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75–793 PDF 2012

TAKING CARE OF OUR VETERANS: WHAT IS THE 

DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS DOING 

TO ELIMINATE THE CLAIMS BACKLOG? 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, 

HOMELAND DEFENSE AND FOREIGN OPERATIONS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JULY 18, 2012 

Serial No. 112–177 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

( 

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

http://www.house.gov/reform 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

RAU ́ L R. LABRADOR, Idaho 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

JOE WALSH, Illinois 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida 

FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio 

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois 

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky 

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

LAWRENCE J. BRADY, Staff Director 

JOHN D. CUADERES, Deputy Staff Director 

ROBERT BORDEN, General Counsel 

LINDA A. GOOD, Chief Clerk 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, HOMELAND DEFENSE AND FOREIGN

OPERATIONS

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah, Chairman 

RAU ́ L R. LABRADOR, Idaho, Vice Chairman 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts, Ranking 

Minority Member 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on July 18, 2012 ............................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

The Honorable Allison A. Hickey, Under Secretary for Benefits, Veterans 

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

by: Roger Baker, Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 4 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 7 

Mr. Gerald T. Manar, Deputy Director, National Veterans Service, Veterans 

of Foreign Wars of The United States 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 25 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 27 

Mr. Joseph A. Violante, National Legislative Director, Disabled American 

Veterans 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 35 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 37 

APPENDIX 

The Honorable Jason Chaffetz, a Member of Congress from the State of 

Utah, Prepared Statement .................................................................................. 65 

Inspection of the VA Regional Office Phoenix, Arizona ....................................... 67 

The Honorable Paul A. Gosar, a Member of Congress from the State of 

Arizona, Full Statement for the Record ............................................................. 91 

The Honorable Jeff Miller, Chairman, House Veterans’ Affairs Committee; 

The Honorable Jon Runyan, Chairman, Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs, House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Statement for the Record ............................................................................................. 93 

The Honorable Jason Chaffetz, Chairman, House Committee on Oversight 

and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland 

Defense, and Foreign Operations, Questions for the Record ............................ 97 

(1) 

TAKING CARE OF OUR VETERANS: WHAT IS 

THE DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS 

DOING TO ELIMINATE THE CLAIMS BACKLOG? 

Wednesday, July 18, 2012 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, HOMELAND

DEFENSE, AND FOREIGN OPERATIONS

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, 

Washington, D.C. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in Room 

2247, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jason Chaffetz [chairman of the subcommittee], presiding. 

Present: Representatives Chaffetz, Tierney, Welch, Braley, 

Quigley, Speier, Labrador, and Farenthold. 

Also present: Representative Issa. 

Staff Present: Thomas A. Alexander, Majority Senior Counsel; 

Alexia Ardolina, Majority Assistant Clerk; Robert Borden, Majority 

General Counsel; Linda Good, Majority Chief Clerk; Mitchell S. 

Kominsky, Majority Counsel; Mark D. Marin, Majority Director of 

Oversight; Sang H. Yi, Majority Professional Staff Member; Devon 

Hill, Minority Staff Assistant; Peter Kenny, Minority Counsel; Suzanne Owen, Minority Health Policy Advisor; Carlos Uriarte, Minority Counsel. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. The Committee will come to order. 

I would like to begin this hearing by stating the Oversight Committee mission statement. 

We exist to secure two fundamental principles: first, Americans 

have the right to know that the money Washington takes from 

them is well spent. And second, Americans deserve an efficient, effective government that works for them. Our duty on the Oversight 

and Government Reform Committee is to protect these rights. Our 

solemn responsibility is to hold government accountable to taxpayers, because taxpayers have a right to know what they get from 

their government. We will work tirelessly in partnership with citizen watchdogs to deliver the facts to the American people and 

bring genuine reform to the Federal bureaucracy. 

This is the mission of the Oversight and Government Reform 

Committee. 

I would like to thank everybody for your attendance here today 

for this hearing that we have entitled, ‘‘Taking Care of Our Veterans: What is the Department of Veterans Affairs Doing to Eliminate the Claims Backlog?’’ 

2 

I would like to thank the member participation. Normally, I 

would give an opening statement, but in deference to our full Committee Chairman, Chairman Issa, we are going to allow him to give 

his opening statement at this time. 

Chairman ISSA. I thank the Chairman, and I apologize that there 

are two subcommittees going on. But this is the one that I particularly wanted to make sure I attended. 

Forty-two years ago this November, I raised my right hand and 

became a soldier. I have no claim today before the Veterans Administration. But for those 42 years, soldiers, sailors and marines have 

served and need our support. It is unacceptable that the Federal 

Government is doing nothing but continuing to promise what they 

promised before. A hundred and eighty-eight days is the average 

processing time for a claim. It is unacceptable. 

More unacceptable is the fact that the error rate is 16 percent 

and perhaps higher in some regions. Veterans who appeal the system face multiple years, 883 days, three years, in order to be adjudicated. 

The system was broken during the Vietnam War when I enlisted. 

The system has never been fixed. 

So today we are going to concentrate in this Committee on hearing what you are going to do, but understand, we have heard it before. Today you will be judged by what you say and what you do. 

You will no longer be allowed to come back again with promises of 

reforms a year away. 

Today I understand that you will be talking about getting better 

over the next year, perhaps talking about ways in which you have 

improved recently. In 1970, the system was paper, and the system 

failed veterans miserably. Today the system is computerized, but 

not harmonized. Today, the Veterans Administration continues to 

claim that they will get better, but they have not. 

It is my goal on this Committee to recognize that we will be 

going into a new Congress, that next year will be under the Chairman determined next year. But if I am the Chairman or if I can 

influence the Chairman, you will be back, you will be back every 

single year until you get it right. Our veterans deserve better. Our 

Camp Pendleton marines today are marines and corpsmen. But 

they are also veterans serving. And in the days and weeks to come, 

they will be going to Balboa Hospital, they will be going to the La 

Jolla Veterans facility, they will be making claims for the injuries 

they received in Afghanistan and Iraq and in training. They deserve that you get the system right, because they cannot wait to 

be served a year later. They need your help now. 

And Chairman, I want to personally thank you for allowing me 

to go first. I look forward to the entire transcript of this hearing. 

I yield back. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. I thank the Chairman and appreciate 

his participation here today. 

I now recognize the Ranking Member, the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Tierney. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank all the witnesses for being here today. 

Obviously, several years ago when I was first chairing the Subcommittee, we conducted the hearings at Walter Reed. Those hearVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:26 Sep 18, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\75793.TXT APRIL
3 

ings fortunately lead to a substantial improvement of the physical 

plant at Walter Reed and a number of other facilities like Walter 

Reed across the Country. It also led to sort of an ongoing effort for 

improvements, to hold the Department accountable and to try to 

bring everything to the highest level of program service for our returning warriors and for our veterans. 

The coordination between the Department of Defense disability 

determination system and that of the Veterans Administration was 

a problem then and it continues to be a problem obviously now, one 

that we have to work together to try and improve. I do appreciate 

Chairman Chaffetz’ continued oversight of this whole process from 

beginning to end. And with this effort, we are told that the employees at the Veterans Affairs are doing their part, that they are processing more claims more quickly than ever before, and we have to 

recognize their efforts which are responsible for a substantial increase in the number of claims processed, from some 440,000 in the 

year 2000 to more than a million claims last year. 

But the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have produced an even 

greater increase in the number of claims that are filed by veterans. 

Since 2008, the number of pending disability claims has grown 48 

percent to 1.2 million claims. Nearly half of those are backlogged 

with hundreds of thousands of claims. 

Secretary Shinseki deserves some credit for his announcement 

that he has more than 40 initiatives to help VA process claims 

more quickly and more accurately in the future. An integral part 

of the Transformation Plan is the more than $500 million that 

were invested in a paperless veterans benefits management system 

which is to replace the VA’s legacy and outdated paper systems. 

We are interested in hearing more about that, and its promise and 

how it is being implemented. If these initiatives are successful, the 

VA could cut in half the amount of time it takes to evaluate claims 

while achieving 98 percent accuracy. That is a goal that this Committee ought to be inclined to continue its oversight in order to 

help the VA achieve that mission. 

I hope the Secretary is successful. With more than a million 

troops projected to leave service over the next five years, the VA 

certainly cannot afford to fail and it is going to be severely challenged. As claims are reopened, the existing files I understand are 

being scanned into the system. We need to follow along how that 

strategy is working and whether or not it is an adequate way to 

move forward as we try to remain vigilant across the board to oversee that we have consistent progress. 

So thank you, Chairman Chaffetz, for your continued oversight 

on that. Thank you to the witnesses for being here today to help 

bring us up to date on what is going on. I look forward to continuing the process where we work together to try to make sure 

that our veterans get the services and programs they deserve. 

Thank you. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

This is truly bipartisan in our approach. We are all concerned 

about the health and welfare of our veterans. We will continue vigilance. I think it is one of our duties and responsibilities. 

In the interest of time, I am going to submit my opening statement for the record. 

4 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. But let me simply say, we have a problem. We 

need solutions. And I know that the Veterans Affairs Committee is 

looking deeply into this. We will continue to look into this. But we 

have problem. And it doesn’t seem to be getting better, and thus 

the essence of the hearing today. 

Members will have seven days to submit opening statements for 

the record. We would now like to recognize our first and only panel. 

