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29–368 2018

EXPLORING NATIONAL WORK QUEUE’S IMPACT 

ON CLAIMS PROCESSING 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON DISABILITY 

ASSISTANCE AND MEMORIAL AFFAIRS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2017 

Serial No. 115–2 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs 

( 

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

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(II) 

COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS 

DAVID P. ROE, Tennessee, Chairman 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida, Vice-Chairman 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio 

AMATA COLEMAN RADEWAGEN, American 

Samoa 

MIKE BOST, Illinois 

BRUCE POLIQUIN, Maine 

NEAL DUNN, Florida 

JODEY ARRINGTON, Texas 

JOHN RUTHERFORD, Florida 

CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana 

JACK BERGMAN, Michigan 

JIM BANKS, Indiana 

JENNIFFER GONZALEZ-COLON, Puerto 

Rico 

TIM WALZ, Minnesota, Ranking Member 

MARK TAKANO, California 

JULIA BROWNLEY, California 

ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire 

BETO O’ROURKE, Texas 

KATHLEEN RICE, New York 

J. LUIS CORREA, California 

KILILI SABLAN, Northern Mariana Islands 

ELIZABETH ESTY, Connecticut 

SCOTT PETERS, California 

JON TOWERS, Staff Director 

RAY KELLEY, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON DISABILITY ASSISTANCE AND MEMORIAL 

AFFAIRS 

MIKE BOST, Illinois, Chairman 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

AMATA RADEWAGEN, America Samoa 

JACK BERGMAN, Michigan 

JIM BANKS, Indiana 

ELIZABETH ESTY, Connecticut, Ranking 

Member 

JULIA BROWNLEY, California 

KILILI SABLAN, Northern Mariana Islands 

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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(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Tuesday, February 14, 2017 

Page 

Exploring National Work Queue’s Impact On Claims Processing ....................... 1 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Honorable Mike Bost, Chairman ............................................................................ 1 

Honorable Elizabeth Esty, Ranking Member ........................................................ 3 

WITNESSES 

Mr. Thomas J. Murphy, Acting Under Secretary for Benefits, Veterans Benefits Administration, U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs .............................. 4 

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 31 

Accompanied by: 

Mr. Willie C. Clark, Sr., Deputy Under Secretary for Field Operations, 

Veterans Benefits Administration, U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs 

Mr. Ronald S. Burke, Jr., Assistant Deputy Under Secretary for Field 

Operations, National Work Queue, Veterans Benefits Administration, 

U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs 

Mr. Zachary Hearn, Deputy Director, Veterans Affairs and Rehabilitation 

Division, The American Legion ........................................................................... 17 

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 33 

Mr. Ryan Gallucci, Deputy Director, National Veterans Service, Veterans 

of Foreign Wars .................................................................................................... 19 

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 35 

Ms. Kelsey Yoon, Director, Veterans Benefits, Vietnam Veterans of America .. 20 

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 39 

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EXPLORING NATIONAL WORK QUEUE’S 

IMPACT ON CLAIMS PROCESSING 

Tuesday, February 14, 2017 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS, SUBCOMMITTEE ON DISABILITY ASSISTANCE

AND MEMORIAL AFFAIRS, Washington, D.C. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:31 a.m., in 

Room 334, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Mike Bost [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Bost, Coffman, Bergman, Esty, and 

Brownley. 

Also Present: Representative Walz. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MIKE BOST, CHAIRMAN 

Mr. BOST. Good morning, and welcome everyone. This oversight 

hearing of the Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs will now come to order. I first want to take a moment 

to welcome the Subcommittee Members, especially those who are 

new to Congress and new to the Committee, and also those who are 

returning. 

It is my privilege to have been asked to be Chairman of the Subcommittee and I am grateful to Chairman Roe for the opportunity. 

I want to explain that although I look forward to working with Ms. 

Elizabeth Esty from Connecticut as our new Ranking Member, 

under Committee rules Ms. Julia Brownley is still the Subcommittee’s acting Ranking Member. And my understanding is that the 

Full Committee will schedule a business meeting to formalize the 

Subcommittee assignment and our new Subcommittee Ranking 

Members soon. We also want to make sure that we know that we 

have been joined by the Ranking Member Mr. Tim Walz. I want 

to thank him for being here. I want to ask unanimous consent for 

the Ranking Member Walz, for Representatives Esty and Sablan be 

allowed to sit at the dais and ask questions. I also want to ask 

unanimous consent that Ms. Esty be permitted to serve as Ranking 

Member for this hearing pending her ratification before the Full 

Committee. Hearing no objections, so ordered. 

By way of a short introduction this is my second term in Congress and on this Subcommittee. I am a father of three and a 

grandfather of 11, and before coming to Congress I worked in a 

small business, in a trucking business, and my wife and I own a 

beauty salon. I was a firefighter and a state representative for over 

20 years in the State of Illinois. I am also honored to say that my 

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family has a tradition of service. I am not only a Marine, I am a 

Marine and a father of a Marine. I am enlisted and he is an officer, 

so it kind of makes for unique conversation around our home. 

The House Veterans’ Affairs Committee is known for working in 

a bipartisan manner to ensure that the Department of Veterans Affairs provides our former military members with the best service 

possible. Our Nation’s heroes deserve no less. This Subcommittee 

specifically addresses how to best provide for the needs of veterans 

who have medical conditions relating to their service. We also work 

together to ensure that veterans who have passed away are treated 

with dignity and respect. I look forward to continuing this tradition 

and working with Ms. Esty and the Members of the Subcommittee 

on the issues that are critically important to the veterans and our 

Nation as a whole. 

That said, the first DAMA Subcommittee oversight hearing of 

the 115th Congress will focus on how national work queue, or the 

NWQ, has impacted the department’s ability to process disability 

claims. Before the NWQ, the VA’s practice was to process a veteran’s claim at the regional office in the State where the veteran 

lived. The challenge was that some regional offices had large backlogs and veterans in those states were often left in limbo even if 

the regional offices in other states would have been able to process 

the claims faster because of not being so busy. 

The NWQ is supposed to increase effectiveness and efficiency by 

automatically assigning the claim to the regional office with the 

most capacity. On its face this is a common sense idea. The NWQ 

allows the VA to distribute its workload evenly across the Nation 

to reduce waiting times for veterans who file claims for benefits. 

However, there are some concerns about whether the NWQ is actually performing as it should. Unfortunately the VA claims backlogs 

have increased from about 76,000 backlogged claims on May 2, 

2016 before the NWQ was fully implemented to now almost, well 

as of February 4th 101,000. One has to question whether the distribution of work throughout the NWQ is in fact more effective. 

Rather than assigning a claim to a specific employee to work the 

entire claim, the NWQ breaks up the claim into individual tasks, 

such as scheduling a disability exam. After one claim processor reviews a file and completes an action, the NWQ will likely assign 

another claim processor for the next step. The second claim processor then also has to become familiar with the file to determine 

whether additional action is needed for the VA to make a decision. 

It does not make sense to me on how having multiple claim processors completely review the same file can possibly save time. 

We will hear from our second panel as well, and it is comprised 

of the veterans service organizations. The VSOs used to receive an 

advance copy of the rating decision before it was sent to the veteran. This practice gave the VSOs 48 hours to review a proposed 

decision and raise objections before the decision was finalized. But 

now that the NWQ has been deployed VSOs complain that they no 

longer have a chance to review a decision and try to resolve errors 

before any incorrect decision is sent to the veteran. I hope the VA 

will explain what steps it is taking to work with the VSOs to ensure the VA decisions are accurate. 

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I am also looking forward to learning more about how the VA intends to monitor employees’ production and quality standards now 

that the NWQ has been implemented. I also hope that the VA will 

tell us more about what the department intends to do to tackle the 

current backlog of appeals and non-rating claims and how it plans 

to leverage NWQ to do so. 

Again, I want to thank the witnesses for being here today. And 

with that I want to call on the distinguished Ranking Member Ms. 

Esty for her opening statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF ELIZABETH ESTY, CHAIRMAN 

Ms. ESTY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate 

your warm welcome and I am delighted to be joining the Committee. I am happy to be here today as the Ranking Member designate of the Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial 

Affairs and I am looking forward to working with all of you to ensure that the veterans that we are honored to represent are receiving all the quality of care and the rapid service that they and their 

families deserve. 

A bit about my background, I am in my third term in Congress. 

I am the daughter of a Navy man, daughter-in-law of Air Force, 

and have niece and nephew who are Army. So we need a Marine. 

You know, we are working on getting a Marine in the next generation. My district in the fifth district of Connecticut is the proud 

home to over 40,000 veterans, a long service tradition. In my office 

it is always issue number one, two, or three for constituent services. We have made it a core part of our mission. I hire veterans 

proudly in my office and I am committed to ensuring that everyone 

who has served this country is served in turn by all those of us who 

enjoy the freedoms that they secured. 

I want to thank Mr. Murphy and the deputies from the VA for 

appearing today to help us understand how the national work 

queue program is functioning now that it has been rolled out in all 

56 regional offices. Now in speaking with Connecticut veterans it 

is my impression that the claims backlog in our region has been 

reduced significantly and I want to congratulate you on that 

progress. However I also want to understand some of the issues 

and delays that do remain and I look forward to working with you 

to improve the claims process going forward. 

To the VSO witnesses here today and to the thousands of VSO 

sponsored veterans service representatives in every part of the 

country, you are providing reassuring and dedicated assistance to 

veterans as they navigate the disability process and pensions process. I thank you for your commitment to veterans and to making 

sure that it gets done right. 

I know we are all here for the same purpose. We want to enjoy 

the benefits and speed and accuracy of automation. But we need 

to ensure that that personal touch is ensured and that our veterans 

are treated with that care, and the VSOs have provided that. So 

I am looking forward to hearing from you today how we get the 

best of both worlds, the high tech and the high touch. I know that 

is our objective and we are not there yet, I think we are in agreement. But I do know that everyone is committed to getting us 

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mony and working together collaboratively to get us here. I see we 

have been joined by the current ranking, my good friend, colleague, 

and classmate, Julia Brownley, and my work buddy from the gym, 

I see Mr. Coffman has also arrived. 

Mr. BOST. Thank you, Ms. Esty. Okay, I ask that all Members 

waive their opening remarks as per this Committee’s custom. Now 

I would like to welcome our first of two panels. Thank you for taking the time to be here today. Our first witness is Mr. Thomas 

Murphy, who is the Acting Under Secretary for Benefits. He is accompanied this morning by Mr. Willie Clark, the Deputy Under 

Secretary for Field Operations; and Mr. Ronald Burke, the Assistant Deputy Under Secretary for Field Operations. I want to remind 

the witnesses that your completed written statement will be entered into the hearing record. And Mr. Murphy, you are now recognized for five minutes. 

STATEMENT OF THOMAS MURPHY 

Mr. MURPHY. Good morning, Chairman Bost, Ranking Member 

Esty, and Members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the implementation and progress related to VA’s 

national work queue. 

The NWQ is a workload prioritization and distribution tool designed to match claims assignment capabilities with VA capacity 

regardless of geographical boundaries. This tool provides the means 

necessary to ensure veterans receive a more timely decision on 

their disability claim. The NWQ uses sophisticated system capabilities to uniformly prioritize VA’s electronic claim inventory and 

allow for the collection of enhanced data on processing efficiencies, 

areas for quality improvement, and issues impacting processing capabilities. This new environment allows VA the flexibility to move 

claims to locations around the country that have the capacity to 

take the next action on the claim while maintaining the flexibility 

at each facility to assign work to the right person. 

One of the principal fundamentals of NWQ is to ensure that veterans are served equally, regardless of where they live. A review 

of claims from 2015 shows that in many instances the timeliness 

of a decision was significantly impacted based solely on the state 

in which a veteran lived. Some were receiving decisions in 106 days 

while others took more than 213 days, nearly double the time. This 

variance demonstrates the inefficiency of the RO-based claims 

model, where each regional office receives claims based on geography rather than what their capacity is to complete work. When 

NWQ was rolled out the average days pending for veterans disability compensation claims was 94 days. This was reduced to 85 

days by the end of fiscal year 2017, a ten percent reduction. 

VA breaks the claims process down into cycles. Upon receipt of 

a claim, VA develops for evidence. The inventory of claims awaiting 

initial review was reduced from approximately 56,000 to 18,000 as 

of the end of January, 2017. The average number of days to a first 

development action has dropped from almost 25 days to less than 

ten in 2017. 

Following the initial development actions VA prepares a rating 

decision to identify each disability, its severity, and its relationship 

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to military service. The amount of time claims were awaiting a rating decision has dropped from about 29 days to 16 days. 

Once a rating decision is complete, VA prepares award notification for the veteran as appropriate. The award time has dropped 

from eight days to four, and the authorization time from four days 

to less than two. 

VA continues to work toward reducing the number of claims 

pending over 125 days. While we acknowledge that some claims 

will take more than that, we have made significant improvements 

over the past two fiscal years. In 2015 VA completed 45 percent of 

its claims within the 125 days. As of January, 2017, 66 percent 

were completed within the 125-day standard. 

NWQ is a component of VBMS and one feature that is built into 

the NWQ allows VA to measure the amount of rework in our system, which has never been possible before. It allows any VA employee in the process to stop the line to correct a deficiency, a process similar to that used in industry to ensure high quality. Because 

of this feature we are now able to measure process defects based 

on feedback from our employees. As a result, approximately 6,500 

claims reviewed in 2017 have been returned to an earlier stage for 

correction. Systematically tracking these errors enabled us to tailor 

training and increase accountability in the claims process. 

With an endeavor this large VA spent a lot of time and resources 

on a measured change management approach to NWQ implementation. Our efforts included briefing various stakeholders, training 

employees, publications of an NWQ playbook, and a myriad of calls 

and briefings with each regional office. VA utilized new data to revise director and employee level performance metrics and created 

standard reports used to improve workload management and effectively manage resources. Additionally VA is bringing together more 

than 1,100 supervisors and managers for continued training on 

tools and best practices. 

While VA is acclimating to this new work environment we took 

the feedback we received to heart and have implemented methods 

to increase the amount of local work assigned to regional offices. 

While we acknowledge that there is more work to be done it is important to recognize that these efforts have and continue to generate positive and significant results for veterans. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I would be pleased 

to answer any questions you or Members of the Committee may 

have. 

[THE PREPARED STATEMENT OF THOMAS MURPHY APPEARS IN THE

APPENDIX]

Mr. BOST. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. And I would like to yield myself five minutes for questions, if I may. On May 2, 2016 before the 

NWQ was fully implemented there were almost 76,000 backlogged 

claims. Yet last week there were more than 100,000 backlogged 

claims. The increase is about 33 percent over nine months. Is it the 

VA’s assertion that the NWQ is improving effectiveness and efficiency in processing claims? 

