals at RO317 had 

increased beyond the rate experienced at other offices. Also, other concerns have 

arisen. Some non-bundled claims sat ignored for the most part, resulting in losses 

to VA (i.e., grants requiring future exams in 6 months have gone without an exam 

for five years in some cases, resulting in extra payments not justified by law). 

10. Review of internal quality review team ‘‘minutes’’ shows: They have had 

problems agreeing on what a local error is or should be; They feel caught between 

employees and management over the processing goals; and, quality reviews are time 

consuming for VBMS claims nation-wide. I could find no management address of 

these concerns. 

11. RO317 has stated internally that its quality review team is 100 percent accurate after complaints about mistakes by the quality review team. An Email to 

RO317 employees on January 27, 2014, urged employees to stop complaining to 

quality reviewers. Later, during this year, quality reviewers began using ‘‘disclaimers’’ for guidance given by quality reviewers due to their decisions being challenged as inconsistent. This matter was brought to the attention of the RO director 

in a recent ‘‘town hall meeting’’ with employees and she responded with ‘‘I am not 

aware,’’ ‘‘I have to check into that,’’ ‘‘I don’t know.’’ 

12. The matter of quality and production has increased hostility in the workplace for all—employees, quality reviewers, and middle managers. Senior management has received bad reviews from employees in employee surveys. While management refuses to admit the problems continue, or exist, recent emails exemplify the 

conflicting quality process: An employee asked for guidance on whether to order an 

exam based on a Veteran submitted claim and evidence. Due to a fluke, two quality 

reviewers responded via email to the same question minutes apart (the question 

was entered into a ‘‘request for help’’ database). They issued opposing guidance to 

the employee (one said order the exam, the other said do not order the exam). 

13. ‘‘Changing the Game’’ rules have resulted in exams denied to veterans during increase claims by pressure to rate on available evidence that may not meet 

legal requirements. As an example of the conflict here, various increase claims were 

completed using Changing the Game, under insistence of the Orlando Area Manager, without exams. The rater complying received various errors for not ordering 

exams. 

14. A great concern in training and development of raters is that claims are not 

assigned for processing based on complexity of claim and tenure and experience of 

the employee. Tied to the push for ‘‘production,’’ is a disregard for position description procedural guidance for new raters. This leads to needless quality issues and 

delays in claims processing. 


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15. We receive exams from VHA not properly filled out, missing medical opinions, with conflicting opinions and diagnosis, and incomplete. We complained to our 

managers but get no address to this problem. We also receive complaints from Veterans on being evaluated for complex conditions in ‘‘five minutes.’’ Exams are a critical part of the rating process. 

16. A concern for fraud has arisen in e-benefits initiatives. At the Orlando Office 

of RO317, a script for convalescence was altered to increase 100 percent benefits for 

over 4 months from the 2 weeks called for by the doctor. The rater reported the matter to the management at Orlando Office of RO317. The reply by management was 

‘‘you should have just rated it and closed the claim.’’ There has been no training 

or instruction in identifying medical frauds for raters as we race through claims. 

17. Despite congress calling for a time motion study at VBA, I have not seen or 

heard of one performed for the latest performance standards. I did review data on 

a previous study (I think over 5 years ago) and those familiar with the study advised that VBA stopped such studies because they did not support the performance 

standards used by VBA. 

18. Provisional ratings simply closed the end product (EP, or claim as ‘‘tracked’’ 

when initially filed), but resulted in a new ‘‘non-bundled’’ EP being issued to track 

the provisional rating. The claim continues unaddressed and not is completed. 

19. Because of changes seemingly appearing to conflict training and law, some 

raters refused to follow the new rules without written directives. The claims were 

reassigned to others willing to perform them as requested. 

Summary 

I have the utmost respect for this job and the legal process here. I am also awed 

by the background and efforts of our Veterans that I have served by deciding claims. 

I was simply trying to help when after issuing a VSR accuracy report (showing 

RO317 quality review team was performing poorly, overturning their own decisions 

about 50% of the time on appeal) of June 24, distributed on June 26, I was involuntarily separated June 30, by Kerrie Witty, Director, because ‘‘my services were no 

longer required’’ (I was laid off in the middle of a backlog and a push to hire more 

raters). As a re-employed retiree I was determined to be at will and no longer needed. 


