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HEARING TO RECEIVE THE REPORT OF THE VA

CLAIMS PROCESSING TASK FORCE (COOPER

REPORT)

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

NOVEMBER 6, 2001

Printed for the use of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs

Serial No. 107–16

(
COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman

BOB STUMP, Arizona

MICHAEL BILIRAKIS, Florida

TERRY EVERETT, Alabama

STEPHEN E. BUYER, Indiana

JACK QUINN, New York

CLIFF STEARNS, Florida

JERRY MORAN, Kansas

HOWARD P. (BUCK) MCKEON, California

JIM GIBBONS, Nevada

MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana

ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut

ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina

JEFF MILLER, Florida

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas

LANE EVANS, Illinois

BOB FILNER, California

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois

CORRINE BROWN, Florida

JULIA CARSON, Indiana

SILVESTRE REYES, Texas

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas

CIRO D. RODRIGUEZ, Texas

RONNIE SHOWS, Mississippi

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada

BARON P. HILL, Indiana

TOM UDALL, New Mexico

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California

PATRICK E. RYAN, Chief Counsel and Staff Director

(II)
(III)

C O N T E N T S

November 6, 2001

Page

Hearing to Receive the Report of the VA Claims Processing Task Force

(Cooper Report) .................................................................................................... 1

OPENING STATEMENTS

Chairman Smith ...................................................................................................... 1

Hon. Lane Evans, ranking democratic member, full Committee on Veterans’

Affairs .................................................................................................................... 2

Prepared statement of Congressman Evans .................................................. 29

Hon. Michael Bilirakis ............................................................................................ 3

Hon. Michael K. Simpson, chairman, Subcommittee on Benefits ....................... 4

Hon. Silvestre Reyes ................................................................................................ 5

Prepared statement of Congressman Reyes ................................................... 29

Hon. Vic Snyder ....................................................................................................... 21

Hon. Ciro D. Rodriguez ........................................................................................... 23

Hon. Tom Udall ....................................................................................................... 24

Prepared statement of Congressman Udall ................................................... 30

Hon. Steve Buyer, prepared statement of ............................................................. 31

WITNESSES

Cooper, Admiral Daniel L., Chairman, VA Claims Processing Task Force;

accompanied by Mrs. Carolyn Hunt, Task Force Member ............................... 6

Prepared statement of Admiral Cooper, with attachments .......................... 32

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Briefing packet, presentation to the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs—briefing

overview ................................................................................................................ 43

Report: ......................................................................................................................

‘‘VA Claims Processing Task Force Report to the Secretary of Veterans

Affairs,’’ October 2001 ................................................................................... 53

Written committee questions and their responses:

Chairman Smith to Admiral Cooper ............................................................... 159

Congressman Evans to Admiral Cooper ......................................................... 162

(1)

HEARING TO RECEIVE THE REPORT OF THE

VA CLAIMS PROCESSING TASK FORCE (COOPER REPORT)

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2001

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 2:02 p.m., in room 334,

Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H. Smith (chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Smith, Bilirakis, Simpson, Evans,

Reyes, Snyder, Rodriguez and Udall.

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN SMITH

The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come to order. I want to thank

all of you for being here this afternoon. We are meeting to receive

the report of the VA Claims Processing Task Force chaired by Admiral Daniel L. Cooper. Mrs. Carolyn Hunt, who was a member of

the Task Force and is director of the VA Regional Office in Lincoln,

NE, accompanies Admiral Cooper this afternoon.

VA Secretary Anthony Principi created this Task Force with a

mission of examining the system at large and making recommendations that the Department could implement now—without congressional action. This was no small feat. The Task Force had just 120

days to do its work.

The Task Force was led by our witness this afternoon, Admiral

Daniel L. Cooper. Admiral, I want to thank you for your leadership

and your commitment to our Nation’s veterans. Admiral Cooper is

a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and went on to serve on active duty for 33 years. Among his many assignments he served as

commander of the Atlantic Fleet’s Submarine Force and as the

Navy’s Budget Officer. Admiral Cooper retired with three stars in

1991.