Mr. MURPHY. Yes sir, it is. And the reason is we now for the first 

time have the ability to work, look at the right next claim that 

needs to be worked. So today the work that we are sending out, we 

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are sending out every claim that is available to be worked in the 

backlog every single day, and then we are working back as early 

as claims that are less than 90 days old being pushed out to regional offices. So we are leveraging the ability to see the exact case 

that needs to be done and sending it out to a regional office for action at just the right time. 

Mr. BOST. Okay. So but from what we can see of our numbers, 

what specific factors are contributing to that increase that we see 

over that nine-month period? I mean, that is a concern. Naturally 

all of us are wanting to see them processed as quick as possible. 

But to see that increase, what would the agency say the reasons 

for that are? 

Mr. MURPHY. I am going to ask Mr. Clark to jump in on this. He 

runs our Field Operations Division. 

Mr. BOST. Okay. 

Mr. CLARK. Good morning. 

Mr. BOST. Good morning. 

Mr. CLARK. And thank you, Mr. Chairman. It certainly is my 

pleasure to respond this morning. The first thing I would like to 

say is our receipts have gone up since last year. One of the things 

that we know that as we get more efficient, more veterans are 

aware of benefits that are available to them. They come in and 

they submit more claims. Additionally we are taking a more balanced approach to the work that we are doing. One of the things 

that we have done in the past and we did great work in getting 

the backlog down in past years, but we focused probably too much 

on the backlog. And we have this old saying in the VBA that if you 

work only the backlog then all you work is the backlog. So we have 

improved in our appeals. We have improved in answering phones. 

We had a blocked call rate of 60 percent, almost 60 percent a couple of years ago. And now we are at zero percent blocked calls. 

Non-rating, those types of claims, dependency claims, we have 

claims drill pay, we are working those claims. So what we are 

doing, is taking a more balanced approach. But we do understand 

and we do keep an eye on our backlog to make sure that we do not 

have veterans waiting too long. 

Mr. BOST. Yes, that would be the concern. And another part of 

my question is what plans do you have to, though we should not 

work off the backlog, I agree with you on that, that alone, but that 

is still a major factor that we can use to say, okay, how quick are 

we getting these processed through? And when you see the buildup 

it is concerning to us. And I am sure it is concerning to everyone 

involved when you see that continue to pile up. So what intention, 

you know, what do we see out there that we can do to speed the 

process up? 

Mr. MURPHY. I will take that one, sir. About six months ago I 

took a look at where we were spending our money in terms of overtime dollars, and the number of people that we had, and the number of vacancies that we carried. And as a result I went out to our 

top 25 percent performing offices and increased their authorized 

end strength. If you look at my authorized end strength today, the 

day the hiring freeze was put on we had 250 people above authorized head count. And the reason for that is I took very high cost 

overtime dollars and I converted it into full time labor. When those 

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people start into the process it takes about a year to get a VSR up 

to standard and ready to work; it takes 18 months to two years for 

RVSRs. My point is this. Six months ago I started that action and 

in a few more months you are going to see VSRs in place doing better processing and you are going to see more raters in place within 

the next six months. 

Mr. BOST. All right. The other concern that I have right quick, 

and I am going to finish this up fairly quickly because my time is 

running out, but the concern we have of rather than one person 

dealing with a particular claim and having it handed off over and 

over and over again quite often can cause a lot of confusion. And 

my concern, do you have that same concern that maybe one person 

is not focusing on one claim? And as it passes through multiple 

hands, do you see a problem with that? 

Mr. MURPHY. I am going to ask Ron to talk about this one. And 

yes, I had that concern. But the changes we have made over the 

last several years, it is much smaller than it was. 

Mr. BURKE. Mr. Chairman, thank you for that question and semper fi. To talk about that topic specifically, we have learned, this 

is still a relatively new initiative that we are still learning from. 

We absolutely wanted to make sure that our claims assignment 

and our claims distribution was matched to where capacity was. As 

we get more data from the NWQ system we are learning better 

ways to optimize this. As such, one of the things that we are going 

to be doing in our next VBMS release is actually maximizing the 

amount of work that goes to the home station. We believe that will 

do several things. Number one, it will most likely assign a claim 

back to an employee that has seen it before. And as one of two 

former VSOs on this panel, and one of three veterans, we also received that stakeholder feedback from our VSOs, that the inability 

to have that work assigned to the home station more frequently 

was impacting them as well. We have heard that feedback. We 

have created an enhancement request that will actually in our 

March release allow us to almost reverse the percentage of claims 

being assigned to the same station. We believe that will help with 

the issue of multi-looks that you raise, sir. 

Mr. BOST. Okay. And just real quickly if you can, because I know 

my time has expired, but how many on average would you think 

employees handle one claim as it processes through under the existing system? 

Mr. BURKE. Well what I can tell you, sir, is right now that the 

amount of work per each step in the process that is being assigned 

to the home station is about 30 to 35 percent of each daily distribution. We believe with the March release that will allow us to increase it above 50 percent, maybe as high as mid-fifties. That will 

significantly reduce the amount of instances where multiple employees are seeing the same— 

Mr. BOST. Do you have an average of how many people touch the 

claims as they go through? 

Mr. BURKE. Sir, it really depends on the claim itself. So I do not 

have a number— 

Mr. BOST. Three? Six? Eight? 

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Mr. BURKE [continued]. Normally in any environment it takes 

five to six touches for a claim from initial development to completion— 

Mr. BOST. Okay. 

Mr. BURKE [continued]. —to begin with. 

Mr. BOST. We would like to add that number to the record, then. 

And I would like to turn it over to the Ranking Member Ms. Esty. 

Ms. ESTY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you all for your 

service and your commitment to work together with us to serve 

veterans better. 

I actually want to pick up where the Chairman left off on this 

issue of ownership. I have a lot of manufacturing companies in my 

district. I am a third generation manufacturing daughter and 

granddaughter. This issue about continuous improvement and lean 

does depend on ownership. The VSOs have been that ownership. I 

think we need to figure out how we ensure that we are reducing 

the number of touches where appropriate. Now obviously you may 

have very complex claims and those are going to require and 

should go to the people best able to do that. There are specialized 

claims that we know are much more fairly and rapidly processed 

in specialized settings. I think we do need to work for the typical 

claim to keep it closer to home, keep the VSOs engaged, and reduce 

the number of touches that we need to have. So if you could talk 

a little bit about in addition you just spoke, Mr. Burke, about in 

March issuing a directive to reduce that number so more of it stays 

in the ROs. But what else are you hearing in terms of feedback 

that will not just reduce the time but improve the accuracy and the 

engagement which is going to be necessary to keep our veterans 

feeling served as well as being served? 

Mr. BURKE. Yes, ma’am. Thank you for that question. Let me 

first start with the latest part of your question about quality. One 

of the things we are also building into our process is an automated, 

we are calling it the diagnostic tool. This is purely based to improve and focus on the quality of our claims processing at all steps. 

This is an automated feature that will run in the background as 

an employee is processing a claim. And before that claim moves to 

the next step that employee will have the opportunity to hit a diagnostic check and it is designed to catch some of the major trends 

that we see now with stepped steps or confusion in the claims process. So we believe that that will help. 

I am actually leading an endeavor to, we bring 1,100, and we are 

still in this process, bringing 1,100 of our first line supervisors and 

division chiefs physically into a location for training. The purpose 

of this training is to talk about our trends, the new reports, and 

we have created a standard suite of reports so that our supervisors 

can lead better, they can see issues with the claims process. But 

on the issue of ownership what we are stressing the importance of 

is that we have got to treat this national work unit environment 

like an ecosystem, meaning every action that we take on a veteran’s claim has a subsequent reaction. And what we are stressing 

is that we want pride and ownership from our employees in every 

action they take on a veteran’s claim, whether it is the entire claim 

or pieces of the claim. 

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But to that point, what we see is a valued need to route more 

work to the local station than what we have been doing since implementation. And again, that feedback not only comes from our 

employees but from our VSO partners and other stakeholders. 

Ms. ESTY. Thank you. I want to follow up also on the question 

of how we are having, you know, the backlog going up. We are in 

a freeze right now. So let us be clear, you know, the Committee has 

been told that VBA has 760 vacancies. Mr. Murphy, you talked 

about how you are redirecting money to more appropriately try to 

cover but you still have those vacancies. And it is our understanding those will not be exempted from the hiring ban at this 

point. When you are looking at the final rule establishing eight 

new presumptive diseases associated with exposure to contaminated water at Camp Lejeune, that is going in effect March 14th. 

How are we going to keep up? You are going to see intake go up. 

Obviously we are going to. And we have vacancies. Can you talk 

a little bit about what do you expect to happen to the backlog when 

those cases come online? 

Mr. MURPHY. We are overstaffed at this time. So the intent right 

up front six months ago was we are going to hire ahead because 

we always had 1,000 positions vacant. And what happened was we 

authorized the strength out to 100 percent to each regional office. 

An RO would wait for a vacancy, then they would start the fill 

process, four to five months later a person would show up and 

begin training. So what I did is I bumped up an additional end 

strength across the Nation, told everybody you can hire up to 105 

percent, and they followed the normal process which took them to 

the 100 percent mark, part one. 

Part two was at the same time I spent $130 million, real round 

numbers, on overtime. Overtime is very expensive. Why not convert 

some of that to permanent employees and keep the rest of it for 

overtime, and use the overtime money for crises and surges that 

we have? So in addition to the extra five percent, we converted 50 

percent of the overtime dollars to FTE and put the authorization 

out to the field to hire those individuals. Those folks now are working through our challenge process today. So again, I am 250 bodies 

over my authorized end strength from the presidential budget for 

2017 and we lose approximately 40 people a pay period right now. 

So I can ride it out and still be above end strength for the next 

three months plus, depending on how the attrition rate goes before 

we are impacted by not having people on board. Then the next 

measure would be we start moving people out of non-direct labor 

positions into direct labor positions. That is the most important 

part is the delivery of service, not to have an extra person at a 

headquarters. So we do have a hiring freeze in place. And we also 

have a movement freeze in place where we are now allowing people 

to move out of our direct labor positions and be promoted into other 

positions, which leaves me trying to figure out how to deliver services. 

Ms. ESTY. Thank you. I see my time has expired but I appreciate 

your explanation. Thank you all very much. 

Mr. BOST. General Bergman, you are recognized for five minutes. 

Mr. BERGMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And it is an honor to 

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ice, both in uniform and now in a suit. The State of Michigan has 

a very high percentage of veterans comparatively speaking, and the 

first district that I represent has double the percentage of veterans 

as the other districts in Michigan, and largely rural, so we have 

some unique challenges. And as far as the questions I am going to 

ask, I am not going to ask person specific. So whoever would choose 

to respond, please feel free. What are the problems with NWQ that 

delayed its implementation? 

Mr. BURKE. Thank you, sir, for that question. As with any release in VBMS, we go through a rigorous testing process. When we 

initially intended to deploy the national work queue before May, we 

had completed that testing. But testing in a testing environment 

is different than actually putting it in a production environment. 

Testing passed, everything was successful. As we went to go into 

the production environment we intended to do so over the course 

of a weekend. We noticed that the actual production job, the job of 

pulling in claims electronically, prioritizing them electronically, and 

also staging the distribution to 56 regional offices, took too long. 

Our goal is to always have claims deposited at a regional office 

and in an employee’s queue before they start their day. We do not 

want any idle time. We do not want any employee waiting for work 

to do. As such, it is important that our entire distribution job starts 

at around midnight and needs to finish by around 4:00 in the 

morning. We noticed that the job was taking too long and we decided to pause, go back and retool and reconfigure until that processing time could be reduced. That was the issue, sir, that caused 

the initial delay, because we did not want to put ourselves in a position where employees did not have work available to them at the 

start of their work day. 

Mr. BERGMAN. So in other words, you feel that by the testing, the 

testing that failed, if you will, and what you implemented as you 

saw the timeframe work, so have the problems with that been resolved to your satisfaction? 

Mr. BURKE. Yes, sir. That actually was resolved and was the key 

feature, if you will, that allowed us to actually successfully deploy 

to all stations in May of ‘16. 

Mr. BERGMAN. So a little OJT there? 

Mr. BURKE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BERGMAN. All right. And OJL, as in on the job learning. 

Mr. BURKE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BERGMAN. NWQ is fused with the VBMS system. We were 

told that this system needs to be either replaced or updated. Does 

NWQ have the ability to be compatible with new or updated benefits management systems going forward? 

Mr. BURKE. So what I would say, sir, is when we designed and 

developed and built the national work queue, it was under the auspice of VBMS. It is certainly owned and operated as a different entity. I have a full team of administrators that operate the national 

work queue. But we do go through the VBMS process for any enhancements, any new features, etcetera. And so right now we are 

connected solely to VBMS and we are dependent on VBMS right 

now to operate. 

Mr. BERGMAN. So is that a yes or no? If VBMS is replaced with 

something, would we start from square one with NWQ again? 

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Mr. BURKE. I certainly think, sir, that if we were to do that we 

would be dependent on integration, proper integration, with a new 

system. And I am sure as part of our doing that that would be incorporated. We would have to integrate NWQ with anything if we 

replaced VBMS. 

Mr. BERGMAN. Okay. Why did it take one year after NWQ’s implementation for the VA to impose new employee productivity and 

accuracy standards? Why did it take a year? 

Mr. MURPHY. I will start with that one and then I will probably 

have Willie jump in. We went with a partial roll out, started the 

roll out in May timeframe. We did not complete it until the summertime. And then we ran it from summer up until two months 

ago and looked at live production data using 100 percent of the 

population to develop standards which we presented to the union 

in February, which go live on March 1st. So in the past we have 

always used sampling of a couple of people. But this time we used 

100 percent of the population across the Nation over a period of six 

months. So arguing or discussing or negotiating what individuals 

can produce is no longer an issue in the setting of standards because we are using what you actually produced. So all of the discussions we have had in years past about what should the number 

be are gone. It is very simply we used a statistical process, we laid 

it out, we used standard deviation, this is the performance standard, next step. So it took a little longer. It took us six months of 

live process. But now we have numbers that are actually right and 

based on what our individuals are producing on a daily basis. 

Mr. BERGMAN. Thank you. I see my time is up, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. BOST. Mr. Walz? Ms. Brownley? Ms. Brownley, you are recognized for five minutes. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I too want to 

add my voice and thank all of you for your service to our country 

and your service to our veterans as well. So I think, Mr. Murphy, 

you in your opening comments talked about there is still more 

work to be done, and there has already been discussions on where 

improvements can be made. Are there other areas that we have not 

discussed so far that you are looking at to improve the system? 