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Prepared Statement of Hon. Allison A. Hickey 

Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Michaud, and Committee Members, thank you 

for providing me the opportunity to discuss the Department of Veterans Affairs’ 

(VA) commitment to providing all Veterans, their families, and Survivors with timely and accurate decisions on their benefit claims and ensuring the integrity of the 

data that we use to measure our workload performance in carrying out our mission. 

I am accompanied today by Diana Rubens, Director of the Philadelphia Regional Office, and Thomas Murphy, Director of Compensation Service. 

Priority Goals 

It has never been acceptable to VA or to the dedicated employees of the Veterans 

Benefits Administration (VBA)–52 percent of whom are Veterans themselves—that 

our Veterans are experiencing long delays in receiving the benefits they have earned 

and deserve. Over the past four plus years, VBA has been undergoing the largest 

transformation in its history to fundamentally redesign and streamline the way benefits and services are delivered. 

As VBA undertook this major transformation, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs 

established as a priority goal for VBA to eliminate the disability claims backlog and 

ensure accurate decisions for Veterans awaiting VA’s determinations on their service-connected disability claims. These rating decisions are at the core of our mission, 

as they have enormous financial impact on Veterans’ lives and in many cases lead 

to eligibility for other important benefits, such as health care, vocational rehabilitation, waiver of home loan funding fees, and housing benefits. VA therefore established as one of the department’s top three agency priority goals to process all disability rating claims within 125 days at a 98-percent accuracy level in 2015. In 

2005, VA changed its strategic goal for processing all disability rating claims from 

an average of 100 days to an average of 125 days, and increased the accuracy goal 

to 98 percent. In 2010, former Secretary Shinseki changed the processing goal from 

an average of 125 days to state that all claims would be processed within 125 days, 

reinforcing his commitment to fundamentally transforming the claims process to ensure all Veterans receive a timely decision on their claims. With the tremendous 

support that VA continues to receive from its partners including this Committee, 

the rest of Congress, Veterans Service Organizations (VSO), county and State Departments of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense, and other federal agencies, we are on track to meet this goal. 

Transformation Progress 

We have made tremendous progress, reducing the disability claims backlog by 

over 55 percent, from the peak of 611,000 in March of 2013 to 275,000 today. Last 

year, VBA completed a record 1.17 million disability rating claims, and we are on 

track to complete over 1.3 million rating claims this fiscal year. Over 90 percent of 

the claims in our inventory are now being processed electronically in our new digital 

environment, the Veterans Benefits Management System (VBMS). The average age 

of the pending claims in the inventory is now 154 days, down 128 days or 45 percent 

from the peak of 282 days in February 2013. The reduction in the disability rating 

claims backlog and our increased production have not come at the expense of quality, which also continues to improve. We have increased our claim-based accuracy 

from 86 percent in 2011 to 90.3 percent today. When we measure the accuracy of 

the individual decisions our employees make within each claim, our accuracy level 

is 96.2 percent. At the same time, we also remain focused on all of the other workload components of the wide range of benefit programs we are privileged to administer. 

Initiatives and Procedural Changes Since March 2013 

The Committee requested that VBA specifically address certain initiatives and 

procedural changes implemented since the last Full Committee hearing in March 

2013. The initiatives discussed below were designed to help us deliver benefits to 

Veterans more timely, manage our work more effectively, increase production, and 

ensure we are making the best possible use of our resources. 

Claims Brokering 

Prior to fielding an electronic claims processing system, each of VBA’s 56 regional 

offices focused primarily on processing benefits for Veterans in the state the office 

was located. The proximity of the beneficiary claimant to the processing regional office was important in VA’s legacy paper-based system, where claims records and 

files were physically stored, processed, and/or mailed between the Veteran, the regional office, and the closest supporting VA medical facility. However, this geographically-based approach resulted in variances in regional office workloads and 


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processing timeliness due to factors such as multiple National Guard and Reserve 

Component deployments from certain states, unanticipated staffing losses at regional offices, and shifts in the Veteran population in various states. To address 

these variances, VBA employs a ‘‘brokering’’ strategy, which balances the workload 

by sending cases from regional offices with high inventories to regional offices with 

greater processing capacity. Brokering has been extremely beneficial to managing 

workload before and during VBA’s transition to an electronic claims process. For example, brokering has been of great assistance in reducing the backlog at the Baltimore Regional Office by 77 percent (15,744 claims brokered), the Los Angeles Regional Office by 62 percent (13,075 claims brokered), and the Oakland Regional Office by 74 percent (21,859 claims brokered). This assistance ensures that Veterans 

waiting too long for decisions receive the benefits they have earned. 