Secretary Principi vowed from day one to address the issues facing the Veterans Benefits Administration with respect to the delays

in processing the claims of our disabled veterans.

The claims backlog stands at about 530,000, and it takes about

200 days to process a claim, up from 127 days in fiscal year 1998.

It is important to note that the backlog is not just made up of disability claims but also includes claims for pension and survivors’

benefits. This backlog is about the same that existed when Congress enacted the Veterans’ Claims Adjudication Commission in
2

1994. I know of no group of individuals that want the VA claims

systems to work better than do the committed VA employees who

have chosen disability claims adjudication as their life’s work. Indeed, as a Nation we have over 7,000 Veterans Benefits Administration employees working on disability claims every day. Many

claims involve multiple requests for disability. The fact that it

takes 3 years to train a journey-worker adjudicator I think is instructive regarding the complexity of the system that we have

created.

Adjudicators work with over 1,000 pages of regulations, 700 different disabilities, 112 presumptive conditions and hundreds of

precedents of the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. This

is the system that Congress has authorized and that the VA is in

charge of.

VBA’s 57 Regional Offices process about 24 million pieces of mail

and answer about 9 million phone calls annually in administering

our veterans benefits system, benefits that truly are earned ones.

The average VA rating specialist will make about three-quarters of

a billion dollars in ratings decisions through the awards he or she

authorizes over a 20-year period. Making an appropriate decision

on a claim for veterans benefits is truly one of the most important

things the government does every day, and it is vital that we attract insightful and highly motivated persons to perform this job.

As President Bush said recently, our Federal career civil servants

are part of a, quote, ‘‘noble calling and a public trust’’; and I applaud and absolutely endorse that view.

I have received Admiral Cooper’s report, and both I and members

of our Committee, majority and minority, have welcomed it, as

have our staff, and read it. I think it makes a number of very

important recommendations. We look forward to your testimony,

Admiral.

I would like to yield to my good friend and colleague, the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Evans.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LANE EVANS, RANKING DEMOCRATIC MEMBER, FULL COMMMITTEE ON VETERANS’

AFFAIRS

Mr. EVANS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Admiral Cooper, thank you for appearing before us today to testify on the report of the VA Claims Processing Task Force. You and

other Task Force members are to be commended for the many recommendations that the Task Force has made to improve the claims

processing.

I thank our chairman for scheduling this hearing. Claims processing and particularly the huge backlog in veterans claims is a

concern to every member of this committee. Now the committee

should hear soon from Secretary Principi who has made reducing

the claims backlog his top priority. I request that the committee

schedule this hearing just as soon as possible.

The Task Force made a number of short-term and long-term recommendations to improve the processing of claims. I agree with

many of the recommendations made, in particular the critical need

of the VA, the Department of Defense and the National Archives

to work together to address the chaotic state of records mainte-
3

nance and retrieval of the National Personnel Records Center in St.

Louis, MO.

I am also pleased with the emphasis the Task Force placed on

improving and maintaining quality while making efforts to improve

the productivity of the VA claims processing. VA should get it right

the first time. Anything else is detrimental to our veterans’ interest.

I thank you for your service to our Nation’s veterans and look

forward to your testimony, Admiral.

Yield back the balance of my time.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Bilirakis.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL BILIRAKIS

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, want to commend you for scheduling today’s hearing and want to add my welcome to Admiral Cooper and to Mrs. Hunt.

During the 103rd Congress, Mr. Chairman, I served as the ranking minority member of the Compensation, Pension and Insurance

Subcommittee. Due to the serious problems plaguing the VA claims

processing system, former Representative Jim Slattery, the then

subcommittee chairman, and I decided that our subcommittee

should focus on improving the claims process.

As the ranking minority member, I met with my local service officers to hear their suggestions of ways the process could be improved. I visited the Board of Veterans’ Appeals—we both did—to

observe a hearing. It increased my understanding of the appeals

process. I met with representatives from the veterans’ service organizations to hear their views on the process, and I sat through numerous hearings conducted by the Compensation Subcommittee.