Mr. MURPHY. I am going to hit this at a very high level and then 

give it to Ron in about 20 seconds. And the answer is we are getting so much data out of every little transaction right now, we are 

still trying to figure out how to use some of the data. An example 

of that is what we did with RVSRs and performance standards and 

how we used statistics to lay it out and say, wow, look at what is 

here. Ron runs this every day. He sees all these numbers. I spend 

a lot of time in his office digging. He may be able to put a little 

more clarity on that. 

Mr. BURKE. Thank you. Yes, ma’am. A couple of things that we 

are doing right now, we have, while very short-lived in this environment, we have started to gather a ton of data that was not 

available before. One of the things that we are really keenly focusing on is the reduction of our rework. We now have an automated 

process that allows us to catch anytime an employee indicates that 

a claim has to move backwards in the process. To that end we are 

also able to discern whether that backwards movement could have 

been avoided or whether it was unavoidable. This allows us to take 

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12 

a look at improving training, improving gaps in policy or procedure, 

and really tailoring our training to meet the trends that we see. 

So one of the biggest things that this environment has allowed 

us to do by the implementation of an automated deferral process 

is to capture the daily data that we did not have before. And that 

really speaks more towards making sure that we have the right 

performance standards, making sure that we have the right training tools, making sure that as we create new reports for supervisors to use to manage both workload and for employee performance that we bring together, get on the same page, and actually 

provide some consistency that was not there prior to NWQ. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. Thank you for that. In terms of vacancies, Mr. 

Murphy, did I understand you to say that we are losing, we lose 

approximately 40 employees per pay period? 

Mr. MURPHY. That is correct. Prior to the hiring freeze we lost 

between 55 and 61 per period. There was a good percentage of 

those that were moving to other agencies. If other agencies are no 

longer hiring then that number will be reduced down to about 40 

that would actually leave the Federal government. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. And so are there additional reasons why you are 

losing that many people per pay period? Is it advancement or is it 

they are leaving? 

Mr. MURPHY. No, these are, this is not turnover, moving to another job. These are people that are leaving the agency. And that 

is actually a very low number. I come from a sector where we ran 

20 to 25 percent, 28 percent. We typically run in the low single digits percentage as an agency. So 40 people with a population base 

of 22,000, that is just normal retirements and taking another opportunity someplace else. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. When back in 2013, I think, when we were first 

discussing this transition, and I really do believe that this transition has been, is certainly there are plenty of indications that it 

has been successful. And so I want to, you know, congratulate you 

all in that endeavor. Obviously, I agree. There is still more work 

to be done here. But one of the things that we talked about was 

the fact that for those people who are doing this processing that 

what could emerge from this system are people who are experts 

across the country in particular type of claim. And perhaps with 

that expertise that that in and of itself would streamline and make 

the system more efficient. Is that happening? Do you see that kind 

of trend? 

Mr. MURPHY. We have the data to give us that kind of trend. We 

have not taken any action on it yet to actually physically realign. 

And the concept you are talking about is let us say St. Paul, Minnesota becomes experts at PTSD. So we route PTSD cases to that 

rating board because they are really good at that product. We do 

that at a lower level now with IDES claims, we do it with Camp 

Lejeune contaminated claims, and there are several others where 

we do those in pockets to concentrate low density things. But what 

you are talking about is a center of excellence where we would concentrate high volumes of work. We have the data to do it now but 

it is not an action that we have taken yet. It is certainly on the 

table for future improvements. 

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Ms. BROWNLEY. So I think in this week’s Monday morning workload report, the Los Angeles regional office, which serves my veterans, the average days pending is 105 while it is only 85 days in 

Fargo, North Dakota. I presume that VBA is tracking these numbers. But are you adding more people and resources in areas where 

you know they are going to, and you can anticipate that there are 

going to be more claims? 

Mr. CLARK. Yes ma’am, we are. And I recall going back I oversaw 

the western region, of which L.A. was one of those offices, and 

there was a point in time that the average claim was well over six 

months. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. Yes. 

Mr. CLARK. So one of the things that we did previously, we would 

pick cases up physically and move them via UPS or we would just 

shift cases and now with NWQ this is why we are able to do things 

electronically. So on the aggregate our average days pending and 

average days to complete have lowered significantly. We do keep 

track of all of our claims that are pending. And one of the great 

things about NWQ is we can just target or send that work to places 

where we have capacity. So sometimes proportionately maybe certain claims or certain amount of radiation claims or what have you, 

may be pending at a particular RO. But on the aggregate we send 

cases where we have a need to send work and where there is capacity. That is where it goes. And it goes everyday at 4:00 a.m. Mr. 

Burke and his team of folks moves that work around. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. Thank you very much. I apologize. I yield back, 

Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. BOST. Thank you, Ms. Brownley. And Mr. Coffman is recognized for five minutes. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Mr. Murphy, out 

of the claims backlog what percentage would you just say are 

PTSD only? 

Mr. MURPHY. I would have to go back and get you a detailed 

number on that one. I would not even want to venture a guess. But 

what I can give you some idea— 

Mr. COFFMAN. Is it the largest, let me just ask you this— 

Mr. MURPHY [continued]. No sir— 

Mr. COFFMAN [continued]. —is it the largest right now in terms 

of pending claims? 

Mr. MURPHY. It would be, in isolation no, but in combination 

with others, yes. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Okay. And then what are some of the, I am concerned that we are not focused enough on our combat veterans in 

terms of the claims process. What amount, can you give, and again 

just a very rough break down, of what I would call age related 

issues in terms of the claims process? Whether it is hearing loss 

that is not necessarily associated in terms of being, you know, 

around explosions or around aviation assets and things like that? 

Mr. MURPHY. I can tell you what we have in terms of the top five 

to seven conditions, the ones we see most frequently. So PTSD is 

very high on the list. Traumatic Brain Injury is fairly high on the 

list. But even much more common than that is tinnitus, hearing 

loss, and then musculoskeletal injuries for knees, ankles, back. 

Those are the most frequently occurring conditions. 

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Mr. COFFMAN. Okay. What, and how well, tell me about your 

shift to a more electronic system? And I know that is somewhat 

controversial. I think that some of the VSOs have fought to retain 

a paper system because it is simply easier for some of the veterans 

that are not sophisticated in terms of electronic communications to 

be able to utilize. But where are we at in that whole process? 

Mr. MURPHY. We do not work cases in paper any longer. There 

is just, there is a very small fraction of a percentage that is actually existing in paper still. It is all a paperless environment. In 

fact, a week ago we completely unpapered Philadelphia. There is 

no paper left in Philadelphia. We have a team in St. Petersburg 

right now and in a couple of weeks there will be no paper left in 

that office. And then we are moving across the Nation. At the end 

of the fiscal year we will have most of them done. By the end of 

next fiscal year we will be completely done with paper in all regional offices. 

Mr. COFFMAN. And am I clear you are down to about 18,000, is 

it 18,000 in the claims backlog? What is the claims backlog now? 

Mr. MURPHY. The claims backlog as of this morning is give or 

take 100 or 200 claims 99,000. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Oh, how much? 

Mr. MURPHY. 99,000. 

Mr. COFFMAN. 99,000? 

Mr. MURPHY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Okay. And tell me where you want to be a year 

from now? 

Mr. MURPHY. I would like it to be as close to zero as we can get. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Okay. 

Mr. MURPHY. I mean, that is probably, I do not know, 25,000, 

30,000, 40,000 depending on the work flow. There are some cases 

that are never going to be under 125 days because you are just 

shortchanging the veteran to go away and do that. Radiation 

claims, long research history— 

Mr. COFFMAN. Sure. 

Mr. MURPHY [continued]. —and exposures, etcetera. And it is 

just an injustice to the veteran to force it into 125-day process. So 

to say we are going to get to zero, that is just not going to happen. 

It is not the right thing to do. But it is certainly not, it can be 

smaller. Any system you have got, no matter how good it is, can 

get better, ours included. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Have we just been pushing these claims to the appeals process? In other words, that we are just kicking them upstairs by trying to expedite and shrink the volume in terms of the 

claims backlog? 

Mr. MURPHY. No, sir. That just creates more problems for me to 

deal with later. We actually have stopped the growth in inventory 

in the appeals process. We were on an eight-year upward slog, 

steady growth. In the last three months we have actually turned 

it and started reducing in the appeals process. And the reason for 

that is, five months ago I locked in the appeals people and just 

made them an isolated, nobody could work on anything other than 

appeals if you were assigned to appeals. So that dedicated workforce, 1,495 people, work only appeals on their prime time, overtime, any time that they are working. And then that focus, along 

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with just a little bit extra pressure and a few modifications and 

changing process, has resulted in us flattening and starting to 

bring down the overall number of appeals. 

Now inside of that the number of appeals sitting at the Board 

of Veterans Appeals is growing because we are producing them 

faster and pushing them across to the Board of Veterans Appeals 

which leads us into the legislation pending in Congress now about 

appeals reform. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Okay. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. BOST. Mr. Walz, you are recognized. 

Mr. WALZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. And Mr. 

Murphy, a special thank you to you. I know you have been there 

throughout this whole process, as the number of claims have 

reached its peak, and as we addressed it. You adjusted fire and 

fired for effect and reduced them as we were hoping would happen. 

I for one am grateful that you chose not to take your talents and 

go elsewhere where you could probably be paid more and have less 

headaches. I do appreciate that. 

Mr. MURPHY. It is a work of passion. 

Mr. WALZ. It is a passion and it has been apparent. And I think 

that is what our veterans deserve. It is what they demand. And I 

think it is important for us because I have watched you come here 

on numerous occasions through this but always with a goal on that 

end of working together. So I am appreciative of that. 

Just a couple of things, and this is coming from our VSOs who 

I know you are a good partner with. And I truly know and I would 

like to say a special thank you to your employees, too. I literally 

watched those folks out at the St. Paul RO burn the midnight oil 

during numerous occasions during the backlog and they brokered 

in a lot to them. I agree with you on this. We were paying a lot 

of money for overtime that needed to be done but I think to smooth 

this and keep things going that does make more sense. So when 

we talk about accountability, we talk about hiring freezes, we do 

need to talk about in the long run hiring and retaining really good 

people can not only do the right thing for veterans, it can save us 

money in the long run. So I appreciate you on that. 

Just a couple. Our VSOs expressed concerns that their rep cannot find that contact information when they need to reach out to 

a VA employee in the RO to correct an error. How does that happen? Or how do you respond to them when they say that? 

Mr. MURPHY. I am going to give the details to Mr. Burke on that 

one. 

Mr. WALZ. Okay. 

Mr. BURKE. Sir, thank you. We have tried to ensure no degradation of service or relationship between our VSOs at the local regional office and the staff there. To that end we are all learning 

from this process. It has posed some challenges. We are adjusting 

fire, as you referenced. But we have designated personnel in each 

regional office, the same regional office that the VSO resides in, 

that have been put on kind of an ancillary role, if you will, that 

they can serve as a direct liaison between that VSO and that office. 

No matter where the claim is, they have a peer that they reach out 

to, to kind of facilitate those discussions. Admittedly it is a process 

that we need to improve on. I think we are really, really good at 

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it in some areas, and in some we get a reminder from our partners 

once in a while that it may not be working as intended. So we want 

to make sure that there is that local flavor, both the high technology, high touch type thing that was referenced earlier today. 

But certainly an area that we will continue to improve on. 

Mr. WALZ. No, I appreciate that. And I certainly appreciate the 

spirit that you are approaching it. These are your partners and if 

they are good at it, they know. And that is just a force multiplier 

for all of us. So I am grateful for that. 

And I will just end with one, and you brought it up, Mr. Murphy, 

with Camp Lejeune and we are coming up on the 14th. Having, 

and I said this in hearings at the time, I continue to say it. A lot 

of the backlog came out of the Nehmer claims which I am glad that 

it was approved, that we were there. And I feel like I added a lot 

of work for you by pushing that through and when the Secretary 

added it, I understand that. And I do not think we gave you the 

necessary up front resources once the Nehmer claims went through 

that that did cause that. That is not an excuse, but it is certainly 

a reason. Are we going to be okay that we are not going to see 

that? I know the numbers are probably far less but not certain of 

that, and how that will be handled? 

Mr. MURPHY. Are we talking specifically about the Camp Lejeune 

cases? 

Mr. WALZ. Yes, on the 14th, am I right, on March 14th— 

Mr. MURPHY. The date is coming up here shortly. The difference, 

what got us bogged down last time was the uniqueness of the 

Nehmer claim and the fact that you had to go back and do a page 

one review literally decades old. That does not apply in this case. 

This is claims that have filed since we did the notice, plus, so it 

is point forward. It is a completely different type of work. And the 

fact that we put the presumptive in there, yes, it is certainly going 

to bring more volume in the door. But the presumptive helps speed 

the process up because— 

Mr. WALZ. Are you going to funnel those through one RO? Or are 

you going to just kind of handle it in the normal process? 

Mr. MURPHY. Ideally, we want to keep them in the one RO because we have that center of excellence we were talking about just 

a moment ago. If they cannot handle the volume we are going to 

have to train another and expand it. So we will have to keep a very 

close eye on that. 

Mr. WALZ. So, but you are not, you are concerned, you are focusing on it, you are there, you are ready to adjust to it. But you do 

not anticipate anything near the disruption that the Nehmer 

claims caused? 

Mr. MURPHY. No, nothing at all like that. The Nehmer claim was 

a tidal wave and this is going to be a real small one by comparison. 

Mr. WALZ. Great. Well, again, I am grateful. I appreciate you 

being here as always. And it is about service to those veterans and 

it is clear, as I said, of watching you over the last half decade or 

so that you have done what you were expected to do. I yield back. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. BOST. We want to thank you for your testimony. We appreciate you being here today. If we have any follow up questions we 

will be sending those your way and thank you for being here and 

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17 

for what you do. And hopefully we can improve on this but we need 

to move on to our next panel. 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. BOST. If that is all right? And if the second panel then will 

come to the witness table? 

I want to say welcome to everyone and thank you for coming 

today. Our second panel includes Mr. Zachary Hearn, the Department Director of Claims of the Veterans Affairs and Rehabilitation 

Division of the American Legion; Ms. Kelsey Yoon, the Director of 

Veterans Benefits of the Vietnam Veterans of America; and Mr. 

Ryan Gallucci, the Duty Director of the National Veterans Services 

for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. And first we will hear from Mr. 

Hearn of the American Legion. And Mr. Hearn, you are now recognized for five minutes. 

STATEMENT OF ZACHARY HEARN 

Mr. HEARN. Thank you. American Legion Past National Commander Ronald Conley initiated a series of visits to VA facilities in 

2003. After these visits the American Legion declared VA a System 

Worth Saving. Over 13 years have passed since that declaration 

but this truth remains. The American Legion knows the VA is a 

system worth saving. 