National Work Queue 

Within VBMS, VBA is implementing the National Work Queue, a paperless workload management initiative designed to improve VBA’s overall production capacity 

and performance accountability. With over 90 percent of our pending claims inventory converted to digital format in the VBMS, VBA can more efficiently manage the 

claims workload centrally. The initial implementation phase of the National Work 

Queue involves moving claims electronically from a centralized queue to a regional 

office identified as having the capacity to complete the work. Through this process 

of matching inventory with claims processing capacity, VBA is improving performance nationwide, helping to ensure Veterans receive more timely benefits regardless 

of where they reside. 

In the future, claims will be routed nationally down to the individual employee 

level based on the nature of claim and the skill set of the claims processor. Under 

the National Work Queue, the first filter for assignment of a claim will remain the 

geographic proximity to the Veteran’s place of residence. However, if there is not 

capacity to process the claim at the closest regional office, the claim will be completed by another skilled employee at a different regional office. VA believes the outcome-based strategic measures of this plan will allow VBA to make a focused assessment of the quality and consistency of claims processing. The success of the Oldest 

Claims Initiative validated the need for this national approach to workload management. More than 100,000 claims were brokered during this initiative, leveraging the 

full system capacity to achieve a much higher level of production. 

Oldest Claims Initiative and Provisional Decisions 

VBA launched an initiative in April 2013 to expedite disability rating claim decisions for Veterans who had been waiting the longest. Over 513,000 of the longestpending claims were covered under this initiative, including nearly 500,000 claims 

that received final ratings based on the availability of all relevant evidence. Approximately 14,800 of these Veterans (less than 3 percent) received ‘‘provisional’’ 

rating decisions if evidence was outstanding, but all essential evidence, such as VA 

examinations and service treatment records, were available. 

Provisional decisions were issued during this initiative in order to provide benefits 

more quickly to eligible Veterans who had been waiting the longest for decisions on 

their claims, while at the same time giving them an additional 1-year safety net to 

submit further evidence should it become available, before a final decision. Veterans 

then have the same statutory 1-year period to appeal the final decision if they disagree. 

During the initial phase of the Oldest Claims Initiative, VBA identified that one 

regional office had misinterpreted the provisional decision guidance. Clarifying instructions were immediately issued to all regional offices and reinforced through 

conference calls with regional office managers. Authority to issue provisional decisions was withdrawn in November 2013 as we completed the initial phases of the 

Oldest Claims Initiative. 

The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) recently completed a review of VBA’s 

implementation the Oldest Claims Initiative and found further problems with the 

implementation of the provisional decision guidance. As a result, the Under Secretary for Benefits directed a complete review of all provisional decisions on June 

2, 2014. Regional office Quality Review Teams will determine if the ratings were 

completed properly, if a final rating is now warranted, or if further development is 

necessary. The final ratings will be completed no later than September 2014, or at 

least one-year after the provisional rating was issued (whichever is later), unless additional evidence needed to correctly decide the claim remains outstanding. 

The purpose of the provisional decisions was to get benefits to Veterans more 

quickly. Veterans who received provisional decisions had an additional one-year period to submit further evidence or seek review. The final rating process provides furVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:30 Apr 02, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00143 Fmt 6621 Sfmt 6621 Y:\89-379.TXT PAT

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ther assurance that Veterans who received provisional decisions are receiving the 

benefits they have earned. 