I will also note that there was an attempt here to have somebody 

additional sit on the panel. We notice these things in advance. We 

need to adhere to that. So the panel that we have here today, while 

I appreciate the desire to have somebody else join you at the table 

today, we just simply can’t do that on the whim the day of the 

hearing. We like to notice these things in advance. 

So our witnesses today include the Honorable Allison Hickey, 

who is the Under Secretary for Benefits at the Department of Veterans Affairs; Mr. Gerald Manar, who is the Deputy Director of National Veterans Service for the Veterans of Foreign Wars; and Mr. 

Joseph Violante, who is the National Legislative Director for the 

Disabled American Veterans. 

Pursuant to Committee rules, all witnesses will be sworn in before they testify. If you would please rise and raise your right 

hand. 

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are 

about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but 

the truth? 

[Witnesses respond in the affirmative]. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. You may be seated. 

Please let the record reflect that the witnesses have answered in 

the affirmative. 

In order to allow time for discussion and for member inquiry, we 

would appreciate it if you would reserve your verbal comments to 

five minutes. Your entire statement will be submitted for the 

record. 

At this time, we will now recognize the Under Secretary for five 

minutes. 

WITNESS STATEMENTS 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ALLISON A. HICKEY 

Ms. HICKEY. Good morning, Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Tierney, members of the Subcommittee. I am accompanied 

today by Mr. Roger Baker, the Assistant Secretary for Information 

and Technology. 

My testimony will focus on a comprehensive and integrated 

Transformation Plan which will ensure timely and accurate delivery of benefits and services to our veterans, their families and survivors. We are committed to ensuring veterans do not have to wait 

too long to get the benefits they have earned and deserve. A prolonged wait is unacceptable. 

We are implementing a robust plan to fix the problem. Our 

Transformation Plan is critical to achieving our goal of processing 

all claims in 125 days with 98 percent accuracy in 2015. However, 

we are not waiting for 2015. We are already implementing our plan 

and have good early results. Our plan, our Transformation Plan, 

5 

our new organizational model, our new processes, our new technologies will be implemented at 56 regional offices, 16 of them by 

this September 30th, and all the remaining by the end of the calendar year next year. 

The claims backlog is a decades-old problem, and fixing it isn’t 

easy. If you have ever walked into one of our regional offices, your 

regional offices, you have seen stacks and stacks of paper. No, we 

are not computerized yet. We are starting to get, right now, computerized with our new plan. Our task, our Transformation Plan is 

to eliminate this antiquated paper-bound process. It does not serve 

our veterans, who are frustrated by its lack of speed and transparency. 

We have an aggressive plan to ensure our veterans get the timely and accurate benefit decisions they need and have earned. VA 

completed a record 1 million claims per year the last two fiscal 

years. We are on target to complete another million this year. Yet 

the receipts continue to greatly outnumber the output, meaning we 

have more veterans making more claims. 

In 2009, we completed 900,000 claims, while a million came in. 

In 2010 we completed a million claims, which was unprecedented 

in history. But we received another 1.2 million claims. 

In 2011 we completed another million claims, while at the same 

time allocating 37 percent of our rating staff across the Nation to 

process those most important Vietnam veteran Agent Orange 

claims. We provided benefits to over 132,000 Vietnam veterans and 

their survivors in the last two years that did not get it over the 

last 50. Still, 1.3 million claims came in the door. 

Given the anticipated continued high level of claims, it is absolutely clear to us that continuing our legacy paper-bound process 

will not eliminate the backlog. We have an aggressive plan that 

builds a strong foundation for a paperless, digital disability claim 

system, a lasting solution that will transform how we operate and 

eliminate the backlog. Our plan will ensure we achieve the Secretary’s goal and this agency’s priority goal of completion in 125 

days, all claims, at a 98 percent accuracy level in 2015, delivering 

faster, better decisions for veterans. 

We are retraining, reorganizing, streamlining processes and implementing technology solutions that are positively implementing 

veterans today. Here are some highlights. We are redeploying 

1,200 of our most experienced raters who are doing those Agent Orange claims to target and tackle the backlog now. These employees 

will complete 100,000 backlogged claims by the end of this year. 

We have improved and are expanding training practices to make 

staff better equipped to handle today’s difficult cases. We call it 

challenge training, and it works. New staff have already received 

this design training, are completing two and a half times more 

claims per day with more than 30 percent increase in their accuracy quality levels. By the end of July we will have put 16 regional 

offices into our new operating model, changing the way we are organized to do this work. This model with segmented lanes lets us 

organize that work into three distinct lanes. One, focus on special 

emphasis of at-risk veterans, another, doing those easier to do one 

to two contention express claims. Once fully implemented, we will 

6 

have all our offices in this by 2013, 16 by the end of this year. That 

will give us an additional 200,000 claims we can do per year. 

Also working closely with DOD to ensure seamless transition for 

our separating service members. In 2012 alone, we reduced, during 

this Administration, the days from a 260 day average to a 56 day 

average this year for more than 10,000 or over half of those claims. 

We are ensuring that service members receive access to benefits, 

eBenefits. We have had an increase of 500 percent accounts, more 

than 1.7 million service members and veterans are on eBenefits 

today, getting the information they need on their claim, to file a 

claim, to download numbers of letters as well. We are ending our 

reliance on paper-based claims and rolling out the new paper-based 

system, DBMS, which is already deployed, already deployed in four 

regional offices, Providence, Rhode Island, in your city, Chairman, 

of Salt Lake City, Utah, Fort Harrison, Montana and Wichita, Kansas. And it works. In pilot programs, the new system has cut the 

average time to process a claim to 119 days, well below the 125 

mark in 2015. Twelve more offices are on it by 30 September this 

year, all 56 by the end of 2013. 

The bottom line, Chairman, members of this Committee, we 

must deliver timely, first-rate benefit services with greater efficiency and effectiveness than we do today. We cannot do it by using 

old tools and processes that we have been using up to this point. 

We are implementing that plan today. 

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my statement. I am pleased to answer any questions you or members of the Subcommittee have. 

[Prepared statement of Ms. Hickey follows:] 

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Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

We will now go to Mr. Manar. You are recognized for five minutes. 

STATEMENT OF GERALD T. MANAR 

Mr. MANAR. Thank you. 

On behalf of the more than 2 million members of the Veterans 

of Foreign Wars of the United States, and our auxiliaries, I would 

like to thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the VBA 

claims transformation process. 

Edmund Burke wrote that those who do not know history is destined to repeat it. It is for that reason that we discuss at length 

in our written testimony the historical events which greatly influenced and contributed to the over 2 million pending claims, adjudicative actions and appeals that make up the VBA workload 

today. Congressional inaction, institutional practices within VA, 

leadership lapses, managerial ineptness, legislative initiatives, administrative actions, court decisions by the score and economic 

hard times have all come together in the last two decades to create 

this workload. 

Let’s talk about solutions to this problem. First, there is no 

magic bullet. There is no one solution which will suddenly allow 

VBA employees to make quality decisions in a timely manner. VA 

has tried many times with many ideas in the last few years. It is 

important to distinguish marginal programs from potential gamechangers. 

We should recognize that VBA has yet to determine what is the 

optimal claims processing system for today. It has experimented 

with case management in several offices. While processing time improved, this model proved to be resource-intensive. Lean claims 

processing pioneered in Little Rock improved work flow within the 

regional office and provided opportunities for continuous learning. 

However, only marginal improvements were shown over time. 

Just one week ago, the VA trumpeted the creation of specialized 

teams, or lanes, for processing the bulk of claims within select regional offices. While some cases may be decided more quickly, we 

are aware of nothing in this initiative which will ensure higher 

quality decisions and significant improvements in timeliness. These 

initiatives address certain problems and produce some results. 

However, none, in our view, are expected to have a significant impact on either quality or production. 

The simplified notification letter program is designed to allow 

rating specialists to work more rapidly, and it does. Despite 

changes directed by General Hickey, our recent reviews of decisions 

made under the SNL program show a failure to fully comply with 

VA directives. VA is required by law to provide veterans with the 

reasons and bases for the decisions made in their cases. While the 

SNL program provides generic reasons for decisions, these are not 

adequate to meet the requirements of the law. As a result, we have 

renewed our opposition to the SNL initiative until full compliance 

with the law is achieved. 

VBMS is the VBA’s foundation for a 21st century claims processing system. It is intended to be sufficiently flexible to allow the 

addition of programs, both now and in the future. VBMS is deVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:26 Sep 18, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\75793.TXT APRIL
26 

signed to facilitate the creation of efficiency. However, we do not 

expect significant improvements in claims processing timeliness or 

quality immediately following deployment. If history is any guide, 

VBMS will actually slow claims processing during the first six 

months following deployment as software problems are identified 

and fixed. 

VBA has stated that VBMS will be rolled out to 12 more regional 

offices by September. We strongly urge VBA to fix known problems 

before rolling VBMS out to additional offices. 

Many problems continue to slow development of this massive undertaking. It was only last week that VBA met with service organizations subject matter experts for two days to define the SNL requirements for access to VBMS. A significant number of problems 

must be resolved so that our service offices can fully access records 

in VBMS, so that we can represent veterans before VA. These are 

not new problems. VFW service officers in three VBMS offices still 

cannot access veteran records processed in VBMS. 