Good morning Chairman Bost, Ranking Member Esty, and Members of the Subcommittee. On behalf of the National Commander 

Charles E. Schmidt and the 2.2 million members of the American 

Legion, we welcome this opportunity to speak with you regarding 

the impact of the national work queue upon the adjudication of 

claims. VA Secretary David Shulkin echoed the American Legion’s 

sentiments regarding the value and place VA has with our Nation’s 

veterans during his confirmation hearing. We fervently believe VA 

is a system worth saving. We need VA to listen to us. We need VA 

to work with us to ensure management’s success. 

The American Legion has over 3,200 accredited representatives 

with representatives in each of VA’s regional offices. This level of 

assistance and expertise by these individuals led the American Legion to represent over 804,000 veterans in the last fiscal year. 

Many view or representatives as advocates for veterans. The fact 

is we could be a fleet of advocates for VA. But they not only need 

to listen to us but also implement what we are asking. 

NWQ and Veterans Benefits Management System are inextricably intertwined. NWQ is not viable without a properly function 

VBMS that allows for the fullest advocacy efforts by veterans service officers. VA began briefing the American Legion in 2015 regarding NWQ. It was designed to maximize its workforce and adjudicate claims in a more expeditious manner through routing cases 

to VA regional offices based upon availability. The American Legion recognized the potential for the program, however concerns existed and continue to exist regarding its implementation and execution. 

The advocacy and adjudication of claims has historically been a 

local venture. A veteran residing in a given area of jurisdiction 

could reasonably expect the claim to be developed and adjudicated 

at the local VA regional office. Much of claims advocacy is built on 

internal relationships with regional offices and NWQ would sever 

Leonard.horne on VACREP0180 with DISTILLER

18 

some of those relationships. VA advised that the local regional office would serve as the first filter where the claims would be adjudicated. However, in the case of some regional offices this has proven untrue. The St. Paul regional office has reduced the adjudication 

of claims of veterans from Minnesota from 99 percent to 30 percent 

over the course of two years. 

A major complaint received by our service officers is the fact that 

VBMS does not have the ability to alert local representatives of 

claims development. VA has established a 48-hour window to review claims. However, VA has occasionally removed a case prior to 

the close of the allotted period of time. The American Legion hosts 

a department service officer school biannually and during the last 

school in July, 2016 service officers working in regional offices were 

asked to raise their hands. They were asked to lower their hands 

if they had come across a case that had been removed from adjudication review prior to the 48-hour window. Not one hand was 

raised. These concerns have been raised to VA, yet the problem 

continues to linger. 

Even if the local representative where the claim was adjudicated 

was notified it would be of little assistance. The local representative is not familiar with the veteran and the associated claim. 

Moreover many of our service officers are employed by state agencies funded by local tax dollars. Those employees are working to assist veterans in their given state. It is unfair for them to also assist 

veterans residing outside of their jurisdiction. 

The American Legion regularly conducts quality review visits. 

Last year we met with VA employees to discuss the impact of 

NWQ. Some welcomed NWQ, however others had concerns. These 

concerns listed from line employees to senior leadership. The VA 

employees noted that a disconnect exists. A developer at one location may not develop the claim to the degree required at another 

location, causing added delays in the process. Another complaint 

involved NWQ pulling back cases into the virtual queue and redistributing them after a substantial amount of development occurred 

at the original regional office. Despite completing the bulk of the 

work the original regional office does not receive the credit. One 

senior leader stated that it is disheartening to have an employee 

complete the bulk of the work while another location gets the credit. In a production environment this could hurt morale. 

VA has taken great strides in reducing its backlog of claims from 

its peak in March of 2013. The implementation of fully developed 

claims and VBMS have allowed VA to enter the 21st Century. VA 

needs to truly believe that veterans service organization are stakeholders and a fleet of advocates that could be used to improve their 

product. They simply need to listen. 

Chairman Bost, Ranking Member Esty, again on behalf of the 

Nation’s largest veterans service organization we thank you for the 

opportunity to speak about this issue this morning and I will be 

happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you. 

[THE PREPARED STATEMENT OF ZACHARY HEARN APPEARS IN THE

APPENDIX]

Mr. BOST. Thank you, Mr. Hearn. And Mr. Gallucci, you are recognized for five minutes. 

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STATEMENT OF RYAN GALLUCCI 

Mr. GALLUCCI. Thank you. Chairman Bost, Ranking Member 

Esty, and Members of the Subcommittee, on behalf of the 1.7 million members of the VFW and our Auxiliary, I want to thank you 

for the opportunity to testify on this issue. I know in my written 

testimony the situation with national work queue looks dire. But 

I want to clarify that the VFW supports NWQ and we believe that 

this is how VA can maximize efficiency using every resource at its 

disposal to deliver consistent, quality, accurate, and timely benefits 

to veterans. 

NWQ shows significant promise in meeting this objective. Our 

concerns rest with the final step in the process for veterans represented by accredited VSOs like the VFW. Unfortunately, this 

issue is so complex that we saw prudent to articulate every way 

that we believe this affects VA’s ability to deliver a quality product 

to veterans and our ability as advocates to provide quality customer service to our veteran clients. By a decades old policy, VA 

allows VSOs 48 hours to perform a final quality review on proposed 

rating decisions allowing us to identify any potential errors and get 

them corrected before the decision is sent to the veteran. VSOs see 

this as a chance to ensure VA gets it right the first time. 

Based on VFW’s analysis, we find errors in about one out of 

every ten claims that we process, and we can usually work with VA 

to fix them before the veteran ever knows. This is not only a positive for the veterans we serve but also a benefit to VA. On a grand 

scale, if VSOs can perform quality reviews on all ratings and explain the context of the decision to our veterans, we cut down on 

appeals and build confidence in the VA system. On a local scale, 

VSOs learn to become stronger advocates, VA staff learn to be 

more meticulous raters, and veterans receive consistent, accurate, 

and timely benefit decisions. 

While this policy has been supported by VA management, the 

VFW has seen examples where personnel in regional offices, potentially reacting to pressures on productivity, will finalize rating decisions before the 48 hours expire. We have also seen NWQ pull ratings out of regional offices while they are still in the 48 hours, 

meaning our representatives lost optics on them while the clock 

ticks. We have also seen brokered work stations immediately finalize rating decisions for work under their jurisdiction if no VSO representative is present in the office in accordance with VA’s Manual 

M21–1. This makes it impossible for the VSO representatives who 

originated claims to track their work regardless of the filtering 

workarounds offered by VA through VBMS. We appreciate that VA 

has offered this work around, like zip code filtering, and a potential 

new field to filter by station of origination. But as we articulated 

in our written remarks, these workarounds do not solve the overall 

problem. 

Our objective as accredited VSOs is to serve as the public facing 

advocate to help veterans navigate the complex VA benefit system. 

As such we align our resources to either the needs of the community as we see in North Dakota, or the special mission of the VA 

regional office like we see in Winston-Salem and Salt Lake City 

with the pre-discharge claims program. When VFW takes power of 

attorney for a veteran client the veteran is placing his or her trust 

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in the VFW to serve as a quality advocate in not just filing for VA 

benefits but also ensuring any awarded benefit is accurate. Our 

representatives in the field must build trust and credibility with 

not only their clients but also their local VA colleagues to properly 

advocate for veterans. When our advocates do not have the opportunity to review the work for their clients, everybody suffers. At 

first it may look good that VA was able to send the rating decision 

to the veteran more quickly, but this is no good if the decision is 

inaccurate. As our representative in North Dakota said, we have 

lost local advocacy. 

The VFW’s ask on NWQ is really three-fold. First, return proposed rating decisions to the station of origination so that the VSO 

representative who is most familiar with the claim can conduct a 

proper review. Second, lock the 48-hour clock in VBMS so that VA 

staff cannot pull back the rating decision before the VSO clicks reviewed or the 48 hours lapses. Third, allow VSOs to mark proposed 

ratings as queried in VBMS so that VA can track potential errors 

and hold staff accountable for addressing any potential errors. The 

VFW believes that the infrastructure already exists to execute 

these three steps in NWQ and is a more simple solution than building a new filtering option in VBMS. 

The VFW and our partner VSOs have asked for these solutions 

since NWQ was first proposed. Unfortunately, we worry that these 

requests have been pushed aside in favor of VA’s internal priorities. Now we understand that VA has its objectives to improve its 

work product, but our purpose today is to demonstrate to this Subcommittee and to VA that the VSO’s priorities are also VA’s priorities. The VFW believes in NWQ and we want to work with VA and 

the Subcommittee to make this successful. If VA can execute these 

deliverables, we believe that we will have advanced in our mission 

of providing timely, quality, and consistent benefits to our veterans. 

Chairman Bost, Ranking Member Esty, this concludes my testimony and I am happy to answer any questions you may have. 

[THE PREPARED STATEMENT OF RYAN GALLUCCI APPEARS IN THE

APPENDIX]

Mr. BOST. Thank you, Mr. Gallucci. And Ms. Yoon, we want to 

recognize you. Just for purposes Boston—Bost— that is what, the 

name is—no, that is okay. Everybody does it. I am just going to go 

ahead and get it so everyone knows. Ms. Yoon? 

STATEMENT OF KELSEY YOON 

Ms. YOON. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Bost, Ranking 

Member Esty, and other representatives of this distinguished Subcommittee. Thank you for inviting VVA to testify today about the 

national work queue’s impact on claims processing. 

VVA is supportive of using technology to create a better claims 

system, however not at the expense of accuracy, transparency, or 

a pro-veteran claims process. Currently it is easier to track a 

FedEx package than a VA claim. VA has sidelined VSOs during the 

development and implementation of the national work queue by 

not prioritizing the crucial role of service representatives. Consequently the pro-veteran claims process has suffered to the detriment of the veteran. VVA is left concluding that VA’s only interLeonard.horne on VACREP0180 with DISTILLER

21 

est is to use the national work queue as a tool to eliminate the 

backlog and nothing else. 

VVA strongly opposes the expansion of the national work queue 

to appeals and non-rating claims until at a minimum the three recommendations we put forth in our written statement are fully implemented. I would like to take this time to briefly discuss three 

barriers to the claims process that VVA currently experiences as a 

direct result of the national work queue. 

First VSOs are unable to track accurately its claims that need 

review before a final decision is issued in VBMS. For example, if 

our service officer files a claim in Seattle, Washington that claim 

could be kicked to Atlanta. That service officer is unable to track 

that claim to its rating decision being issued. VVA believes that 

when our service officers are unable to review the claims they filed 

VA is depriving veterans of their right to competent representation. 

For more than two years VVA has stressed the importance of a 

station of origin search filter in VBMS but VA continues to give 

this request zero priority. Adding a station of origin search feature 

will permit service officers who filed the claim to be able to competently assist their veterans through the entire claims process regardless of if the claim is adjudicated in another station. 

The second barrier, assuming the VSO is able to identify which 

RO the claim has been sent to, VA has yet to provide accurate contact information for each station. Often the email addresses provided are incorrect or outdated, leaving the VSOs unsure of who to 

contact at the out of state station. This is extremely important 

when we are trying to contact during the 48-hour review period. 

And finally the third barrier, even if we have the correct contact 

information for the station, it is difficult to receive at timely response, if we get one at all. Since implementation of the national 

work queue service representatives are further distanced from the 

claims process and in some instances blocked out entirely. Consequently VVA has been forced to appeal more claims than previously, which adds to the backlog. All of these problems did not 

happen pre-national work queue because service representatives 

developed working relationships with VA raters at their home station and all claims were adjudicated in the same state where the 

veteran resides. 

The veterans benefits claims process is a unique adjudicatory 

system. It seeks to be non-adversarial and pro-veteran. VVA urges 

VA to prioritize the recommendations made in our written statement so that veterans and their representatives are again included 

in the claims process. 

Thank you for this opportunity for VVA to share our thoughts on 

this issue and I am happy to answer any questions. 

[THE PREPARED STATEMENT OF KELSEY YOON APPEARS IN THE APPENDIX]

Mr. BOST. Thank you. And I will go with the first five minutes 

of questioning. Mr. Hearn, our number of backlog claims when we 

started this project was about 76,000, now it is about 101,000, or 

thereabouts. Do you think the NWQ actually has improved the situation or not? 

Leonard.horne on VACREP0180 with DISTILLER

22 

Mr. HEARN. And the American Legion has noted that there has 

been an increase in the backlog of claims during this period of 

time. As far as if it contributes to the backlog, I could not say. But 

it certainly has not been, you know, it certainly has not decreased 

it as the numbers would bear. 

Mr. BOST. What suggestions would you have to improve this? 

Mr. HEARN. I think, again, a lot of it when we go through and 

we look at how these claims are being adjudicated or they are 

being processed in the system, there is a lot of back and forth that 

is going on between the VSR and the raters. In one location if you 

take a, let us just say you take a poor performing regional office 

and that developer meets, you know, cuts the mustard as far as 

they are concerned there. Then it goes to a rater at a higher performing area where they would not accept that as being the necessarily development. So then the rater ends up kicking it back. 

And so here this starts slowing this process down. Had this been 

in the same office the person could have walked across the service 

center and said, hey, look, you need to fix this? We need to schedule an exam. We need to do this level of development. So I think 

that some of this, some of these issues are probably contributing 

to a certain extent. 

Mr. BOST. Okay. Then that kind of leads to this question. Right 

now I just asked you specifically what input you would have 

through your organization. So I am going to ask this of all three 

members. Has the VA asked each one of you what they could do 

to improve this, and what has been the response? 

Mr. HEARN. They have asked. We have offered solutions. And we 

continue to ask for those same, you know, those same asks keep 

getting asked over and over and over again over the last six 

months to a year, I would say. 

Mr. BOST. Mr. Gallucci? 

Mr. GALLUCCI. So thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do want to reiterate what Mr. Hearn said. Because that was really an overarching 

theme in our testimony as well. Is that we persistently make requests of VA on things that they need to prioritize in changing 

their business processes, but we do not know where those stand on 

their list of overall priorities. What we are trying to convey to VA 

is that our priorities are not just the priorities of VVA, the American Legion, and VFW. They are the priorities of the veterans that 

we serve. And we provide that customer facing advocacy. These 

men and women walk into our offices, call our offices, they develop 

interpersonal relationships with our representatives. And so we 

need to be able to provide that personal advocacy for them. 

It also becomes a problem, not to get on too much of a tangent, 

but where these different processes happen in different offices we 

have heard anecdotally that sometimes there is duplicate work 

happening. So they may order an exam that was not necessarily 

needed, or as Mr. Hearn said it will get kicked back into the process someplace that it did not need to be. So I think my recommendations would likely echo the American Legion’s in improving the business flow in those regional offices. It is good to hear 

that VA wants about 50 percent of the work to stay at the original 

office of jurisdiction. But again, I do not know if that is going to 

Leonard.horne on VACREP0180 with DISTILLER

23 

solve their problem. Automation has the potential to improve this 

process. 