Mandatory Overtime 

Mandatory overtime is a management tool that has been periodically utilized by 

VBA over the years and most recently initiated in May 2013 to maximize productivity during the Oldest Claims Initiative. While in mandatory overtime, Rating Veterans Service Representatives (RVSRs), Veterans Service Representatives (VSRs), 

and Decision Review Officers work a minimum of 20 hours of overtime per month 

focused on completing priority claims—our oldest claims, fully developed claims, and 

special-interest claims (homeless, extreme financial hardship, former prisoners of 

war, terminally ill, etc.). During mandatory overtime periods in FY 2013, VBA’s 

daily rating production increased by 30 percent, or more than 1,000 additional 

claims per day. Staff at all regional offices worked mandatory overtime for six 

months in 2013 and resumed mandatory overtime on January 19, 2014 to accelerate 

the reduction in the backlog. 

To provide employees with a break from mandatory overtime in order to spend 

time with their families during the holiday season, optional overtime was in effect 

from November 24, 2013, through January 18, 2014. Managers at each regional office continue to make exceptions to mandatory overtime, on a case-by-case basis, for 

employees requesting to be excused for hardship reasons, such as educational commitments, family needs, and medical conditions. In addition, all employees are provided a month in FY 2014 in which they may elect not to work overtime. 

Surge Initiative 

Regional office closures and early dismissals due to hazardous weather conditions 

negatively affected VA disability claims production during the past winter season. 

To mitigate the impact, VBA implemented a short-term initiative from mid-February through the end of March 2014 in order to maintain progress in reaching the 

Secretary’s goal of eliminating the backlog in 2015. The initiative called for the temporary assignment of employees who have claims processing expertise but are performing other duties—such as supervisors, change management agents, and quality 

review specialists—to process claims in the backlog during regular and/or overtime 

duty hours. During the five-week initiative, VA employees processed more than 

154,000 claims, reducing the backlog by 40,000 claims. The surge initiative mitigated the lost production over the winter months and put us back on track for continuing the progress being made in reducing the backlog. 

Found Claims 

In May 2013, VBA issued guidance to regional offices that was designed to ensure 

there was no disincentive in our processing procedures for taking action on any previously undecided claim that may be subsequently identified in a Veteran’s claims 

record (possibly many years or even decades later). As you know, Veterans are entitled to submit their claim in any format, including handwritten notes or letters. At 

times, this leads to claims being discovered later in the process. This 2013 directive 

instructed regional offices to use the date the claim had been discovered (‘‘found’’) 

in the claims record as the date of receipt of the claim for tracking purposes, while 

ensuring that the date the claim had been originally received is used as the effective 

date for any benefits awarded to the claimant. This ensures the full benefits due 

are paid to the Veteran. 

Prior procedures required employees to use the date of receipt of the original 

claim for tracking purposes, even if that date was decades ago. Logging such an old 

date of receipt could potentially harm employees’ achievement of their regional offices’ timeliness goals. Therefore, the new policy revised prior procedures that could 

be seen as a disincentive for conducting such a thorough review. This procedural 

change only affected the date of receipt of the claim for timeliness tracking purposes, and we believed the policy would remove the disincentive. 

Indeed, the guidance issued in May 2013 directed regional offices to proactively 

review all the evidence of record when adjudicating a claim in order to discern if 

any additional claims or medical issues were of record that had been overlooked in 

any previous adjudication process, ensuring the Veteran’s rights were being protected. 

In accordance with statute and VA regulations, this May 2013 guidance instructed 

regional offices to use the earliest date of receipt by any VA facility as the date of 

claim for the purpose of determining the effective date of any benefits awarded as 

a result of the found claim. In addition, special controls were put in place to manage 

and oversee this process. Authority to apply these procedures and establish a claim 

based on a discovered document was delegated only to Regional Office Directors and 


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Assistant Directors. Regional offices were also required to notify VBA Compensation 

Service when any claim was established based on discovered documents. 

Recently, OIG received a complaint that a regional office was not properly following this guidance. The OIG dispatched an inspection team to that regional office 

and identified a misapplication of this guidance. As a result, VBA quickly took several measures. First, the fast letter was immediately suspended while VBA conducts 

a complete review of the implementation of this policy. Data analysis is being undertaken to identify regional offices that are potential outliers in the application of this 

policy, including on-site analysis at certain regional offices where potential implementation issues have been identified. This analysis has also been shared with the 

OIG. All claims impacted by misinterpretation of this guidance will be identified, 

and corrective action will be taken in each instance. Any employee found to have 

intentionally misused this policy will be held accountable. We are committed to 

identifying our problems and implementing solutions. 