As a result of our work, legislation was enacted that made some

changes that we hoped would improve the process and reduce the

length of time it took to process a veteran’s claim. Unfortunately,

despite our efforts, problems continue to plague the VA’s claims

processing system.

While there are problems throughout the system, I am particularly concerned about the situation in my home State of Florida,

which has the second largest veterans population in the United

States. Florida has the largest number of veterans with serviceconnected disabilities ages 75 and older, and the State also has the

largest concentration of veterans with service-connected disabilities

rated 50 percent and higher. As a result, Florida has one of the

most active Regional Offices in the country.

I have been told that we also have the largest number—and I am

not proud of this—the largest number of pending cases, with

38,336 pending claims. The average length of time for an original

claim is 210 days, and the average length of time for processing a

reopened claim is 220 days.

In addition to its current backlog of claims, the Regional Office

also has a growing number of appeals waiting to be processed. Currently, there are 8,573 appeals at the Florida Regional Office,

which is the one and only Regional Office in the State of Florida.

Like most Members of Congress, I receive frequent complaints

from veterans about the length of time it takes the VA to process
4

disability claims. I am pleased, as has been mentioned earlier, that

Secretary Principi recognized the problem regarding the VA’s

claims processing system and made improving the system one of

his top priorities.

I am anxious to hear, as we all are, from Admiral Cooper. Despite our previous efforts to improve the claims processing system

and shorten the length of time that a veteran must wait for a decision, the Task Force’s report clearly shows that major problem still

exist.

Each year, the veterans’ service organizations spend millions of

dollars and devote countless hours to helping veterans with their

claims. I know there have been many cases where my staff members have literally spent years—I think we have all had similar experiences—years trying to assist veterans to resolve their claims.

Something, of course, must be done to fix the system. As members of this committee, it is incumbent upon us to do everything

we can to ensure that veterans are served by the claims processing

system, rather than caught in what seems to be certainly a seemingly endless bureaucratic maze. I look forward, Mr. Chairman, to

working with you and the veterans’ service organizations—I emphasize the veterans’ service organizations—and reforming the VA

claims processing system.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. I want to thank the distinguished vice chairman

of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee for his statement but more importantly for his long-standing commitment to try and resolve this

issue. I thank you.

Mike Simpson, the chairman of our Benefits Committee, the

former Speaker of the Idaho House of Representatives, you are

recognized.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL K. SIMPSON,

CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON BENEFITS

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a few brief

comments.

I certainly join you, Mr. Evans, and the other committee personnel in welcoming Admiral Cooper and Mrs. Hunt to the committee.

In the potato country of Idaho we have a saying that a handful

of action is worth more than a sack of talk. In fact, we have a lot

of sayings in Idaho, like never drink downstream from the herd. I

could go on and on, but I won’t.

I believe this report represents at least a handful of actions that

the VA can take administratively to make the claims process work

better, and I applaud them. I was impressed with the number and

scope of recommendations the Task Force has made to wring every

ounce of quality and timeliness out of the current system Congress

has established.

Admiral Cooper, your efforts to identify additional direct labor

resources from the current system are very, very commendable.

I am new to the veterans claims issue and have much to learn.

VA’s career professionals continue to take on water faster than

they can pump it out, it seems. The 1996 Veterans’ Claims Adjudication Commission’s report to Congress projected that if the VA

had closed its disability compensation program to any new original
5

claims in 1995, that 20 years later, in 2015, the VA would still

have about 72 percent of its 1995 workload due to reopened

claims—which are perfectly legitimate. It is just very difficult to

get closure on claims.

I understand from a GAO report that 49 percent of almost 3,000

veterans surveyed viewed positively the idea of being given the option—and I repeat the option—of taking a lump sum disability payment for which the person would continue to receive VA health

care. This and perhaps other policy issues may be something that

we could think about at some point as one way of getting a handle

on the volume of pending reopened claims. No single approach is

going to solve this huge backlog, and I think we should be prepared

to look at a number of different issues.