Mr. BOST. Ms. Yoon? 

Ms. YOON. Yes, I would also concur with Mr. Hearn and Mr. 

Gallucci. VVA has continually, as I stated earlier, for years been 

working with the VA to try to explain what we need in order to 

assist the claims process. And like I mentioned, 

because of our inability to properly track and assist claims with 

the original service officer who worked on it, it forces us to appeal 

claims that we would not have had to appeal pre-national work 

queue, thereby adding to the backlog. So I would just emphasize 

that, again, as Mr. Gallucci said, we are all on the same team. We 

are trying to do the same thing and achieve a final and just decision at the lowest level possible. And the recommendations that we 

put forth seek to achieve that. 

Mr. BOST. Well let me tell you, I think this Committee is on the 

same team with you as well. In your original testimony you actually brought up the fact that quite often the communications come 

with the wrong email address? 

Ms. YOON. Yes. So was earlier stated, the VA has provided a contact person or a generic mailbox at each RO. So if we do not know 

who to contact at that RO, if we do not know the rater, we are instructed to email this email address. It is either a personal email 

address, a name, someone’s name at va.gov, or it is a corporate 

email box. Those email addresses are often wrong and we will send 

the email to the person we are supposed to contact and the response, if we get a response which is common to not get a response, 

you are contacting the wrong person, I do not do this. So the request that we have made in our written statement is that VA publish on its website an updated list. We certainly understand that 

there is turnover and the person of contact should switch. But they 

need to be able to provide that realtime updated to service organizations so we know who to contact at that point. 

Mr. BOST. Thank you. I would turn it over to the Ranking Member. 

Ms. ESTY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I take it, I think we 

are all on the same page and I think it is going to be up to us in 

Congress to prioritize these issues to better serve veterans. You 

know, part of what we have done now there has been a lot of focus 

on backlog so the VA is focusing on backlog. Well if we want these 

quality measures and transparency and accountability in place, we 

need to prioritize that and we need to be pushing VA. And that is 

why we are thanking you for your partnership with us in ensuring 

that that happens. And again, I have no doubt the VA wants this 

too. But if it is not prioritized from somebody who can assist or not 

and shine some light or not, it may not happen. 

Is a 50 percent goal enough? You know, we heard from Mr. Murphy that their goal is now to return 50 percent, or leave 50 percent 

in the RO. Any thoughts from the three of you on whether we 

think that is an appropriate goal? 

Mr. GALLUCCI. First of all, thank you, Ranking Member Esty for 

that question. And I have some thoughts on that. You may have 

seen in my written testimony that in talking about some of these 

solutions to the VFW they really just seem like work around. I 

Leonard.horne on VACREP0180 with DISTILLER

24 

mean, an objective to have 50 percent of the work in the station 

of origination sounds good. It is better than 30 percent, do not get 

me wrong. Having a station of origination work filter in VBMS is 

also better. But I do not think it is a 100 percent solution for some 

of the reasons that I pointed out before. 

The manual allows VA to immediately promulgate decisions if we 

have no VSO representative in that office. And just for a little bit 

of background, the way that our resources are aligned at the VFW 

sometimes we do have turnover in those offices. The example that 

I had in my written testimony was a regional office that had a vacancy at the moment. We out of our headquarters were tracking a 

claimant that we were working with in the hopes of reviewing that 

rating decision when it was posted for the 48-hour review period. 

That 48-hour review period never happened because that regional 

office was immediately promulgating decisions. So even if we had 

the station of origination filter, it would not have helped us in the 

situation with that veteran. And what is interesting about this specific case is that VA failed to evaluate one of the claimed conditions 

on the claim and it resulted in an additional eight-month ordeal for 

that veteran and for the VFW to try to resolve that issue. So the 

SOO filter to us, the 50 percent station of origination work, does 

not really solve the problem. That is why I mean, really, our testimony was more of a wish list. If we had an optimal situation what 

we would want is to return it to the SOO, freeze the clock so they 

cannot pull it back into the national work queue, and then allow 

us to mark ratings as queried in VBMS as opposed to just reviewed 

or lapsed. 

Ms. ESTY. Thank you. That is really helpful. And we have had 

some of those cases in my office. And I am thinking we managed 

to crack the code in immigration cases, a coding system that they 

used that allowed us to actually track, Ms. Yoon, as you mentioned, 

who is handling the case, how has it been coded. And I think that 

might be something we want to explore in more detail. Could we 

do better coding so you would know who was in charge if it gets 

sent someplace else? So if that person is no longer there, you would 

be able to go and look at that RO site and see, wait a minute, 132 

is not there. So we are going to have to find out who is now taking 

over those cases. So it seems to me that the technology ought to 

be able to offer us that transparency and accountability. But we 

may need to push VA to say you need to prioritize encoding this 

in a way that allows us to actually know who we contact and get 

realtime information. So I do not know if you have done any work 

on that. But maybe, Mr. Chairman, we could look at utilizing exactly this technology to say, okay, if we are going to use it let us 

use it for the benefit of veterans. Not just reduce the backlog, but 

be able to still have that accountability and that touch. So as we 

move forward I would welcome your thoughts on whether we can 

use the technology to help solve this problem. 

Mr. GALLUCCI. Ranking Member Esty, if you do not mind I would 

like to follow up on that. Because there was another point about 

the list of points of contact that Kelsey made in the regional offices. 

This becomes problematic because it takes reporting of errors outside of that digital environment. So VBMS is a digital claims management environment, how VA is tracking all of their work. And 

Leonard.horne on VACREP0180 with DISTILLER

25 

Mr. Murphy articulated that they have been able to glean so much 

data from there that they have been able to identify break downs 

in the business process and hold individual employees accountable. 

For a rating review if we find errors there is no such opportunity. 

By having to send a separate email to a random VA staffer or a 

corporate inbox, there is not accountability for reporting those errors. And then when we click either reviewed or let the 48 hours 

lapse so it would say expired there is then no accountability on the 

back end for VSOs that, hey look, we found an error. It was not 

addressed within a timely manner. So that is one of the reasons 

we are asking to mark them as queried in VBMS. Thank you. 

Ms. ESTY. That would be great if we could follow up and figure 

out how to embed that. I think that is a really important point and 

if we are getting incomplete data, I will not say inaccurate, incomplete data about the error rate, that is really important that we figure out how to code that. And I think we should continue on with 

that. Thank you very much. 

Mr. BOST. General Bergman? 

Mr. BERGMAN. First of all, thanks to all of you for all you do for 

the veterans. The veterans service organizations vary in their 

scope, vary in some of the populations that they serve. I am hoping 

for all of you that you are working very hard to encourage those 

veterans to, whether they join the American Legion, the VFW, the 

Vietnam Veterans of America, we need to know what is going on 

amongst the youngsters, if you will, that have served so honorably. 

To all of you, the VA has claimed that the NWQ would improve 

on rating consistency and accuracy. From the perspective of you, 

the VSOs, have you noticed improvement in these areas? 

Mr. HEARN. The American Legion conducts quality review visits 

every year. We just did return from San Juan last week. And to 

their credit, to San Juan’s credit, they are vastly improved from 

where they were 18 to 24 months ago. However, I would still contend, and the American Legion has historically differed in what the 

definition of error is with VA, and a static appellate rate or even 

a declining appellate rate is just strictly that. That does not mean 

that your quality is better. It just means more or less people have 

appealed. 

Typically 20 to 30 percent error rate is what we see. And what 

we determine as error rate is that there was something done wrong 

in the development process, not just strictly a yes or no, grant or 

denial of the benefits. So I would not say, it certainly is not the 

panacea to VA’s problems as far as the error rate is concerned. 

Mr. GALLUCCI. General Bergman, thank you for that question. I 

think it is tough to draw a conclusion at this point. National work 

queue is a very new business process, which is one of the reasons 

we wanted to get out in front of this and really appreciate this opportunity to address the Subcommittee on this issue today. Is because from the VFW’s perspective we think that moving work efficiently in a digital space around VA has potential to improve accuracy. I do not think we are there yet. Based on our own review of 

rating decisions we find about one in ten have an error. That has 

been fairly consistent, but a few months ago we were almost getting up closer to two in ten where we were identifying errors. 

Leonard.horne on VACREP0180 with DISTILLER

26 

Whether that is because of national work queue it is tough to say 

because looking at VA’s self-reported data on claims based accuracy 

that is a number that has also been decreasing over the past few 

years. But when they break down claims based accuracy it also is 

directly correlated to the number of issues that a veteran claims. 

So one to two issues per claim are more likely to be accurate than 

if you have seven to 12 issues in that claim. And that becomes a 

problem because veterans are claiming more issues as they become 

more aware of the benefits to which they are entitled. I think at 

least from the VFW’s perspective it is too soon to tell. But one of 

our objectives here today is to get in front of it and make sure that 

VA can provide us with the tools we need to hold them accountable 

for any errors and fix them before they go out the door. 

Ms. YOON. Yes, I do not have too much to add. I concur with both 

statements already made. I would just emphasize that I do agree 

that it is too early to determine whether it is helping. I do agree 

that there is potential with the additional data that we can get 

from the national work queue. However, I would also emphasize 

that if we continue along the pathway that we are without including the VSOs into the process of the claims process, then it could 

potentially have very negative impacts on the accuracy of decisions. 

Mr. BERGMAN. Thank you. Mr. Hearn, how do you feel VA handled the rollout of NWQ? 

Mr. HEARN. It is kind of interesting because when VA was testifying the statement had been made that they are just now hearing 

that cases are not being adjudicated at the local level as much as 

the VSOs would like. But when it was rolled out we were initially 

told that essentially the right of first refusal was the local regional 

office. When you drop from 90-plus percent down to 30 percent in 

Minnesota, that is not even hitting a majority. And so that has 

been a big problem with us. And it is not only that but it is also 

dealing with the issues of claims development, not getting our mail, 

not getting, I mean that is the mantra we are hearing from our 

service officers is we want our mail back. In other words, if something happens along the claims process as far as development is 

concerned unless the VSO or the service organization is specifically 

putting that veteran’s claim number in there is no way for the veteran or the accredited representative to know. So we need this type 

of information as well. 

Mr. BERGMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. BOST. Ms. Brownley? 

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

your testimony. It seems to me that this, you know, a pretty simple 

problem to resolve and there should be ways in which it can be resolved. And you know, I would just ask the Chairman and the 

Ranking Member if, you know, we do not have the VA here now, 

and so we cannot ask them that question. But we need to ask the 

question, you know, when are you going to take these recommendations and when are you going to have a response to them? We believe it is a priority and we want to make it a priority for you. And 

when will that happen and when can they report back to us on it 

to make sure that it does indeed happen? 

I mean, it is, you know, within the VA sent out a fact sheet, you 

know, when this process was going to be incorporated. And they 

Leonard.horne on VACREP0180 with DISTILLER

27 

made a strong commitment that the relationship between VSOs 

and the RO managers will not change as a result of this new process, NWQ. Clearly you are making it very clear to all of us that 

that is not the case. So timeliness of these benefit claims are clearly important. But the quality of those claims and the role that you 

play and the relationship to the veteran at home is equally as important. So I hope that we can clear this up sooner rather than 

later. 

I just wanted to ask do the, can the veterans check the status 

of their claims through the e-Benefit accounts? 

Mr. HEARN. Yes, they can. But it is not like Domino’s where you 

know for certain they are putting the cheese on the pizza. Sometimes they say they are putting the cheese on the pizza but they 

are just putting the sauce. I mean, it is a different, it is not a good 

reporting structure. And— 

Ms. BROWNLEY. It is not a good reporting structure because— 

Mr. HEARN. In other words from the input that we have gotten, 

I will get calls from veterans in my office. And they will say, you 

know, e-Benefits says this. And I will be looking at VBMS and it 

is not matching up exactly. And so, and then so I have raised this 

issue before with VBA going back years. And I have said, you 

know, again using Domino’s as an example, if they can figure this 

out as far as whether, you know, what toppings they are putting 

on the pizza, why cannot VA use a similar technology? And I have 

never really gotten a good response on that. To me that would be 

an easy solution, like you were talking about. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. Okay. Well I guess I do not, I really do not have 

any more questions. It seems the problems have been laid out pretty clearly and I think to resolve it seems to be pretty simple. So 

I will yield back. 

Mr. BOST. Mr. Coffman? 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me ask each of you 

first, do you think that the claims process, when they switched to 

the new system were the claims processors up to speed and ready 

to go? Were they trained up for this? Mr. Hearn, let us start with 

you. 

Mr. HEARN. By claims process do you mean on VA’s side or our 

representatives? 

Mr. COFFMAN. VA’s side. 

Mr. HEARN. I, anytime you implement a new system there are 

going to be problems, I think. And so, but at large I would say that 

they were trained on how to do it. I think one of the things that 

we need to caution with is that everything is getting more electronic, right? Everything, they are sitting there, they are gleaning 

all this information out of the system. No baseball umpire is a computer. We still need the human element in this. And there is too 

much reliance within the network when they are saying, if the 

computer shows that this could be potentially an error to avoid a 

quality review hit they will not override that. And that has sometimes been some of the problem that we have noted in there. But 

as far as their understanding of the system, it has been my experience when working with the employees that they have been properly trained. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Mr. Gallucci? 

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28 

Mr. GALLUCCI. I would tend to agree that there was proper training prior to implementation. However, because this was such a 

complex overhaul I think the unforeseen consequences made it 

much more problematic at least on our end as VSOs, whether just 

how much work was moving around. I think even, and I pointed 

out in my testimony that they had moved work for the pre-discharge program, benefits delivery discharge claims. There were hiccups all up and down the VA system on this. Our rating review 

specialists in Winston-Salem had identified a number of claims 

that were disappearing during the 48-hour queue. When we reported it to VA they did not think it was happening at first. It took 

about two days of back and forth and then providing claim numbers and a hard count of the claims that were pulled back from 

Winston-Salem pending rating review, there were ten of them, that 

were assigned to the cloud, the station of jurisdiction 499 for the 

national work queue. They did not believe us at first. They almost 

did not recognize that this was happening within their own business process. So I think there were a lot of unforeseen complications with the rollout of the national work queue. Again, one of the 

reasons we wanted to come here today and articulate this, not to 

take too many shots at VA, but we want to be a constructive partner in this and this is what we are seeing on the ground. And we 

hope that they will be responsive to the needs of our clients, the 

veterans that we serve. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Ms. Yoon? 