Improving Claims Accuracy 

As evident in our priority goal statement for 2015, our commitment is not only 

to eliminate the claims backlog, but to ensure the decisions we provide to the Veterans, families, and Survivors we serve are of the highest possible quality. VBA’s 

transformation plan includes major resource investments to improve the accuracy 

of our claim decisions, toward our goal of achieving a 98-percent accuracy level in 

2015: 

• Challenge Training was redesigned for new claims processors that significantly increase quality and production, especially in the first six months following completion of training. 

• Station Enrichment Training (SET), based on the success of Challenge training, is offered to regional offices experiencing challenges in quality and production. 

• Specialized Adjudication Review Course (SPARC) and Supervisory Technical 

Analysis of Data (STAND) training sessions are being conducted from May 

through July 2014. SPARC was developed to retrain 1,250 Veterans Service 

Representatives and 900 Rating Veterans Service Representatives having difficulty in meeting performance standards. STAND training was developed for 

750 coaches and assistant coaches to focus on data analysis and personnel management tools. 

• Quality Review Teams (QRTs) were established in each regional office to conduct in-process quality reviews as well as individual employee quality reviews. 

Over 650 Quality Review Specialists are trained and monitored by VBA’s Quality Assurance Staff. 

• Skills Certification tests have been implemented for Veterans Service Center 

Coaches and claims processors. 

• Rater Decision Support Tools have been introduced into our new automated 

processing system to provide more consistent ratings. 

• Disability Benefits Questionnaires (DBQs) replace traditional VA examination 

reports and are designed to capture all medical information relevant to a specific condition at once and up front. A total of 81 DBQs are available to VHA 

clinicians, including 71 DBQs that can also be completed by private physicians. 

• VBMS Automation—VBMS software releases in 2014 are continuing to build 

more complex automation features into the system, which help employees complete their work more efficiently, reduce errors, and organize tasks. The new 

functionality improves employees’ visibility of the workload, the status of claims 

and information needed to finalize decisions. 

Quality Assurance 

VBA’s Systematic Technical Analysis Review (STAR) Program measures and reports statistically valid accuracy rates covering all types of VA claim decisions, both 

rating and non-rating. VBA’s Compensation Service and Pension and Fiduciary 

Service have expert claim processors assigned to the STAR teams to assess the quality of over 14,000 rating decisions and an additional 14,000 authorization ( non-rating) decisions identified through a statistically valid random sampling each year. 

VBA’s STAR program has been independently reviewed and validated by the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA). 

Under the STAR program, VBA measures both claim-based and issue-based accuracy. Claim-based accuracy measures the accuracy of the entire claim, regardless of 

the number of issues decided within that claim. The claim is either 100 percent accurate or 100 percent in error (even if only 1 error is made). Issue-based accuracy 

evaluates the accuracy of decisions on individual medical conditions. The STAR program measures both 3-month and 12-month accuracy. Site visits are also conducted 


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by employees of VBA’s Headquarters elements and the Area Directors to ensure regional offices are following correct policies and procedures. Site visits include reviews of performance and workload trends and anomalies in rating decisions. 

VA’s OIG and our VSO partners also conduct assessments of VBA’s accuracy, but 

use different methodologies than the STAR program. All of these reviews are important to VBA and help us to improve our processes. OIG benefits inspection reviews 

of regional offices focus on specific subsets of claims identified as more complex, 

needing special emphasis, or with known processing problems. As the OIG states 

in its benefits inspection reports, the results of these reviews are not reflective of 

the overall quality of the decision being made by the regional office. OIG also uses 

a broader definition of what constitutes an error, encompassing compliance with 

VBA’s policies and procedures rather than only the accuracy of the outcome or entitlement. VSO reviews also have a narrower scope, as VSOs are only able to review 

claims of Veterans for whom they hold power of attorney, and their reviews are only 

conducted at a limited number of regional offices. Because the evaluation criteria 

and case-selection processes used by these organizations vary significantly from 

VBA’s STAR Program, the results of these reviews cannot be directly compared. 