There can be no misunderstanding. VBA must see this through 

to conclusion. VA has no alternatives, no fallback position. It must 

succeed in creating a fully functioning, veteran-centric, interactive, 

user friendly and highly agile claims processing system. Failure to 

do this will have dire consequences for the future of VBA and veterans benefit programs. 

Further, VBMS should not be deployed without full and complete 

access by VSOs to all records of veterans and other claimants for 

whom we hold the power of attorney. Failure to provide full and 

complete access at any point in this process means that veterans 

are denied due process and are deprived of the representation allowed by law. 

We believe that VBMS has the potential to be the game changer, 

but only if it is done right and only if VBA creates the best work 

process that works in this totally new electronic environment. This 

must be done in tandem to take advantage of the potential efficiencies and capabilities of this new information technology. 

We have worked closely with General Hickey to address our concerns. We have great respect for her leadership and vision for VBA. 

We will continue to working with VA to resolve problems that arise 

so that veterans, their families and survivors receive correct decisions in a timely manner from VA. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony this morning. I will be pleased to answer any questions you 

may have. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Manar follows:] 

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Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. I appreciate it. 

We will now recognize for five minutes Mr. Violante. 

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH A. VIOLANTE 

Mr. VIOLANTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the 

Subcommittee. On behalf of the Disabled American Veterans and 

our 1.2 million members, thank you for this opportunity to present 

testimony about the VA claims processing system. 

DAV has the Nation’s largest service program which last year 

provided free representation to nearly a quarter million veterans 

and their families, assisting them in obtaining over $4 billion in 

new and retroactive benefits to which they were entitled. By helping veterans file more complete and accurate applications for benefits, DAV and other VSOs also aid VA by reducing their workload 

and helping them reach the right decisions for veterans. 

Mr. Chairman, the problems plaguing the VA claims processing 

system are well-known. The number of claims filed each year is 

growing. The complexity of claims filed is increasing. The backlog 

of claims pending is staggering and the quality of claims decisions 

remains far too low. These problems did not arise over the past 

year or the past four years, or for that matter, over the past ten 

years. Nor will they disappear this year or next. 

Earlier this year, the Veterans Benefits Administration began 

rolling out its new operating model and technology solution to regional offices. But it is far too soon to make judgments about 

whether they are or will be successful. Although Congress must 

continue to play an important role in holding VBA accountable 

through aggressive oversight such as today’s hearing, VBA must be 

allowed to complete this transformation process. 

For two years, Secretary Shinseki has focused on achieving the 

ambitious goal of having zero claims pending more than 125 days, 

and all claims completed to 98 percent accuracy standards. While 

the elimination of the backlog will be a welcome milestone, we 

must remember, eliminating the backlog is not the same goal as 

transforming the claims process system. Nor does it guarantee that 

veterans are better served. The backlog is a symptom, not the root 

cause. 

In order to achieve real and lasting success, VBA must instead 

remain focused on creating a claims process system that is carefully designed to get each claim done right the first time. 

One of the most positive developments in recent years has been 

the open and candid attitude of VBA’s leadership, particularly 

Under Secretary Hickey, toward developing a true partnership 

with DAV and other VSOs who assist veterans in filing claims. Although she has only been in her position for a little over a year, 

we have been impressed with her leadership style that is shaking 

up entrenched bureaucrats who have long resisted change. 

Mr. Chairman, regardless of the new process or technologies employed, we firmly believe that the key to success in helping veterans receive timely and accurate decisions on benefit claims and 

ultimately the key to VA’s success is building a culture focused on 

quality and accountability. That begins with an unwavering commitment to education and training. 

36 

DAV continues to recommend that VBA significantly increase the 

hours devoted to annual training and that all employees, coaches 

and managers undergo regular testing to measure job skills and 

knowledge as well as the effectiveness of the training. Perhaps the 

most critical element to the success of VBA’s transformation strategy is new technology, especially VBMS system, which is being 

rolled out nationally with full deployment scheduled for the end of 

2013. We have been pleased with VBA’s efforts to incorporate the 

experience and perspective of our organization through VBMS development process, and we continue to work with VA to help ensure that all the capabilities needed to do the job ahead. 

One major concern we have is their use of the simplified notification letters, or SNLs, which provide automated and simplified rating decisions and notification letters. Many of the SNLs we have 

reviewed contain so little information and explanation that even an 

experienced DAV NSO has difficulty determining if the rating decision was correct. While we want automation and rules-based decisions, support has to be a central part of the new claims process. 

VBA must not use technology to increase productivity at the cost 

of accuracy and quality. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That ends my statement. I would be 

more than happy to answer any questions. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Violante follows:] 

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43 


Insert offset folio 35 here 75793.035
44 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. And again, to all three of you, if you 

have additional testimony that you would like to add, we would be 

happy to add that to the record. 

I would now like to recognize myself for five minutes. Madam 

Under Secretary, Mr. Manar I think accurately points out in his 

testimony that in order to solve a problem, you need to know exactly what the problem is. I see a major discrepancy in some of the 

numbers and I want to help clarify that. In your testimony, in talking about the integrated disability evaluation system, you say ‘‘We 

went from 240 day average in the legacy system to 56 days.’’ And 

it goes on. There is a definition of the backlog. 

The House Armed Services Committee staff and the House Veterans Affairs Committee staff on July 13th of this year, which is 

not too long ago, gave a briefing to these two committees. It says 

in here that the current monthly average completion time is 408 

days. You say it is 56 days. And they say it is 408 days. Can you 

help clarify that for me, please? 

Ms. HICKEY. Thank you, Chairman Chaffetz, for your question. 

First of all, let me just start by clarifying a few basic definitions 

for us all, so as I say things, you will understand what words I am 

using and their context. 

We have in the inventory and pending an overall number of 

854,000. That is not backlogged. Those are claims that even as we 

have been sitting here for the last 10 to 15 minutes, some more 

claims have come in to us from veterans, service members and survivors—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Okay, let me stop you right there. On July 16th, 

which is not very long ago, the Monday morning workload report 

says there are 919,461 claims. You say that number is, what did 

you say it was, 860 something? 

Ms. HICKEY. The numbers that I am using are 854,000. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Okay, so we are off by about 50,000 or 60,000. 

And we are talking about something that is just a couple of days 

old. Why the discrepancy on those numbers? 

Ms. HICKEY. Chairman Chaffetz, our backlog and our inventory 

is a dynamic inventory. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I know, but I am talking about the dynamism 

here of less than 10 days. 

Ms. HICKEY. Chairman, I am happy to answer the questions if 

I am allowed an opportunity to do so. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Sure. I want to know. You are saying that that 

number is 800 and something thousand. And I am just saying that 

the VA’s Monday morning workload report says it is 919,461. That 

is as of July 16th. 

Ms. HICKEY. Chairman, I am happy to answer that question, if 

allowed to answer the question. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Ma’am, just answer the question, yes. 

Ms. HICKEY. Thank you very much. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. At this time, that is why I asked the question, 

please answer it. 

Ms. HICKEY. Thank you very much, Chairman. 

The numbers that I am using are from the end point of a month, 

probably the end of May. So you are probably using the end of this 

week’s report. I chose not to use a floating number that continues 

45 

to change over time and over dates and over weeks. So I used an 

end of month number to be able to come talk to you, to be able to 

have a solid number to have a discussion around. 

Regardless of what it is, I will tell you that our inventory and 

our pending is not our backlog. And typically, statistics show 61 

percent of that backlog are supplemental claims that people, veterans who are already receiving compensation from us are coming 

back for the second, third or a fourth claim in that process. 

So of the number I will use, 854,000, I could use your number 

as well, and I could use the weekly report’s number and backlog, 

and it would be exactly the same thing which is about 65 to 66 percent of our claims are in backlog, meaning they are more than 125 

days old. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Okay, so, okay, that is great. More than 125 days 

old. You say in your testimony, to hear your testimony, things are 

getting so much better. We went from a 240 day average in a legacy system to 56 days. 

Ms. HICKEY. Chairman Chaffetz, I would be happy to answer the 

question and the disparity for the briefing, what you just handed 

out. I have different processes that have different standards. The 

process you described is our integrated disability evaluation system 

that we work with DOD for our most wounded and ill and injured 

service members. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. In your testimony—— 

Ms. HICKEY. The numbers that you are describing are the VA, 

the 56 days are the VA numbers in that complete process, and VA 

has the responsibility—— 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Hold on, hold on. Hold on, let’s tackle them one 

at a time. This is your testimony: ‘‘We are so closely collaborating 

with DOD through the integrated disability evaluation system.’’ 

You say that is 56 days. This report, this briefing that went to another committee just last week says it is 408 days. That is not exactly close. Which one is it? 

Ms. HICKEY. Chairman, that is VA days for the 10,000 we have 

done in fiscal year 2012. The VA days, the days that I have responsibility for doing them are 56 for those 10,000. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Are you saying this is accurate or inaccurate? 

Ms. HICKEY. I am saying I do not know what is on that slide. 

If you were to give me a slide and give me a chance to digest that 

slide, I would be happy to do that, Chairman. You have access to 

that information right at this moment, I do not. I will be happy to 

take it for the record and respond to you. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. In its simplified format, here, how bad do you 

think this problem is? I am trying to quantify it. And I am concerned because we are not off by a couple of hundred people here. 

We are talking about hundreds of thousands of people. And in your 

testimony, you would lead the American people to believe it is getting much better. But if you look at it over the course of time, it 

is getting worse. It is getting worse. 