Ms. YOON. Thank you for the question. I would agree that I think 

the training was generally sufficient. However, the one thing that 

was exposed is that at each RO they often have their own internal 

procedures and systems. And when a claim is sent to another RO, 

and if we are used to a certain system at this RO, the other RO 

might do something else. The lack of consistency across each office 

has I believe been more apparent and the hope is in the near future that that is something that could hopefully be standardized 

more. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Okay. Well very quickly, if you all had to, you 

know, we are I think over 90,000 in terms of our claims backlog 

right now. And so we have made some progress but we have got 

a lot of progress to go. What would you, if you were going to identify one issue as the leading issue that the Veterans Administration needs to change in order to reduce the backlog, what would 

that issue be? Mr. Hearn, let us start with you. 

Mr. HEARN. That is a big question, Congressman. Honestly I 

think as, this is not going to impact the backlog as much as it is 

going to impact the appeals and the quality of the decisions. But 

is to stop and look at what you are doing as a rater and as a VSR, 

and make sure that you are considering the entirety of the evidence. Because that has been one of the biggest problems that we 

have seen. It is the reason why you have got a 50 percent remand 

rate at the board. It is the reason why you have got a 25 percent 

grant rate at the board. It is because nobody is sitting back and 

really thinking about what they are doing when it comes to these 

decisions. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Okay. Mr. Gallucci? 

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29 

Mr. GALLUCCI. Congressman Coffman, thank you for that question. I think you saw my head nodding a number of times. Because 

it has to do with conflating timeliness and accuracy. There is so 

much focus on the time it takes to get a claim done, we have to 

get them out the door, we have got to move through this process 

fast, fast, fast, fast, fast. And we are finding that haste makes 

waste. I mean, it is a common euphemism but pardon my dad joke. 

But it really becomes a problem because our clients come to us for 

that personal interaction to know that we have reviewed their 

records, that what we are claiming is accurate, that VA took into 

consideration the entirety of evidence. And it really makes it easier 

on the back end. I believe now the Board of Veterans Appeals docket date is backlogged several years. And that is just harder on 

those veterans. Yes, they may have a rating decision but it is probably an inaccurate rating decision. We want to get this right the 

first time. 

This also becomes a problem with the 48-hour review because 

sometimes we have been told, well, we just need to get the rating 

out there. The veteran needs that rating quickly. We are talking 

about two days in a 125-day process. And the clients that we work 

with they understand that if they get two days for a quality check 

it is really not going to affect their, well it will only affect their 

benefits for the positive on the back end. That two days is ample 

time for them to make sure that the rating decision is accurate. So 

thank you. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Ms. Yoon? Quickly, I am over time here. 

Ms. YOON. Yes. Yes, I would emphasize possibly to reevaluate 

the work credit system that VA employees have. Because again 

there is this emphasis on speed and there is not as much of an emphasis on accuracy. And again, our accuracy measurements may be 

a little different than VA’s accuracy. But there needs to be an emphasis on reviewing the entire claims file, development, looking to 

see if there is any more development that is needed, and also most 

importantly if an exam has been issued, was that exam adequate? 

And I think that that, one of the most common reasons that we see 

cases kick back from the board is because the exam is inadequate. 

And I think that that is an example of something that can be 

worked on and improved at VBA. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. BOST. First off, let me say thank you for being here. But also 

let me tell you that the Chairman in the new position that he has 

made an error. The error is that I let the VA leave this room before 

you spoke. I will not do that again. I think that they should be 

here. I think that your answers, you should get answers to those 

questions. And if it needs to be done in front of this Committee, 

that is exactly where I think it needs to be done. So that we can 

actually hold them accountable. Because they can, I think the idea 

and intent of this program is good. We want the process to be as 

smooth as possible. But when it takes away your ability to be the 

advocates that you need to be and you have, not to say the VA does 

not have their best interest, the interest of the veteran, but you 

being the overseers that you are, we want to have you have that 

opportunity to do that. We will redo this at some time and make 

sure that we can tell the VA we want to see a progress date of 

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30 

where we are at and where the communications are opened up 

with you. I say that with this Committee that we will definitely 

move forward with that and we will have, we will do this again. 

So thank you so much for being here today. 

The Committee is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:04 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

Leonard.horne on VACREP0180 with DISTILLER

(31) 

A P P E N D I X 

Prepared Statement of Thomas J. Murphy 

Introduction 

Good morning, Chairman Bost, Ranking Member Brownley, and Members of the 

Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the implementation and 

progress related to VA’s National Work Queue (NWQ). The NWQ is a workload 

prioritization and distribution tool designed to match claims assignment capabilities 

with VA workforce capacity, regardless of state jurisdictional boundaries. This technological capability provides the means necessary to ensure Veterans receive a more 

timely decision on their disability compensation claims. The NWQ uses sophisticated system capabilities to uniformly prioritize VA’s electronic claims inventory and 

allows for the collection of enhanced data on processing efficiencies, areas for quality 

improvement, and issues impacting claims processing capabilities. This new environment allows VA the flexibility to move claims to locations around the country 

that have the capacity to take the next action on a Veteran’s claim while maintaining the flexibility at each facility to assign work to the appropriate personnel. 

Impact on Efficiency 

All Veterans deserve prompt and accurate delivery of all benefits including those 

related to their disability compensation claims. The implementation of NWQ is yet 

another large step towards that goal. One of the principal fundamentals of NWQ 

is to ensure that Veterans are served equally, regardless of where they live. A review of disability compensation claims completed in fiscal year (FY) 2015 shows 

that, in many instances, the timeliness of decisions rendered was significantly impacted based solely on the state in which they lived. Some Veterans were receiving 

claims decisions in an average of 106 days, while other Veterans’ claims decisions 

took more than 213 days on average-an unacceptable range of 107 days-nearly double the days taken to process claims in the regional office (RO) with the best processing times. 

This variance demonstrates the inherent inefficiency in the RO-based claims 

model, where each RO receives claims based on geography rather than their capacity to complete the work. This variance would be much greater had VA not redistributed claims through its brokering plan. However, a monthly, manual brokering 

strategy is labor intensive, time consuming, cost prohibitive, and does not sufficiently address the variance in our processes. 

NWQ’s role in reducing the geography-based variances contributed to an overall 

timeliness improvement during FY16. In March 2016, VA began a staggered release 

of NWQ to certain ROs, with deployment to all ROs implemented in May 2016. At 

the onset of our deployment, the average days pending for Veteran’s disability compensation claims nationwide was 94 days, reduced to 85 days by the end of the fiscal 

year-a 10 percent reduction. While other factors beyond NWQ also contributed to 

this reduction in the average days pending, including overtime and expanded use 

of contract medical examinations, VBA’s new capability to put actionable claims into 

the hands of its workforce cannot be overlooked. While the current average days 

pending has increased above pre-NWQ deployment levels during FY 2017, that is 

a by-product of increased receipts and other factors not necessarily related to NWQ. 

VA’s claims adjudication process involves many policies designed to ensure that 

VA fulfills its statutory obligation to assist Veterans with their claims. VA breaks 

the process down into cycles. Upon receipt of claims for disability compensation, VA 

develops evidence, to include examinations and records from private and military 

providers. Thanks to the continued efforts of our employees and the capabilities of 

the NWQ tool, VA reduced its inventory of claims awaiting initial review from approximately 56,000 claims to 34,000 claims by the end of the fiscal year. This inventory has been further reduced to approximately 18,000 as of the end of January 

2017. The average number of days a claim awaited first development action has 

dropped from almost 25 days to less than 10 days in FY 2017. 

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Following the initial development actions and any follow up actions required to 

gather all necessary evidence, VA prepares a rating decision to identify each disability, its severity and its relationship to military service. As described above, there 

are several factors, together with the deployment of NWQ, that contributed to improvements. However, since implementation of NWQ, VA’s inventory of claims that 

are developed and awaiting a rating decision has increased, but with the ability to 

distribute work automatically across the country, the amount of time claims that 

are awaiting a rating decision has dropped from about 29 days to 16 days. 

Once a rating decision is completed, VA prepares award and notification for the 

Veteran, as appropriate. The increase in work completed in the rating decision cycle, 

due both to NWQ and other factors, also increased the number of Veterans’ claims 

awaiting award from almost 9,500 to nearly 12,500, yet the time awaiting award 

action has dropped from 8 days to 4 days. Final awards are reviewed by a senior 

claims processor, and the queue awaiting their review and authorization has increased from almost 3,500 to 5,100, yet the time awaiting authorization has decreased from more than 4 days to less than 2 days. 

Impact on Average Days Pending 

VA continues to work toward reducing the amount of disability compensation rating claims pending over 125 days. While we acknowledge that some claims will take 

more than 125 days to complete, we have made significant improvements over the 

past two fiscal years. In FY 2015, VA completed 45 percent of claims within 125 

days, improving to a timely completion rate of 64 percent in FY 2016. Through January 2017, 66 percent of disability compensation claims were completed within the 

125-day standard. However, it is important to note that we will not disadvantage 

Veterans by compromising accuracy in exchange for expediency and we will continue 

to fully develop claims (which includes considering all evidence, requesting additional evidence or medical exams as needed, and take actions on new medical conditions added throughout the claims process) to ensure each Veteran receives the benefit to which he or she is entitled. We will continue to work with Veteran Service 

Organizations (VSO) and other stakeholders to increase efficiencies in these areas 

to reduce processing time. 

Dependency on the Veterans Benefits Management System (VBMS) 

NWQ is a component of VBMS, VA’s claims-processing platform, and is inextricably linked to the continued success of VBMS, the primary technology component of VA’s modernization efforts. VA continues to develop VBMS in an agile methodology, in order to address changing needs and priorities. 

While we know there is more work to be done with regards to VBMS, we continue 

to focus efforts on generating positive and significant results. VBMS is poised to 

capitalize on our achievements to date and drive continued improvements in claim 

processing timeliness, accuracy, and transparency. 

Emphasis on Quality 

As previously stated, NWQ is a component of VBMS and one feature that is built 

into the NWQ allows VA to measure the amount of rework in our system, which 

we were not capable of measuring prior to VBMS and NWQ. Rework is a classic 

non-value added step in a process. Reducing rework will further improve efficiency 

in our disability claims process. VBMS allows any VA employee in the process to 

‘‘stop the line’’ to correct a deficiency in process or an error in the decision, a process 

similar to that used in industry to ensure high quality. VA employees began using 

this process following NWQ deployment in May 2016, and VA has seen increased 

numbers of claims returned to an earlier stage for correction. 

Because of this feature, we are now able to measure process defects based on feedback from our employees. As a result, approximately 6,500 claims reviewed in FY 

2017 to date have been returned to an earlier stage for correction, for reasons including missing or incomplete development, missing exams, incorrect notice letters, 

or effective date errors. Systematically tracking these errors at the lowest level enables us to tailor our training to correct our most frequent occurring errors and increase accountability in the claims decision process. VA joins Congress, our VSO 

partners, and Veterans themselves in our collective desire to improve the quality of 

VA’s disability claims process. 

Training and Change Management 

With an endeavor this large, VA expended a significant amount of time and resources on a measured change management approach to NWQ implementation. Our 

efforts included briefing various stakeholders, training employees, publication of an 

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33 

NWQ Playbook for field users, and a myriad of calls and briefings with each VA 

RO as deployment activities ensued. 

Although field personnel have gained experience in the new claims environment, 

the change management and training efforts continue. VA has utilized new data to 

revise Director- and employee-level performance metrics and has created a standard 

suite of reports that personnel use to improve workload management and effectively 

manage their resources. Additionally, VA committed to bringing together more than 

1,100 first line supervisors and division level managers for continued training on 

tools and best practices. 

Conclusion 

While VA is acclimating to this new work environment and learning to optimize 

assigning work to existing capacity, we have taken the feedback from our employees 

and stakeholders to heart and are implementing methods to increase the amount 

of local work assigned to our ROs. This will allow VA to continue to leverage the 

proficiencies that often come from familiarity to further improve efficiency and increase accountability for work actions completed by each RO. While we acknowledge 

that there is more work to be done, it is important to recognize that these claims 

transformational efforts have and continue to generate positive and significant results for Veterans. 

I look forward to your continued support and commitment on behalf of Veterans, 

their families, and survivors. Thank you for allowing me to address the Committee 

today. Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I would be pleased to answer 

any questions you or other Members of the Committee may have. 

f 

Prepared Statement of Zachary Hearn 

Chairman Bost, Acting Ranking Member Brownley, and distinguished members 

of the Subcommittee on Disability and Memorial Affairs (DAMA), on behalf of National Commander Charles E. Schmidt and The American Legion; the country’s 

largest patriotic wartime service organization for veterans, comprising over 2 million members and serving every man and woman who has worn the uniform for this 

country; we thank you for the opportunity to testify regarding The American Legion’s position on ‘‘Exploring the national work queue’s impact on claims processing’’. 

Background 

The National Work Queue (NWQ) is a paperless workload management initiative 

designed to improve the Veterans Benefits Administration’s (VBAs) overall productive capacity and assist with reaching the Secretary of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) goals 

of eliminating the backlog by processing all claims in 125 days with improved accuracy. The NWQ is designed to serve as an efficient method to process, develop, and 

adjudicate veterans’ claims. 

The premise behind the NWQ is to avoid funneling cases singularly through the 

local VA Regional Office (VARO); instead, its objective is to maximize VA’s workforce at its 56 VAROs to avoid delays in developing and adjudicating claims that 

plagued the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) in recent years. 

In response to the mounting backlog of disability claims, VA created an electronic 

claims network called the Veterans Benefits Management System (VBMS) to electronically process veterans’ claims. The implementation of VBMS has been credited 

with assisting in the reduction of the backlog that peaked at 611,073 claims in 

March 2013. With the implementation of VBMS and the elimination of hard-copy 

files, VA gained the ability to electronically distribute cases throughout its network 

of VAROs. Through this, the objective was to maximize its workforce, reduce the 

burden on certain VAROs suffering from under staffing, with the ultimate goal of 

having claims adjudicated in a more expeditious manner. 

Beginning in mid-2015, VA began discussing with veterans service organizations 

(VSOs) the NWQ and the program’s implementation. By 2016, the NWQ was fully 

implemented and cases that were previously processed, developed, and ultimately 

adjudicated at a claimant’s local VARO could have been handled by VA employees 

at numerous VAROs. 

During the creation and implementation phase of the NWQ, The American Legion 

received multiple briefings regarding the program. We acknowledged that this program would provide a more efficient manner to have claims processed; however, improvements to VBMS would need to be made to ensure that accredited representatives would be able to maintain contact with VA adjudicators throughout the nation. 

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1 American Legion Resolution No. 104 (Sept. 2015): Local Accredited Representative Access to 

Veterans Benefits Management System Decisions 

Additionally, there would need to be a notification system installed for accredited 

representatives so that they would know when a claim adjudicated in another location requires a review. 