To provide an independent assessment of VBA’s current quality assurance program, VBA has an independent third-party contractor reviewing of this program. 

We look forward to reviewing results and recommendations of this assessment. 

Workload Management 

VBA has, for most of its history, used a system of ‘‘end products’’ to identify, 

track, and manage all types of claims and other workload. Our automated processing systems have been designed to incorporate this end-product methodology for 

managing work. With the introduction of the Balanced Scorecard approach in 2000, 

these end products were grouped into three categories or ‘‘bundles,’’ enabling some 

prioritization of the multitude of end products being measured for purposes of tracking performance. Our workload management and reporting systems continue to report work according to these workload ‘‘bundles’’: 

• Rating Claims: Includes Veterans’ disability compensation and pension claims 

and as well as Survivors’ claims for service-connected death benefits. These 

claims requiring rating decisions comprise our most complex and labor-intensive 

workload. Our goal for eliminating the backlog and providing all Veterans with 

a decision on their disability claims within 125 days at a 98-percent accuracy 

level applies to this claims ‘‘bundle.’’ 

• Non-rating Claims: Includes claims that in most cases do not require a rating 

decision but directly impact benefits, such as survivors pension, burial claims, 

dependency claims, income adjustments, and drill pay adjustments. 

• Other Non-rating Work: Primarily includes administrative actions that are 

not necessarily claims for benefits, such as correspondence actions, income 

matching programs and other internal control reviews, and special claim reviews. 

VBA uses two metrics to measure and report on the timeliness of the claims process. Average Days to Complete (ADC) tracks the length of the claim process, start 

to finish. Average Days Pending (ADP) provides a point-in-time measure of inprogress claims from start to current date. Both measures are important for managing our workload. As a result of our focus on the Oldest Claims Initiative, these 

measures have experienced significant fluctuations. By eliminating the oldest claims 

from the inventory, VA lowers the ADP for claims in the overall inventory. The 

focus on taking care of those Veterans who have been waiting the longest also 

causes the ADC to rise in the near term. ADC is a lagging indicator, while ADP 

is a leading indicator that provides a better measure of the current state of the 

claims inventory. VBA has implemented numerous transformation initiatives that 

not only result in more timely and accurate delivery of benefits, but also enhance 

our workload management and reporting systems. Development of VBMS, our new 

paperless processing system, is a critical component of our transformation. Electronic records and automated claims processing not only create significant efficiencies, but also improve workload management and data consistency through 

standardization. All disability compensation claims and supporting evidence received in paper form are now centrally scanned and converted into digital format 

at centralized sites. This conversion process also extracts important data and populates this data in the Veteran’s electronic folder (eFolder). Through a phased implementation plan through the end of July, all incoming disability claims will be redirected by the postal service to closely controlled scan facilities, where they are immediately digitized for claims processing. When coupled with currently scheduled 

VBMS enhancements, centralized mail processing will result in near-instantaneous 


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establishment of end-product controls for a significant portion of the claims we receive. 

Non-Rating Workload 

Rating claim decisions in many cases open access to other VA benefits and services. Claims for these additional benefits generally do not require another rating decision and are therefore tracked and managed in the non-rating work categories. As 

we complete more rating claims and add more Veterans to our disability compensation and pension rolls, we also receive more non-rating claims. There is a direct correlation. Even as we have focused on our priority goal to eliminate the disability 

rating claims backlog for Veterans who have been waiting the longest and are 

achieving record-breaking levels of production, we have not ignored non-rating 

claims. We continue to complete more non-rating work each year; however, non-rating receipts also continue to rise. In fiscal year (FY) 2012, we completed 14 percent 

more non-rating work than in FY 2011. Last year we completed 2.46 million nonrating end products, which was 24 percent more than in FY 2011. This year, we 

expect to complete 2.84 million non-rating end products (a 44-percent increase over 

2011). 

VBA has not lost focus on non-rating work, as demonstrated by our efforts to develop and explore innovative ways to automate and improve the timeliness and accuracy of non-rating claim decisions. 