Ms. HICKEY. Chairman Chaffetz, I have clearly stated in my testimony that 65 percent of people in more than 125 days from a VA 

perspective is unacceptable. I have clearly stated that. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And you say that this is decades old problem. 

46 

Ms. HICKEY. And it is a decades old problem. And for the first 

time, we have an integrated plan that goes after the way we are 

organized and trained to do the work, the process we have done 

that we have streamlined, the technology that we are bringing in 

that under this Administration and this Secretary, VBA has never 

had an emphasis on its IT infrastructure to get from a paper-bound 

process to a paperless system that we do right now. We are implementing it right now. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Okay, my time is far expired. The numbers and 

the discrepancies here are absolutely stunning. 

I will now yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. 

Tierney. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. 

Gentlemen, Mr. Manar, Mr. Violante, you have been working 

with Ms. Hickey on a regular basis. I would like you to give me 

some idea of your level of confidence in the partnership that your 

organizations have with the Department right now. 

Mr. VIOLANTE. I have been in this town for close to 30 years 

working on veterans issues, 20 on the legislative staff of Disabled 

American Veterans. And I can tell you that this is the first time 

we have had the type of relationship that we do. It is open, it is 

candid. We get brought into the process much earlier than in the 

past. And we have a dialogue. And with that dialogue, there are 

things that are changed, there are some that aren’t. 

But I feel very comfortable with the fact that we have this relationship now with the Under Secretary that hopefully will be in the 

best interest of veterans. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Manar? 

Mr. MANAR. I can certainly echo those remarks. I have known, 

worked for, a significant number of Under Secretaries for Benefit. 

And General Hickey is by far the most energetic and most focused 

Under Secretary that I have had any dealings with at all. Our relationship with her is based on openness. She listens to what we say, 

our concerns. We do not always agree, and I would not expect that 

we would. But the fact that we can resolve many problems without 

issuing press releases or standing on the steps of the Capitol Building and holding a press conference tells that it is a much better relationship than anything we have experienced in many, many 

years. 

Mr. TIERNEY. So that is a good start, I would assume, on that. 

Madam Secretary, I commend you for that. I think it is so important that you work with our veterans and their representatives in 

this kind of an operation on that. 

I do hear that there is a problem with the simplified notification 

letters. Can I assume that that is being worked on, or is that hard 

and fixed and never going to change? Madam Secretary? 

Ms. HICKEY. Congressman Tierney, let me talk a little about simplified notification letters and the involvement we did have, and I 

appreciate the involvement of Mr. Manar in this process. 

That idea frankly was born from the gentleman that sits to your 

side. When I was doing my walkarounds, I had the wonderful opportunity to meet with Congressman Braley, who pointed out in my 

very first meeting with him the superb work and effort that he had 

done on the Plain Writing Act of 2010, that mandates that Federal 

47 

agencies who talk to their constituencies, in our case our veterans, 

family members and survivors, do so in plain, simple language 

rather than convoluted legalese and medical jargon. I saw at the 

very first moment I met him I left that office and took it back and 

said, why aren’t we doing this? Why aren’t we doing this in VA? 

One of the results of that is the simplified notification letter. The 

simplified notification letter, by the way, is also, the convoluted letters we have had were the number two reason our veterans called 

us on our 1–800 number. 

Mr. TIERNEY. And sometimes the number one reason they called 

our offices. 

Ms. HICKEY. Absolutely. They said to me, explain these letters. 

I will tell you, as a veteran that retired in 2007 and got these two 

letters, that was confused by them as well, that we needed to tackle that issue. I appreciate what Congressman Braley had done 

under this Act, give us an extra push to do this. 

Here is what the results were. Because we didn’t just do this in 

PowerPoint, we didn’t just make it a fluffy idea that we just went 

and implemented. We implemented this new process in a live regional office and then a second one. The first time, before we had 

the great input from Mr. Manar, I got 33 percent more claims out 

of that regional office than I had before implementing that initiative. 

I respected Mr. Manar’s input to say, there is not enough information in this letter. We adjusted the letter to add more free text 

into that letter, to let that veteran hear a little more information 

without getting back to the 10-page term papers we were sending 

these veterans and they were struggling. 

I lost about half of the list I got out of that process, but I am 

willing to accept 15 percent. It is nothing to sneeze at. When it is 

allowed us, since we have implemented it, 1 March, to decrease the 

ratings waiting to be awarded by 12 percent, in four months, by 12 

percent. I have done 30,000 more claims in four months by doing 

this process. 

Yes, I acknowledge the concerns of my VSO partners, and I call 

them partners, because I need them to go through this process. I 

acknowledge their concerns that sometimes our employees aren’t 

filling in that new little text box the way they should. We are 

working that hard, I have made an investment in quality review 

teams in every single regional office and they have that responsibility to make sure we are doing it right. I have asked his folks in 

the offices to help us and point to the ones that don’t make sense. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you very much. I yield back. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

I now recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Farenthold, for 

five minutes. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Madam Under Secretary, I realize you all are working very hard 

to streamline the process and get these claims handled faster. But 

it is not just disability claims that are some of the complaints that 

I am hearing from veterans in South Texas. It is the amount of 

time necessary to get medical attention. I hear from VA employees 

more or less off the record that they are having trouble hiring and 

maintaining physicians to work in their hospitals and clinics. And 

48 

I am hearing from doctors back home that it is taking in excess of 

a year sometimes to get payments on vouchers from the VA. 

Can you talk a little bit about what is being done to address 

these problems as well? 

Ms. HICKEY. Thank you, Congressman Farenthold, for your question. I will say that I am on the benefit side, but certainly hear 

about the work they are doing on the health side very frequently. 

I know that Dr. Petzel is the Under Secretary for Health, is working very, very heavily on making sure all of his physician positions 

are filled. I know we have a big push on hiring and we are seeing 

in a great many of your locations are having some good effort of 

hiring, about 5,000 mental health professionals in rapid order. 

They are making some really good headway and getting some really strong candidates across the Nation. 

I believe that will help. This is obviously not my area of responsibility. But I believe that will help. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. I guess what I am getting at and what concerns me is, and maybe we will address this to our veterans service 

representative, Mr. Manar and Mr. Violante, is, is there a culture 

within the VA of well, we will get it done eventually, as opposed 

to what I think it should be of, if we need to stay late to finish this 

work for our veterans, we need to do that? Would either one of you 

gentlemen like to comment on that? 

Mr. VIOLANTE. Thank you, Congressman. I believe that the majority of VA employees are dedicated employees that do what they 

need to do to ensure that veterans are taken care of. Over the 

years, the problem has been underfunding of the VA health care 

system. We were able to get advanced appropriations in place for 

VA, which has helped greatly. But we are still seeing that there 

are insufficient funds for VA to hire the people that need to be 

hired and to ensure that veterans are getting the proper access. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And I understand that funds are an issue for 

everything. Unfortunately, it is not a bottomless pit in the Federal 

Government as far as money goes. It is something that we obviously in Congress are struggling with. But I think if you look at 

how we have addressed budgets, we have been very generous to the 

VA as compared to some of the other agencies. 

Mr. Manar, you also mentioned in your written testimony, or actually in your testimony, that there were some things that Congress had failed to do. I would be interested in what you think we 

have failed to do in Congress that has adversely affected our veterans. 

Mr. MANAR. Thank you. As I pointed out in my written testimony, the failure to pass budgets on time, it is no secret, it happens—— 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. You are on the wrong side of the Capitol making that argument. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. MANAR. It is a joint problem, okay. But the continuing resolution has become a nightmare for the VBA and people in the regional offices. In my prior life, I worked for the VA for a little over 

30 years. I was a manager in Los Angeles and had 150 people 

working for me. I can tell you in the 1980s and 1990s, whenever 

there was a failure to pass a budget on time, we were put into a 

49 

hiring freeze. And in Los Angeles, we were experiencing on average 

10 to 15 percent turnover every year. 

In that kind of situation, where you wait sometimes three or four 

months, sometimes an entire year or more before you are allowed 

to hire, you wind up with huge gaps in employee positions and employee development. And it cascades over years. It is not the kind 

of thing where if it happens once every five years you can make 

adjustments and live with it. This is a problem that is nearly constant, according to reports that I have seen and information I put 

in my testimony. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Let me ask Ms. Hickey. It has been pointed 

out that part of the problem is, it is a complicated system, there 

are lots of things you have to look at. How long does it take to get 

an employee up to speed where he or she can be effective in their 

job and get them trained to do that? 

Ms. HICKEY. Thank you, Congressman, for the question. It allows 

me to talk about one of our transformation initiatives, which is fundamentally changing that. In the past, it would be 18 months to 

two years to get someone to a full journey level capability to rate 

a case. What I will tell you under our new challenge training, 

where we are taking our folks and giving them national level training, intensive level training, we are seeing some phenomenal results. And we have repeated it four times, so I know it is not a 

fluke. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And are they able to work with your medical 

professionals on the site? How much do you trust the doctors in the 

military, or your own VA doctors, to make those determinations 

versus independent work that your staff has to do? 