The American Legion is a decentralized organization. Many of our service officers 

working within VA’s network of regional offices are state employees, funded by state 

taxpayers. Concerns surrounding the assistance of veterans residing outside of a 

service officer’s state have been raised to The American Legion. These same concerns have been raised by The American Legion to VA. Despite these concerns, VA 

has yet to provide the necessary adjustment to VBMS to ensure the local representative can review the case. 

Over the last 18 months, numerous complaints have been provided to The American Legion’s National Headquarters regarding the implementation of the NWQ. 

Based upon these concerns, The American Legion passed Resolution 104 during the 

2015 National Convention in Baltimore, Maryland stating, ‘‘VA inform representatives at the local VAROs of decisions by placing a filter in (VBMS) allowing local 

representatives to find their client’s VBMS records, including but not limited to, rating decisions by conducting the client’s state of residence search’’. 1

To illustrate the frustrations of veteran service officers, The American Legion’s 

veteran service officers employed by the Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs 

(MDVA) contacted The American Legion recently pertaining to the NWQ; while 

MDVA communicated these concerns, they echo many of the sentiments we have 

heard from our field personnel. They identified the following concerns regarding the 

NWQ and its impact upon the adjudication of claims: 

• Glaring inconsistencies in development and adjudications between VAROs; • Lack of ability to communicate with VA personnel directly responsible for 

claims’ adjudication; • VA is removing the ability to review adjudications less than 48 hours following 

some adjudication; • Removal of mail and notification lists in the process have resulted in an inability for service officers to properly review claims’ adjudications prior to promulgation; • VA notification letters indicate that the power of attorney (POA) has received 

a courtesy copy of the correspondence. This indication is disingenuous; while 

true that the POA can review the correspondence on VBMS, there is no copy 

delivered to the POA and most often, do not know about the correspondence unless a review of the case occurs or the veteran contacts the POA; and • A lack of ownership of the claim by VA personnel. Previous to the NWQ, VA 

local employees had greater ownership of the development and adjudication of 

claims; since the NWQ’s implementation, a fracture between VA and service officers has occurred in communication and partnership due to frequently receiving little to no response from VA personnel at separate locations. 

The lack of communication and ability to effectively advocate for veterans has 

proven terribly frustrating to many of The American Legion’s service officers. It has 

added to an increased level of distrust; some service officers have reported an increase of VA personnel starting to appeal the decision to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals (BVA), because of the perception of an increased level of authority. The frequency of the statements rose to the level that The American Legion contacted VA’s 

Office of General Counsel (OGC) to question the validity of the statement. In a response to The American Legion on December 12, 2016, OGC stated, ‘‘It is not accurate to say that the (BVA) has greater authority than the (VARO) to grant benefits, 

or any authority at all to circumvent the law and award benefits at will.’’ 

The American Legion’s service officers in Minnesota also reported that they were 

misled regarding the distribution of claims of their veterans. Initially, they were informed by VA that the NWQ would result in 99 percent of Minnesota veterans’ 

claims being adjudicated at the St. Paul VARO. Statistics do not bear true, however; 

since the NWQ’s implementation, the number has reduced drastically to only 30 

percent of veterans in Minnesota having their claims adjudicated within the St. 

Paul VARO. 

Annually, The American Legion visits VAROs as part of the Regional Office Action Review program. Last year, The American Legion visited 10 VAROs; beyond 

reviewing the quality of adjudications with the VARO, we have the opportunity to 

meet with senior leadership and line employees at the sites. Significant concerns regarding the NWQ were raised from veteran service representatives through senior 

VARO personnel. 

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Common complaints from VA personnel were about the inability to have ownership of local claims, and one VARO could complete the majority of the work surrounding an end product (EP), if the product is not completed by the end of the business day, it could be reassigned in the NWQ to another station with the new station 

gathering the credit for the work. A senior VARO employee expressed that the organization operates in a production environment, and yet the proper credit for the production is not necessarily being applied. While service officers would prefer that all 

claims were adjudicated within their local VARO, most also recognize that the complexity of claims and the need to adjudicate the claims in an efficient manner needs 

to exist. We recognize the importance of the NWQ; however, the efficacy of the NWQ 

and the support of the program does require support of the veteran service organizations (VSOs). 

For nearly two years, VSOs have been briefed regarding the NWQ, and during 

that span, we have advised VA of the needed changes to VBMS to allow the NWQ 

to be successful. VA continually states that they recognize VSOs as key stakeholders; however, if VA continues to fail to listen and implement the suggestions 

by the VSOs. 

The American Legion’s service officers support a thriving VA; we have a fleet of 

advocates exceeding 3,000 accredited representatives that are available to support 

VA in its efforts to improve the delivery of benefits - but VA needs to listen and 

address our concerns. For two years, we have been advised that our suggestions are 

not ‘‘high priority’’ if you are a key stakeholder and have been provided this statement for this period of time, it is natural to wonder how ‘‘key’’ of a stakeholder you 

are. To be clear, service officers are not a hindrance to the process, they could be 

a powerful part of the solution. 

The efficacy of the NWQ rests upon VA making the necessary following adjustments: 

• Improving the standardization of adjudications nationwide; 

• VA creating an environment where they are encouraged to communicate with 

service officers regarding individual claims. The creation and use of an informal 

conference could be included in the point system to increase participation and 

potentially reduce appeals; 

• Create a notification/mail system to alert the local service officer of actions 

taken on a case; 

• Rater does not receive points assigned to the EP until the service officer indicates completion of adjudication review; 

• Creation of an alert from the service officer to the adjudicator indicating a concern surrounding adjudication. Through this implementation, VA could avoid 

numerous appeals simply through having a discussion with the service officer; 

• Provide hard copy decisions if the claim has not been electronically processed, 

the Power of Attorney (POA) does not have access to the e-folder within VBMS, 

or if a rating decision or correspondence is generated with the EP being cleared 

the same day 

• Include examination requests in VBMS; POAs have no knowledge if the process 

is being correctly executed; and 

• Do not permit VA employees to remove an adjudication awaiting review until 

two full working days have expired. 

Conclusion 

The American Legion thanks this committee for their diligence and commitment 

to our nation’s veterans as they struggle to receive the benefits they have earned 

for their service to the country. The American Legion appreciates the efforts VA has 

made to improve processing claims. When one considers the backlog of claims we 

all experienced less than four years ago, there has certainly been great improvement. Success and improvement does exist however; veterans’ claims needs to be adjudicated in a timelier fashion. The American Legion is simply asking for VA’s focus 

not to be solely on VA but to the fleet of thousands of advocates that work with 

VA on a daily basis. Through this cooperation, we are confident that the NWQ can 

be a viable product for future claims’ adjudications. Questions concerning this testimony can be directed to Warren J. Goldstein, Assistant Director in The American 

Legion Legislative Division (202) 861–2700. 

f 

Prepared Statement of Ryan Gallucci 

MR. CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE: 

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On behalf of the men and women of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United 

States (VFW) and our Auxiliary, thank you for the opportunity to offer our perspective on how the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) deployment of the National 

Work Queue (NWQ) has affected the disability claims process. 

First, VA should be applauded for implementing a national workload management 

solution to ensure that work can be performed at a consistent level of quality to deliver timely and accurate benefits to our nation’s veterans. In the cloud-based Veterans Benefits Management System (VBMS), the VFW believes that efficiently 

brokering work to the station best equipped to handle the task is a responsible and 

innovative method to improve the overall disability claims process. The VFW knows 

it has been a persistent challenge for VA to ensure consistency and timeliness in 

its rating decisions for veterans across all of its offices. By implementing the NWQ, 

VA now has the ability to track the consistency of its work and ensure that VA employees complete tasks to standard. 

Make no mistake, the NWQ certainly speeds up the VA claims process, which is 

generally positive for veterans. If business processes can be completed efficiently by 

VA regional offices that have the capacity, this makes sense to VA and ultimately 

delivers timely benefits to veterans. Unfortunately, in deploying NWQ, VA seems 

to have focused solely on speed and consistency, but neglected the customer-facing 

side of accuracy. 

The VFW believes that VA has an obligation to ensure consistency across this 

rule-based system to foster the best possible outcomes for veterans. However, VA 

must remember that its partner Veterans Service Organizations (VSOs), like the 

VFW, play a critical role in this cumbersome process as advocates whose inherent 

function is providing quality customer service to the veterans and eligible dependents who seek our assistance. Simply put, we meet face-to-face with veterans who 

need help navigating the VA benefits system. As VA-accredited representatives, we 

train our advocates to not only understand health care records and the VA benefits 

system, but also how to serve as empathic stewards of highly sensitive information. 

When we take power of attorney for a veteran client, the veteran is placing his or 

her trust in the VFW to serve as a quality advocate in not just filing for VA benefits, but also ensuring any awarded benefits are accurate. 

The VFW cannot overstress the customer-facing aspect of our job. The primary 

reason our network of service officers exists is so that our veterans do not need to 

worry about deciphering health care terminology or memorizing the VA rating 

schedule in 38 CFR just to file a claim for earned veterans’ benefits. 

The VFW provides up to 80 hours of training every year to our accredited representatives to ensure they remain proficient in understanding the VA benefits system. Our representatives then have the responsibility to meet with veterans in person to help develop evidence in support of their VA claim, as well as ensure paperwork is filled out properly and submitted in a timely manner. What this means is 

that our representatives are proficient in understanding military and civilian health 

care recordkeeping, and must develop a keen eye in identifying claimed conditions 

and evaluating these conditions against the prescribed VA regulations for compensation. Moreover, our representatives must develop a rapport with their clients to help 

identify any lay evidence that would support their claim, such as statements from 

family members or fellow veterans that can contextualize symptoms or validate inservice incidents. 

VA claims are highly complex and small variables can make a difference in the 

accuracy of a veteran’s rating decision. One of the VFW’s contract trainers, Frank 

Bongiovanni, puts it best when explaining our objective as accredited veterans’ advocates: ‘‘[VA claims advocacy] is the confluence of health care and law. If you wanted simple, you’re in the wrong line of work.’’ 

VA has long recognized that VSOs are constructive partners in the benefits claims 

process, which is why VA has long afforded accredited VSOs in VA regional offices 

the opportunity to review proposed rating decisions for accuracy. This 48-hour review period outlined in VA’s Manual 21–1 provides our accredited representatives 

with one last opportunity to perform a quality check on rating decisions. Our objective is to ensure that errors are caught and addressed before the rating decision 

ever reaches the veteran. 

Based on the VFW’s most recent analysis, we find errors in about one out of every 

10 claims, and we usually can work with VA to fix them prior to promulgation. This 

is not only a positive for the veterans we serve, but this is also a benefit to VA. 

On a grand scale, if VSOs can perform quality reviews on all ratings prior to promulgation, and explain the context of rating decisions to our veterans, we will cut 

down on appeals and build confidence in the VA system. On a local scale, VSO representatives will learn how to become stronger advocates; VA staff will learn how 

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to be more meticulous raters; and veterans will receive consistent, accurate, and 

timely benefit decisions. 

Unfortunately, as the NWQ moves work quickly across VA, the final step in the 

process has the potential to throw the whole system off, sullying the veteran’s 

experiece. Under the current system, when VA proposes a rating decision, raters 

will post the decision for the 48-hour VSO review in VBMS. By default, this rating 

will populate in the ‘‘All Claims Queue’’ for the VSO located at the office where the 

claim was rated. However, the VSO located where the claim was taken will not be 

notified in any way that a decision has been proposed. These VSOs can search for 

their individual veterans by name or utilize a very limited zip code filter to try and 

track their local clients, but they immediately lose optics on the claim. This practice 

of posting ratings in offices other than the original office becomes problematic because it does not take into account current technological limitations of VBMS to 

search for and find unique groups of veterans; it does not account for current M21– 

1 guidance that allows for immediate promulgation for certain brokered claims; and 

it discounts the role of VSOs in providing quality customer service to veterans we 

serve face-to-face. 

Moreover, VA currently does not offer an opportunity for VSOs to flag potential 

errors in decisions in VBMS, relying solely on local employees complying with VA 

guidance to address errors. This means that VA cannot track this as a quality metric on the back end or hold employees accountable for complying with guidance on 

responding to potential errors. The VFW’s objective in this testimony is to demonstrate why VA must consider VSO priorities to be shared priorities, and how each 

of our concerns is intertwined with how VA improves its workflow through NWQ 

to provide the best possible customer experience for veterans. 

With regard to technology, the default view for our service officers in VBMS is 

the ‘‘All Claims Queue’’ and this reflects active workload for which the VFW has 

power of attorney in the office where the claim is rated (Station of Jurisdiction, or 

SOJ). This workload changes day to day, which makes it nearly impossible to track 

the clients our advocates have met with in person. As this work moves around, our 

service officers are instructed to review any claim that populates in their station’s 

work queue in VBMS. Our service officers have worked in good faith to do this, but 

many are concerned that the needs of their local clients should come first. 

For those seeking to balance the local and national objectives in providing quality 

customer service, VA has presented several work-arounds to help track locally-generated work. However, this presents a dilemma. Do our service officers support the 

individual veterans that they met with face-to-face? As local, public-facing advocates, we believe this obligation is paramount. These are the veterans who call, 

email, and personally visit the office, looking for peace of mind and guidance 

throughout the VA claims process. 

However, our service officers are part of a larger VA business process that requires adherence to certain policies and procedures to function efficiently and deliver consistent quality decisions to all veterans. As good faith partners located in 

VA facilities, do the interests of the broader VA mission come first? 

Finally, in the case of the VFW, many state governments and VFW local organizations have made significant financial investments in service officer programs to ensure the needs of local veterans can be met. As responsible stewards of these financial resources, is it irresponsible to deviate from this objective? Moreover, many 

VSOs like the VFW have aligned resources at VA regional offices to sufficiently 

serve the local veterans’ population or to support the VA special missions assigned 

to specific offices. This presents logistical challenges in handling the influx of rating 

decisions generated through NWQ and creates confusion over responsibility and optics on special missions. 

An example of this local mismatch comes from the VFW office in North Dakota. 

The VFW’s service office is staffed by two personnel to reflect the size of the veterans’ community in their region. However, when NWQ rolled out, this service office 

was inundated with brokered rating decisions. Our service officer in North Dakota 

now reports that his rating review workload largely consists of brokered claims for 

veterans he has never met. Meanwhile, he has lost optics on the local veterans who 

turned to his office for help, as the North Dakota workload moves from station to 

station. He warned our office that the veteran has ‘‘lost local advocacy’’ because of 

NWQ. 