• Online Dependency Claims—VBA developed a new Rules-Based Processing 

System (RBPS) to automate dependency claims. Since inception, self-service features in RBPS have enabled over 75,000 Veterans to add or change the status 

of their dependents online. Over 50 percent of the dependency claims filed 

through RBPS are now automatically processed and paid in 1–2 days. 

• Dependency Claims Contract—VA recently awarded a contract for assistance 

in entering data from paper-based dependency claims into VA’s electronic rulesbased processing system. The contractor is entering the information from the 

paper-based dependency claims just as a claimant would enter information if filing the claim online. The contract calls for 40,000 dependency claims to be processed per month when operating at full capacity. The contractor is currently 

ramping up to that capacity. 

• Up-front Income Verification for Pension—A new data-sharing initiative with 

the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service enables 

VBA to verify the income of pension applicants before awarding benefits and 

eliminates the annual income reporting requirement for pension beneficiaries. 

• Burial Claims—VBA published a new regulation, effective July 7, 2014, that 

allows automatic payment of the one-time burial allowance to a Veteran’s 

spouse without requiring the surviving spouse to apply for the benefit. Under 

this new regulation, as many as 62,000 surviving spouses will now receive timely burial benefits each year. 

• Drill Pay Adjustments—Veterans cannot legally receive VA benefits and drill 

pay concurrently. VBA is working to streamline and automate the drill pay offset process through an upfront agreement from National Guard and Reserve 

members. 

• National Call Center Initiative—Effective July 14, employees at the St. Louis 

and Phoenix National Call Centers are now also processing dependency claims. 

The initiative begins on July 14 at the St. Louis and Phoenix Regional Offices 

and will be expanded to all of our Call Centers shortly thereafter. 

• Hiring Temporary Employees—VBA is in the process of hiring 200 temporary 

employees, who will be provided specialized training in processing the less complex non-rating claims and work actions. 

Centralized Data Collection and Reporting 

VBA’s data is collected and analyzed at a central level by VBA’s Office of Performance Analysis and Integrity. In 2000, VBA established the Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) to uniformly capture data across different systems used to administer 

all benefits and to provide a suite of reports and analytical tools that would be a 

consistent source of reliable information and data. EDW collects, integrates, and 

protects VBA’s data. EDW was designed so that as soon as data is in the system, 

it is protected against any further modifications or manipulation, both for data integrity and to protect the personal information of Veterans stored in the EDW. VBA 

has made improvements to the EDW since 2000, and we have a very high level of 

confidence in the accuracy and security of the data. 

EDW allows VBA to centrally monitor workloads, check the status of all claims, 

and prioritize and allocate appropriate resources to regional offices. In addition to 

VBA Headquarters, our 56 regional offices use data from EDW to actively manage 


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their workload and operations. Standardized reporting and retention of that reporting enable VBA to provide timely, consistent, and accurate data to internal and external stakeholders, including our VSO partners and Congress. 

In addition to being a data repository and source for reporting, EDW offers a suite 

of business intelligence tools to analyze data. These tools help VBA identify trends 

and anomalies and evaluate corrective actions if necessary. We can explore the underlying data associated with the changes we see, allowing us to pinpoint a group 

of claims, a particular time period, or portion of the claim process. This level of detail and specificity is invaluable to regional offices in achieving our goals to provide 

more timely and accurate benefit decisions. 

Commitment to Data Transparency 

VBA provides publicly available data on our performance on a weekly, monthly, 

and annual basis through our reports web site: www.vba.va.gov/reports. Weekly performance metrics are available through the Monday Morning Workload Report 

where we report 11 performance metrics for more than 50 different types of benefit 

claims including original and reopened compensation and pension claims, award 

maintenance, appeals, and survivor benefits, as well as the number of education 

claims pending under the Post 9/11 GI Bill and our other education programs. The 

data is available to anyone with a computer, access to the internet, and an interest 

in reviewing it. The Monday Morning Workload Report has been continually updated and expanded over the years—most recently after discussions with key stakeholders, including the House and Senate Committees on Veterans’ Affairs, House 

and Senate Appropriations Committees, as well as interested Veterans Service Organizations. At the request of these stakeholders, we have added additional data to 

the weekly report on several occasions, even further expanding our transparency of 

metrics. The home page for Monday Morning Workload Report contains current and 

historical information, as well as definitions for data provided in the reports. 