Ms. HICKEY. Congressman, I will tell you, we always depend on 

the medical opinion that comes to us and the medical exam that 

comes to us from a trained medical person, a certified person. We 

do not make those decisions on our own. We rely heavily on our 

health administration physicians who do our compensation exams 

and tell us the results. Even now our clinical doctors, I will also 

tell you, with the new disability benefit questionnaires, another 

transformation effort we are doing, we now have the ability for private medical physicians, for our veterans to bring us those documents, fully filled out, and for us to use them in the course of doing 

our claim adjudication. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. I am way over time. I appreciate everyone’s 

testimony and their hard work for those who have served our 

Country. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. We will now recognize the gentleman 

from Iowa, Mr. Braley, for five minutes. 

Mr. BRALEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Hickey, Madam Under Secretary, thank you for your 

kind words. I didn’t come here looking for them, but I think your 

comments about the impact of the Plain Writing Act, which applies 

to every Federal agency, not just the VA, are an example of why 

agencies need to do a better job of eliminating legalese and 

gobbledegook in their writing, so that their intended audience actually understands what is being told to them. I am glad that the impact of those changes is having a positive impact on your agency. 

50 

One of the things that I can tell you is I am very honored to 

serve on both Veterans Affairs and the Oversight and Government 

Reform Committee. We talk about this problem on Veterans Affairs 

all the time. It is the number one issue my veterans back in Iowa 

talk to me about. But as someone who spent my entire adult life 

dealing with disability evaluation systems, I can tell you, a lot of 

people who complain about this problem have very little understanding of the scope and magnitude of the problem. 

So if you are standing in front of a claims file that could reach 

this high of records from someone who may have had multiple amputations, traumatic brain injury and treatment for post-traumatic 

stress disorder over a long period of time, and you are trying to go 

through and analyze medical information to determine the nature 

and extent of somebody’s disability impairment rating, and you are 

doing that by hand, it is a far more time-consuming process than 

when you have the capability of doing word searches in an electronic format. 

And one of the things that we know is by moving away from this 

paper-based system to a paperless electronic system, we will hopefully greatly simplify the ability of ratings analysts to get the information they need in a timely basis. Because you have to establish 

first of all a service-connected disability, then an injury that is related. Then you have to prove the nature and extent of the impairment of each single injury. Then you have to determine what that 

impact is on a whole body impairment. These are very confusing 

things to the people being evaluated, let alone to some of the evaluators. 

So my hope is that this process that is in place is going to get 

us to the point where we can radically shorten and simplify the 

time it takes. But it also comes down to what Mr. Manar and Mr. 

Violante were talking about, which is the culture of we can do this 

that I believe has been missing for far too long in this process. 

There was a famous judge in Virginia, Bob Marriage, who started the rocket docket, who would go in and clean up claims backlogs 

in Federal courts all over the Country by changing the dynamic of 

how people in that process viewed their obligation to the people in 

the system. 

So I am interested in knowing, General, why you think the process that is in place right now is going to get you to where you need 

to be in the time frame set out. 

Ms. HICKEY. Thank you, Congressman Braley. Thank you for the 

description of your real life experience with this issue, because that 

is what we face every single day. I literally have raters sitting with 

little rubber fingertips going through the 18 inches worth of paper 

to try to find the one time it says ‘‘back’’ in that record. And they 

are working hard to find that. 

But I also have raters today in VBMS in four different sites who 

are putting the word ‘‘back’’ into a searchable function in VBMS, 

and it is highlighting the word ‘‘back’’ throughout that 18 inches 

of former paper that is now an image, and it is telling them by the 

push of a next, next, next button where it is in that 18 inches and 

solving all of that time and effort. 

In addition, it is allowing them to sit and write, with their fancy 

tools they now have in VBMS, annotations, circle it so that when 

51 

our VSOs want to see the reasons for our decisions, or really know 

what the data is we looked at, they can see it right away and they 

will be able to, by the way, when we deliver this month on the full 

round that we are going forth on VBMS. 

Why do I think it will work? Because nothing in this plan is 

PowerPoint. We have tried it, tested it, measured it, gotten data on 

it and made a decision that together all of this will help us to go 

after this issue and knock it down. 

Mr. BRALEY. Thank you. 

Mr. Manar, Mr. Violante, I am going to direct my last question 

to both of you, because you both identified something that is very 

real. That is, Mr. Violante, you said building a culture based on 

quality and accountability should be the goal. But it is impossible 

to do with insufficient funds. And it seems to me when we are talking about taking care of our veterans, you can’t talk about implementing a dramatic new change in the system itself and then keep 

going back and wondering whether there is going to be enough 

money to pay for that transformation. 

So what concerns do you have on the funding side? 

Mr. VIOLANTE. Well, we have asked the Veterans Affairs Committee to do some oversight on that. Because we want to make sure 

that the money that we are asking Congress to provide the VA is 

being used properly. I can’t tell you if the money they are putting 

into VBMS is appropriate. I can tell you we think what they are 

doing with VBMS is the way it should go. We have been arguing 

this point for a decade on a searchable data base. We would like 

to see that happen. 

But again, we are aware VA has been fortunate, more fortunate 

than any other Government department or agency. But we are 

sending men and women into situations that cause them to have 

problems. And this Government needs to take care of those problems, regardless of what that cost is. 

Mr. BRALEY. Mr. Manar? 

Mr. MANAR. One of the things that we have suggested to committee staff members is that as part of the oversight function of the 

House Veterans Affairs Committee that you commission an independent third party review to take a look at VBMS, its development, where it is now, what problems are being addressed, how 

they are being addressed, whether the contractors they are using 

or the in-house personnel are adequate to the task. And to come 

up with recommendations so that, at this point, the program can 

be refined and adjusted, rather than wait until the end and find 

that there are a number of problems that still exist, that still keep 

them from achieving the timeliness and the quality and work process that they hope to achieve with this system. 

Mr. BRALEY. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. I now recognize the gentleman from 

Idaho, Mr. Labrador, for five minutes. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Mr. Chairman, I don’t have any questions. I yield 

my time to you. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

Madam Under Secretary, the VA reported that it did award $2.8 

million to 245 senior executives. How do we justify that? That is 

a very small group of people. We have hundreds of thousands, close 

52 

to a million veterans waiting in line and 245 people got $2.8 million in bonuses? How do we justify that? 

Ms. HICKEY. Chairman Chaffetz, thank you for the question. 

First of all, I will tell you in VBA, since 2009, we have actually decreased by a full third the number of our SESers that are getting 

outstanding ratings. So we have done what this Administration has 

asked us to do, which is to really scrutinize the ratings that we are 

giving to our senior executives and bring them down. 

I will tell you from a VBA perspective, I have 98 metrics, performance metrics, that I rate every single one of our senior executives against. They are performance based, they are production and 

quality based. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. How—I appreciate that, but—— 

Ms. HICKEY. And in those environments where I do have outstanding leaders, I need to keep those outstanding leaders. They 

are making a difference for our veterans, their family members and 

survivors. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. How many of them, how many of the people that 

work for you got those bonuses? 

Ms. HICKEY. Congressman, I will have to bring you the explicit 

information. I wasn’t prepared to come and talk about bonus structure. I certainly can have that data and would be happy to share 

it with you. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. All right. It is certainly not unanimous, this love 

fest, for these simplified notification letters. In fact, Mr. Manar and 

Mr. Violante both commented in their written statements that, let 

me read, Mr. Violante said ‘‘Many of the SNLs reviewed contained 

so little information and explanation that even an experienced officer has difficulty determining if the rating decision was correct 

without reviewing the full file.’’ And Mr. Manar, in his testimony, 

wrote ‘‘With only general information provided by VA, veterans are 

faced with a choice of blindly accepting the decision or filing a notice of disagreement in order to obtain the reasons for the decision.’’ 

The concern is, if you get a 100 percent disability, you are probably going to agree with it. If you get a 5 percent or 10 percent, 

you are probably going to have some questions. We are trying to 

find the proper balance between handing somebody so many documents and simplifying the process. But these two gentlemen here 

certainly don’t seem to be, based on those statements, fans of this. 

How do we find that proper balance? 

Ms. HICKEY. Chairman Chaffetz, thank you for your question. I 

will address it by saying that I today provide access to our VSOs 

to every one of those files for them to do whatever research they 

want to do. They will have even greater access to knowing exactly 

the data and the information that we know when they are joining 

us this month on VBMS when we go into the new Veterans Benefit 

Management System. 

In addition, I have wholeheartedly encouraged, as we go through 

change, there are adjustments and adaptations. There is a learning 

process. I have wholly encouraged them, at the local unit level 

when they have a service officer, to find one that just doesn’t have 

enough, for them to go directly to that supervisor and say, need a 

little help there, there is not enough there. But we will handle that 

53 

on the spot and we will train to that as we learn more and more 

about that. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Don’t you think that is contributing to the backlog? People are having to get back in line again to—— 

Ms. HICKEY. It has not. In fact, it is handled on the spot and it 

has reduced our backlog by 30,000. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Do you really think that veterans are convinced 

that it is just ‘‘handled on the spot?’’ I mean, our office, we get 

these all the time. This is a lot, for you to say that they are just 

handled on the spot. 

Mr. Manar, is that true? Are they handled on the spot? 

Mr. MANAR. Depending on the regional office, and the individuals 

that our service officers deal with, they are sometimes handled on 

the spot. In other instances, and it is rare, our service officers are 

told, if you don’t like it, you can appeal it. And then there is a wide 

range of interactions in between. 