Happily for our veterans, over roughly the past 5 fiscal years, of

the 100,000 new disability awards that the VA made annually

about 80 to 85 percent have been for a zero or a 10 percent disability. Over the past 5 fiscal years, the most frequent disabilities have

tended to mirror disability experiences in the general population,

which includes disabilities for knees, backs, and hearing conditions.

Last year, the most frequent disability compensation award was for

a nontender scar.

We have had a lot to deal with up here in the last 2 months, Mr.

Chairman. I commend you for holding this hearing today. I know

we have had to cancel it twice because of circumstances. I look forward, with the Admiral’s testimony and working with the VA, on

addressing the issues that the Task Force has identified because

the system VA is administering is based on laws largely written by

this committee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Chairman.

I would like to recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Reyes,

and thank him for his good work.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SILVESTRE REYES

Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to make a few comments and in doing so I want to commend

my chairman for his interest in many of these issues. Every time

we get together for a hearing he never ceases to remind me that,

without Idaho, we would have no potato chips. So I certainly am

mindful of that.

But this afternoon I want to thank Admiral Cooper and Mrs.

Hunt, a member of the Task Force, for joining us here; and I am

looking forward to their testimony. I certainly appreciate the efforts that they have made to address the backlog of claims of the

Department of Veterans’ Affairs. As with my colleagues, I have

been very concerned about the backlog and the steps that the VA

is taking to address that backlog.

I would especially like for you this afternoon to address the Task

Force’s recommendation on rewarding productivity. I do so because

I am very disturbed about the recent VA actions rewarding the productivity of offices with such high error rates as Columbia, SC, to

the detriment of offices such as Waco, TX, where employees are

working hard to improve their accuracy. I hope the committee will
6

be able to address these kinds of concerns with Secretary Principi

in the very near future.

The Waco Regional Office, which serves my district, is the second

largest office in the Nation, with over 28,000 claims and over 6,000

appeals pending on November 2, 2001. The Columbia office is much

smaller, with over 7,000 claims and almost 3,000 appeals pending

on that date as well. Yet in fiscal year 2001 Columbia had almost

three times as many claims as Waco returned by the Board of Veterans Appeals because of the need to obtain medical records from

the VA medical centers. The Columbia Regional Office was rewarded for their efficiency with overtime authorization. The Waco

Regional Office, with a much better track record of accuracy and

lower rate of appeals, received no over time. As a result, veterans

served by South Carolina received faster wrong decisions than veterans served by Waco, who received slower correct decisions.

This sends a very bad message in my mind to dedicated VA employees in Waco and offices like Waco who take the time to obtain

and review medical reports and service medical records before deciding the claim. I hope that the many helpful recommendations of

the Task Force will not be lost in the recent emphasis on, quote,

unquote, productivity without regard to accuracy.

I look forward to addressing these issues myself, and I hope the

committee does so as well and would again like to welcome Admiral Cooper and Mrs. Hunt and thank them for being here this

afternoon.

Mr. SIMPSON (presiding). Are there other members that have

opening statements?

[The statement of Hon. Steve Buyer appears on p. 31.]

Mr. SIMPSON. Admiral Cooper, we look forward to your testimony.

STATEMENT OF ADMIRAL DANIEL L. COOPER, CHAIRMAN, VA

CLAIMS PROCESSING TASK FORCE; ACCOMPANIED BY MRS.

CAROLYN HUNT, TASK FORCE MEMBER

Admiral COOPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We appreciate the

chance to come today and present our report. I am just sorry it is

today rather than a couple weeks ago when we could have done it.

I respectfully request that my statement and the attached recommendations to it be put in the record, if I may, please.

Mr. SIMPSON. Without objection.