Monthly reporting of VBA’s performance data is available through the ASPIRE 

Dashboard, which provides information on how VBA and regional offices are performing in relation to 2015 aspirational goals for all benefit programs. ASPIRE provides data on VBA’s six business lines (compensation, pension, education, loan guaranty, vocational rehabilitation and employment, and insurance) and includes a total 

of 38 metrics broken out at the regional office level. We began reporting using ASPIRE in July 2011. Data in the ASPIRE Dashboard is updated by the 10th of the 

month for the previous month, and we are working to shorten the update time in 

order to make current data available earlier in the month. 

Each year, VA publishes its Performance and Accountability Report (PAR) to provide results on VA’s progress toward providing America’s Veterans with the best in 

benefits and health care. The PAR contains performance targets and results 

achieved against those targets for the preceding fiscal year. As such, the PAR is 

VA’s report card and, in this context, communicates to the American people how 

well VA has done, the tangible public benefits VA has produced, and the forwardlooking strategies we are employing to achieve and maintain excellence. In addition, 

VBA publishes an Annual Benefits Reports (ABR), a summary of benefits provided 

by VA to Veterans and their dependents. The ABR clearly summarizes the benefit 

programs delivered by VBA, identifies the current level of program participation by 

eligible persons, and profiles the beneficiaries. 

Performance Standards 

Objective measures and performance standards are used to determine if our managers and employees are meeting or exceeding their job requirements. VBA awards 

its employees for exceeding standards of performance that include both production 

and quality elements. Employees will not receive a performance award unless they 

meet quality standards as well as production standards. 

New VSR and RVSR National Performance Standards were issued in May 2014. 

Workgroups of subject matter experts, including VSRs and RVSRs, as well as Headquarters personnel, developed the standards. The workgroups were tasked with 

aligning the standards with the agency’s priority goals. These standards were negotiated with union officials at the national level. The revised standards incorporate 

compliance with systems requirements for data input and tracking as a critical performance element. This additional measure will help to ensure that the information 

associated with all aspects of a claim is accurately and completely entered into our 

processing systems for both internal and external inventory control, as well as to 

support improved customer service through all communication channels (eBenefits, 

regional office public contact teams, National Call Centers, SEP, etc.). Our transformational initiatives, including ongoing enhancements to VBMS and development 


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of the National Work Queue, necessitate on-going review of the performance standards. New workgroups are already working on the next review. 

STAT Reviews 

VBA’s Stat Reviews are a performance technique using statistical data (Stat) and 

visual displays of that data to monitor progress and improve performance. This 

process involves in-depth performance metric reviews with the Under Secretary of 

Benefits and other top VA leaders, as well as VBA’s Office of Field Operations and 

other members of the VBA leadership team, to analyze and manage performance 

more effectively. VBA’s Stat Reviews are based on highly successful performance 

management programs conducted government-wide. 

The Under Secretary holds day-long meetings with regional office directors to discuss challenges and successes, using extensive data-driven performance measures 

for accountability. This allows VBA leadership to more easily identify what improvements are needed to produce desired performance results. Stat Reviews also help 

VBA leadership understand what is or is not working, while motivating regional office managers and employees to focus their energy and creativity on achieving specific results. The Stat Review process focuses on accountability to achieve workload 

performance metrics and encourages information-sharing of best practices across 

VBA regional offices. 

Conclusion 

VBA is committed to complete transparency in communicating information about 

our workload and our progress in providing Veterans, their families, and Survivors 

with timely and accurate claim decisions. The current administration established as 

priority goal for VA to process all disability rating claims within 125 days at a 98- 

percent accuracy level in 2015. VBA has been clear and consistent in communicating 

our progress toward that goal, while also making information and data available for 

all categories of work processed by VBA. VA greatly appreciates the investments in 

claims processing improvements provided by the President and Congress to help us 

fulfill our vital mission of service to America’s Veterans and their families. This concludes my testimony. I would be happy to address any questions from the Committee. 


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QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES 


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Æ 


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