Our concern isn’t, we are concerned about the SNL letters because it is not just our service officers having to try and figure out 

why VA made a decision. We train our people to do that, to go behind and look at the data and basically reevaluate it and see if 

they would have arrived at the same conclusion. But perhaps 50 

percent of veterans are not represented. So they have to accept 

whatever VA gives them on blind faith or decide whether they are 

going to appeal on their own. 

The point here, and I would like to say this, General Hickey has 

worked with us significantly to try and improve these letters. She 

put out some directives last February to the field that if those directives were followed, the letters, they would be barely adequate, 

in our view, but at least they would be adequate. The problem is 

that when we have come along in April and May and looked at letters and decisions that have been made in many different offices, 

we are finding a significant number, 50 percent to 60 percent, that 

are not getting the job done. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. That is a pretty high number. Mr. Violante, I 

know I am past my time, but I want to give you an opportunity 

to respond, then we will go to the gentleman from Illinois. 

Mr. VIOLANTE. Like Mr. Manar, we have similar experiences 

with regard to whether or not we can get something corrected on 

the spot, depending on the regional office and the employees. 

With regard to the SNLs, we are not opposed to the concept. We 

have seen some good ones come out. And we have brought the bad 

one to General Hickey’s attention. But if they can work on that, 

there is a balance that needs to be done, so that veterans can understand in a simplified way what the VA’s decision is. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. I will now recognize the gentleman 

from Illinois, Mr. Quigley, for five minutes. 

Mr. QUIGLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Hickey, getting back to something that Mr. Braley 

talked about. That is the electronic records or digital records or 

what have you. Just to clarify, in an ideal world, what is the format from which you get information from DOD on a veteran? 

Ms. HICKEY. Thank you, Congressman Quigley. In an ideal 

world, I would get every bit of it electronic, data to data, directly 

54 

into my system. Second best answer is put it on a CD disk and 

don’t give it to me in paper. 

Mr. QUIGLEY. How much information do you get in an ideal format today? 

Ms. HICKEY. Electronically? 

Mr. QUIGLEY. Yes. 

Ms. HICKEY. Virtually none. I get most of it in paper. 

Mr. QUIGLEY. And no editorials here, but your understanding of 

whether DOD is moving that direction, you’re understanding that 

that is their intention, how far along they are in that vein? 

Ms. HICKEY. We are in conversation heavily on multiple fronts 

with DOD for all the different pieces of evidence that they have for 

that service member. And some places we are further ahead. I will 

tell you the electronic health record, substantially further ahead. 

We have established a whole program management office and they 

are marching in that direction. From some of the personnel records 

and the existing service treatment records, we are beginning that 

discussion and trying to drive a quick solution home in that regard. 

Mr. QUIGLEY. And I am optimistic that maybe some day we will 

get to that point. Perhaps I am too optimistic because I am a Cub 

fan. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. QUIGLEY. But what exactly does that mean? One record, all 

other things being equal, the average time it saves you to be able 

to make a decision between a stack of papers and a digital record? 

Ms. HICKEY. Thank you, Congressman, for that question. I will 

tell you yes, on average, our days, today is 250 average days to 

complete a claim. One hundred and seventy-five of those 250 days 

are we, VA, waiting for evidence we don’t own. That is the significant reason why we need to get data, not paper. And we need to 

get access to systems, not wait for a monthly report that rolls to 

us that gives us that information. 

Mr. QUIGLEY. And I appreciate that. 

I also understand that there is a disparity between the different 

regions of the Country about what you get in terms of a fully developed claim. I understand that the veterans work with the VSOs. 

But you have a far better record in some areas, without offending 

anyone, than others. Can you explain the difference that makes 

and what we can do about that? 

Ms. HICKEY. Absolutely, Congressman Quigley. This goes to the 

bigger issue. Let me first say that your particular regional office in 

Chicago is one of our stellar examples of VSOs working, veterans 

service officers, State directors, county service officers, working 

closely with the regional office to bring in something we called fully 

developed claim, which means we have partners helping us gather 

all that evidence and putting it together and giving it to us. When 

we do that, we do those claims in substantially less time. In fact, 

it is 117 days on average to do that, well below the 125 mark. 

Another great example is our Togus, Maine office, where those 

State representative, those VSOs have driven a 43 percent of every 

claim that comes in the door is a fully developed claim. And that 

makes a difference on our timeliness, it makes a difference on our 

quality. And frankly, in our new organizational model, I can put 

those down the express lane and get them done quickly. 

55 

Mr. QUIGLEY. Now, it is fair to assume that veterans are veterans wherever they are from across the Country. So what accounts for the difference between developing a fully developed 

claim in one area versus another otherwise? Is it just the training, 

the information, the management aspects of what is taking place 

in those areas? 

Ms. HICKEY. Congressman Quigley, we are working, actually a 

pretty in-depth exchange with our veterans service officers and our 

State directors, pulling some of these benchmark regional offices 

and the folks that are working with them into a team to say, tell 

us how you are doing this, so that we can replicate this level of 

contribution of fully developed claim in lots of other places. So we 

will be asking your Chicago regional office and your State and local 

VSOs in Chicago to join us. We will be asking the Maine one who 

have done such a great job, in Chicago, Togus, to come and help 

us. 

I don’t know explicitly but I need to drive those fully developed 

claims up much higher than we have them today. I think on average we get about 3 percent nationally, if I do an average over the 

whole mix; 3 percent of them we are getting in right now today 

fully developed. I am willing to do whatever barriers I have to 

break down to have our partners and our VSOs and our State veterans affairs offices to help us do that, and to help that veteran. 

Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Chairman, if it is appropriate, if the other two 

gentlemen wish to comment on those two points. 

Mr. VIOLANTE. Mr. Chairman, one of the things too you need to 

consider with the fully developed claim is who is filing the claim. 

I have been out of the military now for 40 years. And if I was going 

to file a claim saying that I had an injury back in the military, it 

would be hard for me as an individual to try to go back and contact 

all those doctors that I saw. That makes it difficult. 

So if you are a younger veteran just getting out or someone that 

has been in the same area all your life, it is a lot easier to get that 

fully developed claim together than it is in some other cases. 

Mr. MANAR. Another impediment for service officers is their very 

caseload. At a time when there are so many claims pending before 

the VA, the question is, how much time can they devote to a single 

individual to work with them to help make a case fully developed. 

So in some of our offices where service officer caseload is extremely 

high, I would expect that they would have lower percentages of 

cases that are fully developed. 

Mr. QUIGLEY. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. We will now recognize the gentleman 

from Vermont, Mr. Welch, for five minutes. 

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling this hearing. 

And I thank all of the witnesses who are here for your good work. 

It is very, very challenging. I appreciate that the backlog is a problem. 

A couple of things. One, in Vermont, we process in Vermont most 

of our local claims, not the pension claims. And that local administration has a better turnaround time in Vermont than the national 

average. General Hickey, do you have plans to try to facilitate local 

administration of claims, which in our case certainly seems to have 

a better outcome? 

56 

Ms. HICKEY. Thank you, Congressman Welch, for your question. 

I will tell you nationally, we still do that model everywhere. We 

still have local adjudication of claims. I think what you might, if 

I can offer, what you might be talking about is the pension claim 

consolidation we have done into the three centers. 

Mr. WELCH. Well, I want to get to that, that is correct. Because 

the pension claims in our case are done in Philadelphia, and the 

turnaround time is pretty slow. We have had some very, very tough 

situations, including one family that contacted our office. This 

woman, the mother of Howard Hoye, the son who had contacted us, 

they had a claim that just wasn’t answered for years, and it wasn’t 

until after the mother died, and this was her trying to get pension 

benefits from what she was entitled to as the survivor, it wasn’t 

until after she died that they adjudicated this. 

What are the prospects for moving this much more quickly on 

the pension side? 

Ms. HICKEY. Thank you, Congressman, for your question. I will 

tell you one of the reasons why we consolidated those claims is so 

we could put oversight, and it is very applicable to this Committee, 

on that work, which was frankly being overshadowed by compensation at work when it was being done in the regional office. We did 

as a result of doing that increase the quality of those decisions substantially. They are now up at 98 percent. I am not happy with the 

fact that we are not moving some of those claims fast. Neither are 

the people who are working them. We have a team who is putting 

together—— 

Mr. WELCH. I understand your concern. I am just trying to get 

to understand this. In the case of this claim, the application was 

logged in as received in May of 2010. But it sat literally untouched 

for six months. What would be the system problem that allowed 

this claim to be sat untouched for six months? 

Ms. HICKEY. Congressman Welch, I would be happy to take that 

specific one or any other specific ones you have and go look at 

them. I can’t make a judgment on that particular case. There are 

oftentimes other issues. I would be happy to take it for the record 

and get you a response back very quickly. 

Mr. WELCH. It might be helpful just so that I understand what 

the challenges are that you face and your system faces. It worked 

after this woman died, she got a condolence letter like almost immediately. So one part of the system was working. But the part 

that really would have been beneficial to her during her life was 

not working. 

So maybe we can incorporate that condolence system that 

seemed to work immediately into the pension review system that 

did not. 

Ms. HICKEY. Congressman, I would be happy to take that and 

look at it and get you a good response. 

Mr. WELCH. Okay. You are providing us with a copy of your strategic plan? 