An example of the special mission confusion comes from the VFW’s Benefits Delivery at Discharge (BDD) program, which is responsible for helping transitioning service members file VA benefit claims on 20 military installations. When VFW built 

its BDD program, we aligned our resources with the VA regional offices responsible 

for developing and promulgating decisions for BDD and Quick Start (QS) claims 

—Winston/Salem, North Carolina, and Salt Lake City, Utah. When NWQ was being 

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built, VSOs were assured that special work like BDD would be worked only at the 

stations dedicated to those special missions. Unfortunately, this was not the case 

in implementation. Our staff located at these special offices started to notice discrepancies in their claims queues, noticing that work was disappearing while it 

should have still been available to review. They started to meticulously track these 

claims and not only found brokered BDD work in 10 other VA regional offices, but 

also found more than 40 BDD and QS claims assigned to the NWQ cloud (SOJ 499), 

some of which were still on the 48-hour clock, and others which had expired. 

The VFW reported this discovery to VA. VA staff at first seemed surprised to 

learn about this, but then seemed nonchalant that this was going to be the way forward for not only BDD and QS claims, but potentially for other special work like 

pension claims. The VFW implores VA to reconsider this decision and ensure that 

they consider the alignment of VSO resources and the needs of the veterans we 

serve. 

Our service officers in the field consistently demonstrate that they must build 

trust and credibility with not only their clients, but also their local VA colleagues 

to properly advocate for their clients. When these service officers do not have the 

opportunity to review the work for their clients, everybody suffers. At first, it may 

look good that VA was able to send the rating to the veteran more quickly, but this 

is no good if the decision is inaccurate and if our advocates have no way to explain 

the rating decisions to our veterans. 

Over the past two years, the VFW and our partners have tried to articulate this 

dilemma in many different ways to encourage VA to provide our representatives 

with the tools they need to monitor the work for veterans they serve face-to-face. 

To this point, the work-arounds we have been offered have not achieved the desired 

outcome. The first such work-around was the ability for our representatives to sort 

lists of clients by zip code. However, this proved impractical as some regional offices 

serve hundreds of zip codes. Moreover, the zip code sort filter in VBMS is restricted 

to a certain number of fields, meaning offices responsible for larger catchment areas, 

such as our operation in the St. Petersburg VA Regional Office, could never possibly 

sort their clients via zip code. 

Next, VA is proposing to build a new field in VBMS through which VSOs could 

sort by the station where each claim originated (Station of Origination, or SOO). 

This is a significantly improved work-around, but again, it is only a work-around. 

The VFW acknowledges that our representatives would be able to sort by the work 

that originated in their station. However, this does not resolve the business process 

dispute that often results in claims moving directly to promulgation in lieu of offering 48-hour VSO review, as outlined in M21–1. 

According to the current M21–1, VA raters are instructed to follow very specific 

steps to post rating decisions for VSO review. However, this becomes problematic 

for brokered worksites, like NWQ worksites, which are allowed to directly promulgate a decision without offering review, if no authorized VSO is available at the redistributed worksite. After promulgation, the redistributed worksite is directed to 

return the rating to the SOO. In a scenario where a brokered site prepares a rating 

decision but no VSO representative is present, the decision can be promulgated immediately regardless of whether or not another VSO representative was tracking the 

claim in VBMS via one of the proposed work-arounds. 

The VFW recently experienced this with a client we are serving out of the VFW 

Washington Office. The veteran was working directly with one of our experienced 

service officers who serves in a management role with the organization. This service 

officer checked VBMS regularly for this specific client to ensure that our office 

would review the rating decision for accuracy. However, the claim was assigned to 

a VA Regional Office that recently experienced turnover in the VFW office. While 

the VFW office was vacant, the regional office sent decisions directly to promulgation in accordance with M21–1. Unfortunately, when our staff member was reviewing the already finalized rating decision, he noticed that the regional office failed 

to address one of the veteran’s claimed conditions. What ensued was an additional 

eight month hassle for the veteran during which VFW’s repeated messages to the 

regional office responsible for the claim went unanswered. We finally started to resolve the issue during a coincidental site visit to this regional office by VFW national staff to provide onsite training to the new VFW service officer. 

The VFW would have caught this error immediately if we had an opportunity to 

review this rating decision, and our client likely could have avoided the additional 

headaches that came after the decision. This is the worst possible situation for all 

involved. It not only creates unnecessary stress for the veteran, but it also strains 

the VFW’s credibility as advocates and strains VA’s credibility as a benefits provider. 

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Given the current rules outlined in the manual and the practical examples the 

VFW has seen, we believe VA would be best served to return claims brokered 

through NWQ to the SOO for the 48-hour VSO review period. To VA’s credit, they 

seem to be coming around on what groups like the VFW have been requesting. In 

a recent meeting with VA, NWQ staff informed the VSOs that they are looking to 

leverage the data from NWQ to monitor employee compliance with the 48-hour review period. This is a positive step. If employees are cutting corners by promulgating decisions before a proper review, they must be held accountable. However, 

the VFW also asks that VA address the problem up front by returning the claim 

to the SOO, and also allowing VSOs to flag rating decisions in VBMS when we believe we have found an error. 

Another challenge for NWQ is the process to address errors that VSOs identify 

in rating decisions. At the moment, when a VSO identifies a potential error, we are 

instructed to contact the Change Management Agent (CMA) for the regional office 

responsible for the rating decision via email. VA has issued guidance that CMAs 

should respond to these inquiries within 24 hours. However, in the field, this process breaks down. The VFW consistently hears from our representatives that they 

do not receive responses in a timely manner, meaning that we must either mark 

the claim as ‘‘Reviewed’’ or allow the review period to expire. This means that our 

potential objection to a rating decision is never documented in VBMS. The VFW instructs our service officers to log these objections in our internal claims management database, but this is completely divorced from VA’s recordkeeping systems. 

This means that on the VA side, they will see either expired ratings or discover erroneous ‘‘Reviewed’’ ratings of poor quality. This has the potential to erode VA’s confidence in our advocates, straining local relationships and ultimately damaging 

credibility with the veterans we serve. Moreover, this potentially obfuscates errors 

within the VA system, creating the illusion that claims move through the system 

error-free. 

To remedy this situation and help VA better analyze the quality and consistency 

of its work, the VFW requests that VA allow VSOs to mark ratings as ‘‘Queried’’ 

in VBMS. This will again provide a significant benefit to VA in improving the quality of the product it delivers to veterans. Not only will this help to automate the 

rating review process, it will allow VA to hold its employees accountable for addressing potential errors in the digital workspace. 

Again, as VA’s partners, the VFW believes NWQ can be a very good system to 

help veterans receive consistent, accurate, and timely benefits. We understand and 

support VA’s initiative in resourcing work based on capacity in a digital environment. However, the veterans we serve expect us to provide the best possible customer service, and we would be remiss if we were not candid with VA about the 

deficiencies we see in its work products. As we have seen before, some in VA still 

conflate internal efficiencies with quality outcomes for veterans. Our shared interest 

in this process is to ensure the best possible outcome for the veteran, and we hope 

that VA will recognize that our recommendations are ultimately to improve the 

quality of our shared work product. 

We look forward to working with VA to further improve this system and continue 

serving as quality advocates for the veterans we serve. Chairman Bost, Ranking 

Member Brownley, this concludes my testimony and I am happy to answer any 

questions you may have. 

f 

Prepared Statement of Kelsey Yoon 

Good afternoon, Chairman Bost, Acting Ranking Member Brownley, and other 

Representatives of this distinguished subcommittee. On behalf of the VVA National 

President, as well as the members of Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA), I thank 

you for affording VVA the opportunity to testify today regarding the National Work 

Queue’s impact on claims processing. 

The National Work Queue (NWQ) is an IT-based workload management system 

that assigns claims to be adjudicated to a regional office (RO) based upon capacity, 

instead of assigning the claim to an RO in the state where the veteran resides. The 

goal of the NWQ is to eliminate the backlog by processing all claims in 125 days. 

VA is considering expansion of the NWQ to appeals and non-rating claims. 

Pre-NWQ, all claims were adjudicated in the same state where the veteran resided. This process permitted service representatives to develop working relationships with VA claims raters at their respective ROs to ensure that decisions were 

decided accurately and as early as possible. Indeed, VA procedures require service 

representatives to have 48 hours (or 16 business hours) to fully review decisions for 

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40 

1See M21–2, Part I, 3.B.3.b (last updated 9 March 2016). 

errors before the decisions are formally promulgated. 1 This vital step ensures accurate decisions are issued as earliest as possible and prevents the need appeal 

claims. 

However, since implementation of the NWQ, service representatives are further 

distanced from the claims process, and in some instances, blocked out entirely. Although VVA generally supports the use of technology and VA’s desire to move to 

a paperless system, the NWQ was implemented without prioritizing the crucial role 

service representatives play in the claims process. To date, VA has failed to 

prioritize search features in VBMS for service representatives to adequately review 

claims, neglected to provide accurate information concerning how service representatives can connect with a claims rater in a timely manner, and decreased transparency in rating decisions. VVA believes that due to these deficiencies, we are unable to fix erroneous decisions and are forced to appeal more claims. 

VA’s failure to prioritize the service representative review process is tantamount 

to fostering an adversarial and anti-veteran claims process. Although VA listened 

to veterans service organizations’ concerns before, during, and after the implementation of the NWQ, these concerns continue to be put at the bottom of the priority 

list. VVA is left concluding that VA is only interested in using the NWQ as a tool 

to eliminate the backlog at the expense of decision accuracy. VVA believes the 

prioritization of speed over accuracy is certainly not in the spirit of a pro-veteran, 

non-adversarial claims process. 

Therefore, VVA strongly opposes the expansion of the NWQ to appeals and nonrating claims until, at a minimum, the following recommendations are fully implemented. 

1. Recommendation to prioritize the Station of Origin (SOO) requirement 

in VBMS. 

Currently, it is nearly impossible for a service representative to competently assist 

their veterans through the claims process due to the inability to search by Station 

of Origin (SOO) in VBMS. VBMS does not have the functionality to allow service 

representatives to accurately track claims that need review during the 16 business 

hour review period. This request was first raised years ago, and it has still not been 

prioritized. 

The absence of the ability to search claims by SOO particularly impacts VVA because we do not have a veterans service program in each state to properly monitor 

claims activities at each RO. As a result, the NWQ has forced VVA to assign multiple stations to a single service representative; for example, two employees stationed at VVA’s office at the Appeals Management Office (AMO) cover 11 separate 

stations every day. In addition to the ballooning workload of each employee, the 

quality of review is diminished due to the lack of familiarity with the claims file. 

This is an unacceptable outcome and an unsustainable model. 

VVA believes there is no feasible workaround until the SOO is prioritized in the 

next VBMS update. Although VA indicates that it is possible for service representatives to search by the veteran’s zip code, this is not a feasible workaround for VVA 

service representatives who are covering multiple states or hundreds of zip code 

areas each day. Additionally, on February 6, 2017, VA indicated that the zip code 

filter function in VBMS is defective. 

VA has been informed, for years, of the urgent need for this VBMS requirement; 

however, it continues to be given zero priority. 

2. Recommendation to publish CMA contact information for service representatives and to establish pro-veteran protocol for service representatives’ claims reviews. 

Pre-NWQ, when a service representative spotted an error in a rating decision during the 16 business hour period, she would be able to immediately call, email, or 

directly visit that VA claims rater to discuss the error identified so that it could be 

fixed quickly. The name of the RO was published on the rating decision and the 

name of the claims rater was published on the rating code sheet, so it was easy for 

the service representative to identify who to contact. This permitted service representatives to develop collegial working relationships with VA claims raters, and 

ultimately, assisted in preventing errors and appeals. 

Due to the NWQ, service representatives may now need to contact a rater in another state where the claim is adjudicated. Unfortunately, VA has failed to provide 

accurate information and consistent policies concerning how service representatives 

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can connect with a claims rater in a timely manner if an error is identified. VA currently directs service representatives to first reach out to the VA claims rater directly if an error is identified. If the claims rater is not known, which is usually 

the case for a NWQ-claim, VA instructs service representatives to reach out to the 

Change Management Agent (CMA) at the RO where the claim was decided. 

Unfortunately, in practice, it is often impossible to reach a VA representative at 

an unfamiliar RO to address a claim in a timely manner. VVA believes this is primarily due to two reasons. First, VA is unable to produce an accurate CMA contact 

list for service representatives to use if we need to get in touch with someone quickly. Second, even if a service representative contacts the appropriate CMA, we often 

do not receive a response for weeks or the response does not address the issues or 

questions raised. By this time, the decision has already been promulgated, and the 

service representative is forced to appeal the claim - often on the exact same 

grounds raised in the original email to the rater. 

Therefore, VVA makes the following two recommendations. First, VA should publish an accurate list of CMA contact information for each RO on its website. This 

list should be updated in real-time and should include a name, email address, and 

phone number. Second, VA should develop and enforce the following protocol for 

service representatives’ claims reviews: (1) CMAs or VA raters should respond to 

rating decision inquiries within 8 business hours to confirm receipt; (2) the rating 

decision in dispute is not permitted to be finalized until the service representative’s 

challenge is properly reviewed and answered; and (3) a VA representative must provide a response to the service representative’s inquiry within 16 business hours. 

3. Recommendation to include both Station of Origin (SOO) and Station of 

Adjudication (SOA) on rating decisions and to include the full name of 

the claims adjudicator on rating code sheets. 

Previously, VA would publish the name of the RO that adjudicated the claim and 

the name of the claims rater who made the decision on the rating code sheet. This 

information facilitated the ability of service representatives to quickly identify who 

they needed to contact if they found an error with a decision. Moreover, by including 

this information on each rating decision and code sheet, it increases transparency 

and accountability of the claims process. 

Recently, VA has removed both the RO name and the name of the claims rater 

on rating code sheets. Because of these changes, it is often difficult to identify which 

RO adjudicated the claim and it is nearly impossible to identify who adjudicated the 

claim. This information is necessary to have if we need to timely connect with a VA 

claims rater to address an error. It is sometimes unclear in the ‘‘notes’’ section of 

VBMS where the claim was adjudicated; this is especially true of a veteran has multiple claims being worked on at the same time. 

Therefore, VVA recommends that VA include both the Station of Origin (SOO) 

and Station of Adjudication (SOA) on all rating decisions and add the full name of 

the person who adjudicated the claim to the rating code sheet. These changes will 

increase transparency of the claims process and support the service representatives’ 

ability to quickly connect with the VA claims rater if an error is found. 

In sum, the recommendations that VVA puts forth today seeks to increase the accuracy of rating decisions and prevent appeals, supports transparency and accountability of the claims process, and ensures that the non-adversarial benefits system 

is truly working for the veteran. VVA opposes the expansion of the NWQ to cover 

appeals and non-rating claims until the issues raised today are fixed. 

Thank you for this opportunity for VVA to share our thoughts regarding the 

NWQ’s direct impact on veterans and the claims process. I am happy to answer any 

questions at this time. 

Æ 

Leonard.horne on VACREP0180 with DISTILLER