Admiral COOPER. What I would like to do now is to refer to a

briefing packet that you have, it will give you some background on

the study we did and how we did it. I think you will find it starts

out with a presentation to the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

Let me start by saying it is much easier to do a study and to

make recommendations than it is to implement and execute those

recommendations. So now the people that are over there in the office have a lot of work to do in trying to make sure that these get

properly interpreted and properly carried out. I am sure that they

will do that.

Each recommendation that we have presented was unanimous by

our group. There was no disagreement on any of the recommendations that we made. There were minor discussions concerning the

narrative that went along with a couple of the recommendations,
7

but each one of the recommendations we have was unanimously

agreed to by our group.

Every recommendation we have made has been reinforced several times by experiences that we have seen, by places we visited

and by testimony that we got. There is no recommendation in here

that was strictly a one shot over the transom or given by a single

experience somewhere. Every one has been reinforced by the experience that we have seen.

Finally, I would like to reiterate what the Chairman said. The

vast majority of the VBA employees are executing a very difficult

task to the very best of their ability. So whatever we can do to help

them do it better, that is the intent of our particular group.

Looking at the briefing overview, I merely point out this is the

outline of the record, the report that you saw. You will find, of the

34 recommendations, 20 of them have S–1 through 20, and that

stands for short term. What that means is any one of those could

be implemented within 6 months, in our opinion. Obviously, you

are not going to implement all 20 simultaneously, but any one of

those could be done within 6 months. The ones that are medium

term are those that would take a good bit longer to implement,

maybe up to a couple years. But there are things we felt were important enough at least to allude to in our report.

The composition of the Task Force in chart number 3 shows that

we have lots of people who had experience with the VA and with

VBA. The only person on there that really didn’t know much about

this was the person designated as the chairman—myself. There

was a time when I thought VA stood for Virginia. However, I must

admit I dedicated myself, and I now understand. But each person

on the team was extremely competent, very dedicated, and knowledgeable in what was going on. They asked the right questions as

we went around. No member was a shrinking violet. Not a single

one of those held back. We got into some very thorough and long

discussions on several aspects of this report.

Looking at the charter, it is the charter that Mr. Principi specifically gave to us. As you look at the charter there on page number

4, you will have numbers in parentheses. At the end, what we did,

I asked one of our smarter members to go through all of the recommendations and see which ones of those are applicable to the

charter. We didn’t do this as we went through so that I didn’t reorient anything as we went through the study. But at the end I wanted to see how we had done.

For instance, you can see on the first part of the charter we have

24 recommendations that speak to that. And so on down. The last

one, which talks about VHA medical, we have three. I was confident, once we did that, that we had in fact addressed each one

of the charter recommendations that the Secretary wanted us to

look at.

As you see, the first one has to do with organization and processes; the next one, shrink the backlog by increasing in efficiency.

Then looking at information technology, then looking at the appeals process, and finally looking at the physical—the medical

physical problems.

Looking at the goals you will know that the Secretary has advised us to the fact that he wanted to reduce the backlog by 50 per-
8

cent and also wanted to reduce the process time for the average

claim by 50 percent.

Over the period of the study, we developed some other things

that we thought were also important—and I call those Task Force

specific—such as identifying and freeing up direct labor hours. Secondly, to improve the claims process itself, to enhance accountability at all levels—I will discuss these a little bit more—and finally

to encourage one VA.

One VA seems to be a term that has been used off and on in the

Veterans’ Administration. The fact is, you have three very solid

separate entities in BVA, VBA and VHA, each one to a great extent

doing their own thing. One of the major points I would make in

this study is that this may be a VBA problem, but it has to have

a one VA focus in order to solve the problem.

The Secretary’s guidance further, besides the charter itself, was

that each action be under his purview today. What can he do, given

the authority he has as Secretary of the VA himself, without coming back to Congress and asking for legislative change, without

looking at the judiciary to see what might be done there.

Finally, he gave us a time frame of 90 to 120 days. Let me say,

as I am sure many of you realize, 90 to 120 days is a pretty short

time frame when you are trying to put your hands around a subject

such as this.