Ms. HICKEY. I am, Congressman. The House Veterans Affairs 

Committee asked me to produce the plan. I have the plan. When 

I went back to get the plan to send it over, I realized there are 

2014 and 2015 budget numbers in there. I am not allowed to release those 2014 and 2015 budget numbers at this point in time. 

57 

So we scrubbed those out and we recirculated back through the 

approval process, so that it can arrive here. 

Mr. WELCH. Thank you very much, General. 

Mr. Manar, in a June 19th hearing before the Veterans Affairs 

Committee, you were pretty vocal about your support of the VBA’s 

initiatives overall. How could the VA improve? 

Mr. MANAR. A broad question. How can the VA improve? 

Mr. WELCH. Well, it is a broad question, but presumably you 

have thought about it a lot, so the one, two, three would be very 

concrete suggestions. Otherwise it is just a general discussion. 

Mr. MANAR. All right, how could VA improve. The emphasis right 

now is on production. Everybody is appalled at the, call it inventory, backlog, workload or however you want to call it. It is a huge 

number. And as you have seen in our testimony, both written and 

oral, we use the 2 million plus number of claims and issues pending, because all of those things have to be processed by VBA personnel and those are the same people who work the front and the 

back end of rating cases. So if those were to go away, you would 

certainly have a lot more people focused on development and processing award decisions and everything would move more quickly. 

So it is all part of the backlog there, the workload. 

What would we suggest? Focus on quality. We are appalled, as 

some other members mentioned earlier, about the low quality rate, 

high error rate, 16 percent nationally, in some offices it is as poor 

as 25 percent. If you go look at the accuracy reports from six or 

eight months ago, before some changes were made in Baltimore, for 

several years they were rocking along at a 30 or 32 percent error 

rate on ratings. This is totally unacceptable. And those kind of 

problems are easily corrected. 

But the correction requires an impact on production, which 

means that VBA managers are reluctant to take those actions. 

What I would suggest is that especially for trainees, but for anyone 

who has quality issues identified, they need to have their ratings 

reviewed by a second person. I know that that takes place, mentoring for new people, for a little while. But it is far too easy to 

give what they call single signature authority to new ratings specialists. And the number of cases that are reviewed in a year’s time 

on an individual are relatively few. There are lots of opportunities 

for problems that go unidentified. 

Our service officers and those of other service organizations are 

the last quality check that VA has in terms of the quality of a rating. That is why the earlier question about can we get problems 

fixed is really critical. Because if that problem goes out the door 

and is unfixed at that point, then usually it is a veteran who is impacted negatively. It is strange, but anecdotally, in my experience, 

most mistakes that VA makes, although they tend to be bipartisan, 

they tend to go against veterans much more frequently than they 

do against the government. 

Mr. WELCH. Thank you. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. I now recognize the gentlewoman 

from California for five minutes. 

Ms. SPEIER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really appreciate your 

holding this hearing. This is precisely the kind of work I think we 

should be doing on oversight. 

58 

And I want to say to General Hickey, I am impressed by you. I 

have not been impressed, however, by what I see as a west coast 

crisis. And that is, the delays that are taking place in Seattle, Oakland and Los Angeles are truly unacceptable. And I want to go over 

a few things with you. 

I spent maybe four or five hours at Oakland meeting with your 

directors there. I then joined with Congresswoman Barbara Lee 

and we had a fix-it session in San Francisco. You have probably 

heard about it. Over 250 veterans showed up. They were angry, 

they were hostile and they had every right to be. I am just going 

to tell you a few of these stories. 

Sergeant Arie Sollenburg had multiple tours in Iraq. He was facing eviction from his apartment while he waited for over a year for 

a disability ruling. He was unable to work, a fact that took Oakland VA months and months to try and verify. He needed treatment for PTSD. He was ordered by the VA, actually, to go to the 

VA medical center in Oakland. 

The breaking point came the day before I took his wife and his 

mother to meet with the director at Oakland. Until that meeting 

was set up, the Oakland office was unaware that Mr. Sollenburg 

was hospitalized in the VA facility where he was expected to remain for several months. At a VA fix-it meeting that we had, he 

told a packed room that he almost committed suicide. 

Now, the good news is that he will be boarding a plane for home 

tomorrow. He has had his surgeries, he has had treatment for 

PTSD. And he has his disability benefits. Had we not intervened, 

Mr. Sollenburg would be probably dead today. 

Another gentleman, a 93 year old World War II vet who was confined to a wheelchair, showed up at the fix-it meeting. He waited 

for over two years to have his claim adjusted. He had a service connection of 60 percent. He was there, in his condition, his caregiver 

said, it has been two years and now you are telling us that we have 

to go back to a doctor to determine what his status is, even though 

we have already done that. 

Now, the good news there is, because we had that fix-it meeting, 

within a week he was given retroactive payment of $32,000 and is 

now receiving $2,000 a month. But he is 92 years old. 

Michael Cortez argued that his Parkinson’s disease was caused 

by exposure to Agent Orange. He again waited for two years. As 

it turned out, because we had that fix-it meeting, his claim was recently resolved. He has a one-time retroactive payment of $92,000, 

and now he is receiving $3,400 a month. 

Now, I am telling you these stories, because had we not intervened, they would still be languishing. We have a huge problem on 

the west coast. They are not incorporated in the pilot program that 

you are doing at various VA claims facilities around the Country. 

And I have a series of questions I want to ask and limited time. 

So what are you going to do to fix it on the west coast? 

Secondly, I have sent a letter to the director, basically saying, if 

you have Agent Orange claims and they are a Vietnam vet, they 

are old. They are in their 70s now, some of them even in their 80s. 

If they are Agent Orange and there is a presumption and they have 

the condition that the presumption cites, why aren’t we fast-tracking those claims? 

59 

And then my third question is on MST. As you know, military 

sexual assault is absolutely out of control in the military, 19,000 

case a year. As I understand it, your reviews have found differences in denial rates between sexual assault PTSD and other 

PTSD cases. I would like to know what you have found and what 

you are doing about it. And for those that have been previously denied, what can be done for them in terms of refiling and being reconsidered. 

Thank you. 

Ms. HICKEY. Thank you, Congresswoman Speier. 

Let me start very quickly with what we have done in Oakland 

and where I am going and that I am going to repeat this same 

process in other regional offices that are preforming, having challenges in performance. This is, by the way, the very first time that 

anybody in VA and any VBA Under Secretary has ever done this. 

As you know, we stood down Oakland, other than we kept some 

production going. We stopped all the inflow into Oakland. I got 

your leader, a brand new leader in there helping to get this right. 

I have also moved the area director from Phoenix up to Oakland, 

where he sits in working with the new senior leader there in Oakland. We took every single one of your employees, our employees, 

in that regional office and we ran them back through challenge 

training. 

The good news is, we are done with that in June, they are back 

to work and I will tell you what the results of that training were 

for them for their quality. They were before this environment, their 

quality was about 69 percent. That quality translates into a production problem, because when we find the error, we have to recycle it back, as you well described. 

They are now, after that course, their post-training test was at 

93 percent. So we will see an impact associated with retraining 

that entire regional office from head to toe. And I am going to use 

that model to go after others who are in that same challenged environment. 

The second thing we have done is I have established across the 

Nation, in ever single regional office, and I am so glad that Mr. 

Manar raised quality so I can tell you, I made an investment last 

fall. There are now quality review teams that are trained to the 

star national quality levels that are working in every single regional office helping us to fix our errors. And why does that matter? Not just because of what that quality number says. But every 

time we make a mistake, it costs us 39 days in the process. So if 

you have extremely low quality, you are likely to have a recycle of 

those claims quite frequently, and a lot of 39-day limitations. 

Third thing I will say, you asked about old claims, AO fast track. 

We do have a fast track for our Agent Orange claims. I am happy 

to continue to advertise that we have one. And by the way, those 

are not the three presumptives that we have just done under this 

Administration, taking care of those three presumptive conditions. 

We are all done with those. We will have Agent Orange claims forever, until the last Vietnam veteran who was ever exposed to that 

is not here anymore. We will have those claims. They are not the 

one for the three presumptives that took us 37 percent of our work 

60 

force and more than 260,000 claims that we did in the last two 

years. Right decision to make by our Vietnam veterans. 

That did have an impact in Oakland. It did have an impact in 

Seattle. It did have an impact in every single regional office across 

our Country. It had an impact to the tune of 260,000 claims in 

backlog that would have not have been in backlog. But I still stand 

firm for our Vietnam veterans, and the daughter of a Vietnam veteran to say it was absolutely the right thing to do by those men 

and women who were never welcomed home the way this Administration and this Secretary has made that a priority for me to do. 

Then the last thing we will do, I am so glad you brought up military sexual trauma. It is the very first issue I grabbed the reins 

on and ran with when I got on station here, aside from, obviously, 

the backlog. And I will tell you, I am the one that asked for us to 

go show, show me what our grant denial rate is between MSTD, 

PTSD and what it is between PTSD for the other three, combat, 

fear, terrorism. I asked for us to do that. I got it back and I said, 

this is unacceptable. We had a 25 percent difference in our grant 

denial rate. I said, we are going to change this process. We did. 

And by the way, the process is now in a segmented lane, which 

is one of our new transformation initiatives. We have trained, from 

the VBA person who handles it coming in the door, through the 

exam doctor in the health administration who does the health 

exam and we now have everybody trained. I just got the data last 

Friday that shows I have closed that gap as a result of that effort. 

We have increased our grants a full 35 percent and our MST as 

of last Friday because of the direction we did, the actions we took 

to make those right and do those right and well. 

Ms. SPEIER. Mr. Chairman, can I ask a follow-up question? I 

know my time has expired. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Feel free, sure. 

Ms. SPEIER. Thank you. 

What are we doing about those that had their claims denied? Are 

we going back now and saying, refile? 

Ms. HICKEY. I am glad you asked that question as well, Congresswoman Speier. We are sending letters to everyone we have 

ever denied and saying, this is what we do, we have a new process, 

if you feel you were denied in error, please send it to us and we 

will reaccomplish it. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Before the gentlewoman yields back, I would ask 

unanimous consent actually to include the inspection of the VA regional office for Phoenix, Arizona, dated July 17th. One of the concerns, if I understand it, it took the head of, or one of the leaders 

in the Phoenix office to put them into Oakland to solve the problem. But when the inspector, office of the inspector general went 

down to the Phoenix office, they found that in one of the summaries, staff did not correctly process 47 percent of the disability 

claims. 

So I would ask unanimous consent that we include this in the 

record. 

Mr. TIERNEY. I will allow unanimous consent only if General 

Hickey gets a chance to make a comment about that. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Sure. 

61 

Ms. HICKEY. Thank you, Congressman Tierney and Chairman 

Chaffetz. I would appreciate the opportunity. 

The leader that I put in Phoenix is not the Phoenix regional office director. He is the area director for all of the west environments. So I moved him there to provide better oversight in Oakland. He happens to have his office as area director office in the 

geography called Phoenix, Arizona. 

The second thing I will tell you is, it is important to note in the 

IG reports, and the IG states it in their report, there is a sentence 

in there that says this does not reflect the overall quality of all 

things done at this regional office. This reflects the bit and piece 

that we specifically went to look at. I will tell you, one of the things 

they have been looking at is something called 100 percent temporary disability. What that mean is if you went and had a medical 

situation, you had a knee surgery, you are given 100 percent temporary disability for a short period of time in which we will then 

come back after that period of time and readjudicate your claim 

based on the healing time associated with that injury. 

We had a computer problem, we had, had is the operative word, 

we had a computer problem that was not capturing the comments 

that our people were putting in there that would notify them when 

that period was up. That has been fixed as of June. It is now working. It is not going to create that problem again. 

But it is a period of time when they were at Phoenix, which was 

several months ago. That was still an issue. It also notes in that 

Phoenix report that those people had been fixing those issues as directed by the STAR and compensation services as they were going. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. I would invite you, if there are additional comments in response to the inspector’s report, to please include those for the record. 

Ms. HICKEY. I am happy to do so, Chairman. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I now recognize myself here as we kind of conclude things. Listen, I appreciate the gravity and the task. I can 

tell in your voice and inflections you are passionate about this 

issue. 

I appreciate the fact that you actually show up to these hearings. 

We had invited Deputy Secretary Gould to show up here, but he 

was unavailable. My understanding is that when there is an opportunity at the Veterans Affairs Committee, it was unavailable for 

him to show up, but you actually showed up. So I appreciate your 

being here. This is not easy to go through, and the task is difficult, 

to say the least. We are talking about 300,000 employees and $140 

billion, and people dealing with very difficult situations. 

So A, I want to thank you for being here, and the passion that 

you bring to this. Our job, role and responsibility is to provide some 

oversight and to try to fix the problem. Because we are Oversight, 

but we are also Government Reform. So as we look at this, we 

want to try to come up with solutions, not just point out some problems. I am sure they are evident to you and to others. 

So I want to give you a second here. And it is hard to do it justice, given the gravity. Any question deserves a 45 minute answer. 

If you could just wave your magic wand and do two things, very 

briefly, and I will give you each an opportunity to answer this, 

what would you do? 

62 

Ms. HICKEY. I would implement the plan that we have developed 

that produces good results, and we are seeing the results. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Okay. Mr. Manar? 

Mr. MANAR. I would, if I could wave that magic wand, I would 

change the culture on quality. As I said earlier, the emphasis is on 

production and the huge backlog. But if 16 percent of the cases, decisions are wrong, then you are not serving those veterans. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. And let me just interject there. When I talked to 

somebody who is on the Veterans Affairs Committee, they stated 

that as well. Their concern was customer service. We look at all 

these metrics and backlogs and other things. But maybe one of the 

things we ought to be looking at is customer service and how 

pleased the veterans are with the services that they are provided. 

Maybe that is the way. Instead of handing out $2.8 million to senior executives, maybe it ought to be the people on the front lines 

that are going through this. And not just to get their scores higher 

and give our more claims, but how they are treated, how they go 

through that process. Somebody can come in and independently— 

maybe that is the metric that needs to change. Maybe that is part 

of that culture that you talk about in terms of quality. 

But please continue. Sorry to interrupt. 

Mr. MANAR. The other thing is, and it is going to come, five years 

down the road, six, eight years, however long it is, but it needs to 

be today. And that is when a veteran walks into a hospital and receives treatment, and they are already service connected for the 

condition for which they are being treated, the results of that examination, that treatment, should, as soon as the doctor hits enter, 

should automatically drop into their VBA record. And if it indicates 

that they are entitled to a higher evaluation, they should be given 

that. And in the rules-based decision-making process, it is certainly 

possible. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Okay. Let me give Mr. Violante an opportunity 

here. 

Mr. VIOLANTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

If it is only two things, the two things would be better training. 

Because DAV national service officers that have been with DAV for 

a year or 30 years go through continuing training their entire career. They are tested. I would like to see VA do more of that 

And the second thing would be accountability as it relates to 

quality. Because we don’t have that now. The emphasis is on production, not on quality. And if, as I said in my testimony, if we do 

it right the first time, we will save a lot of problems and a lot of 

time. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. Thank you. And again, I have a hard time believing that your service was 40 years ago. I don’t know how old you 

were when you started out, I didn’t know we were taking people 

at age 6 or so. But I appreciate both of your service. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. If I could wave my magic wand, I would totally 

agree with what you said. And I am not nearly as close to it as you 

all here today. 

Somehow, some way, there has to be a better communication between the Department of Defense and veterans. The handoff is pathetic. And until the Secretaries themselves, personally, personally 

63 

take this under their wing, it will not happen. Our military, the 

American people, we are willing to do and can do anything if we 

have the political will to do it. And I recognize it is different. 

But the idea that we have all these different standards, that you 

are not getting the information that you need in a format that you 

can deal with, in this day and age, is just totally unacceptable. I 

think the Department of Defense has a lot of questions to also answer in this, because the VA is on the receiving end of this, and 

it is not necessarily in the format and the way we can deal with 

it. It has to be a priority. People should be getting stars on their 

shoulders, not just for going out and winning wars, but also taking 

care of the men and women that are under our service. 

So again, I thank you all for your service. Let me yield to the 

gentleman from Massachusetts. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you very much. 

First of all, I thank all three of you for your testimony and your 

time here today. I think that obviously, production is an issue, and 

quality is an issue. But I think they are related, I think all of you 

recognize that and mentioned that you can’t really get at the quality issue if everybody is leaning so hard trying to catch up on the 

production end of it. I think you have a plan in place trying to do 

that, and I think this is absolutely part of it. The accountability 

comes with that, as does the culture and the attitude situation 

here. I am impressed with the attitude that I hear from all of you. 

It seems to be cooperative, it seems to be willing to point out what 

you think is going wrong without getting nasty and mean about it 

or blaming people for it, and then work together to try and address 

it. And General, you seem to be very interested in responding to 

those things that are pointed out in a positive way, not taking it 

personally or as a negative, and moving forward to getting it done. 

I think that is exactly what we need to do. 

Our job is oversight, the Chairman is absolutely right. So we 

don’t always come off as probably being as congratulatory as we 

ought to be for when things are going right, because we are supposed to be trying to keep the foot on the pedal and keep people 

moving in that direction. But I think occasionally we have to acknowledge when things are moving in that direction and just still 

keep our oversight function on there, looking for ways into doing 

the reform. 

This Committee should be proud of itself. We were the committee 

that actually got the ball rolling on sexual assault in the modern 

era here, and then the Armed Services Committee picked it up 

from that. But there were a lot of good women in Congress who 

had bills that weren’t getting hearings. And this Committee provided the hearings and has been taking it up and going into the 

proper committee for that. 

Walter Reed hearings in this Committee I think started a lot of 

work, particularly about fixing the facilities and making sure the 

people that were transitioning from the Department of Defense to 

VA got more attention. And now we have that issue, trying to iron 

out that transition period on that. And I think that is all to the 

better on that basis. 

So we need to keep working together in this format. Our oversight, our reform, your continued work together. Madam Secretary, 

64 

let me just say that if I had one thing that I would want to keep 

constant, it is your involvement in this and your attitude and your 

passion for it. I am impressed. We may come to some point where 

we want to take a different view on that. But for all three of you, 

I think you are doing an excellent job in your respective positions 

and you are working the way, professionally and positively, the 

way we need this to happen. I thank you for that, and I think the 

American public and the veterans in particular should be grateful 

that all of you are working so hard, taking this so seriously and 

thank you. 

Mr. CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

Again, thank you all for your service to this Country. I appreciate the hearing today and this Committee now stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:32 a.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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Æ 


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