I want to talk about methodology. I felt one of the most important things we had to do was to create credibility to ensure people,

whatever we came out with, that there was credibility in what we

said. They didn’t have to agree with everything we said, but at

least we had looked at it to the best of our ability. We did it professionally and thoroughly. We did review all the past study reports

and the recommendations, the Veterans Claims Adjudication Commission, National Academy of Public Administration. We looked at

all the GAO reports that seemed to be applicable and IG reports

from within the VA itself.

One of the things we did, we held the open hearings. GAO, some

of the staff from the Hill came over, the VSOs, VSC managers,

VHA, VBA, BVA, all the ones that I have listed there. We had

them come in separately and talk to us, give us whatever briefing

they wanted to, answer whatever questions we had and let them

ask questions.

We then visited 12 Regional Offices. What I did—because in that

short time frame everybody can’t become an expert in everything—

we divided into three teams. One team was for process, one team

for training and information technology, and one was to look at

personnel, quality assurance and measurement. By doing that,

then we could have each of those teams focus on those areas and

then we would get together as a committee of the whole and discuss them at great length.

By doing that we could also get to more Regional Offices. We

wanted to get every one of us to at least one of the best Regional

Offices, as determined by the ratings system VBA had, and one of

the worst ones and one somewhere in between so we could get

some kind of a picture across the board of how VBA was doing. We

went to the training sites, the records, and the data processing centers—the training centers both down in Orlando, FL, and up in
9

Baltimore; the records processing center out in St. Louis, which

was mentioned in one of your statements; and finally the data processing center in Illinois.

We asked that several groups come in and talk to us. We had the

FedEx Cycle Time Reduction group from Memphis University come

in and talk to us about cycle time reduction. Ford had a best practices outfit who came in and talked to us. We spoke to USAA, the

United Services Automobile Association, very, very highly regarded

as a way of doing claims processing and as a financial services

company. Just to be perfectly honest, I used to be on the board of

USAA, so I knew them to be very good. They were extremely cooperative, told us everything they could to help us.

The final point that I would like to make is that last one on

there, VBA was very professional in answering every question that

we asked. And where a lot of times when you are doing a study

on a group, and they know it is going to be controversial, you will

get a slow roll. We got an answer to every question we asked.

Sometimes it wasn’t as fast as we wanted, but on the other hand

they were doing real work while we were doing the study.

I want to talk about impacts on workload. As was mentioned in

a couple of your statements, there are several things that people

don’t, right off the top of their head, realize.

The time to process each claim in the last decade has doubled.

Every claim that they have it takes about twice as long as it did

10 years ago.

The aging claims are of great concern, particularly those for people 85 years old and older, veterans from World War II and the Korean War. In the year 2000, they figured they had 200,000 people

85 and older. The estimate is in 2010 we will have one and a quarter million veterans over 85 years.

We looked at the appeals and remands. They are extremely slow

and difficult. We addressed those as we talk about the BVA.

We talk about the increase in the number of claims per military

conflict. If you look at a graph, I think Joe Thompson showed you

about 6 months ago, you will find if you look at World War II you

have X number—I think it is about 12 percent of the veterans. You

look at the Gulf War, you are up at about 30 percent of the veterans putting in for claims. All that means is you are getting a lot

more claims in.

You are also getting more issues per claim. It used to be the average number of issues, that is, I have a bad arm, a bad leg, a bad

eye, you would have three issues per claim about 10 years ago.

Now the average number of issues is somewhere in excess of seven

issues per claim. Each one of those has to be adjudicated in order

to satisfy the claim.

There is obviously an increasing awareness on the part of veterans. This is a plus. We are advertising the things and the benefits

that the veterans are entitled to receive. They are knowledgable in

that. But, as a result, you get more claims because they realize

they are entitled to those benefits.

Finally, you have the attrition of institutional knowledge as people who came in at the end of the Korean War and end of the Vietnam War are now coming to the place where they are about to

retire.
10

The workload is a very dynamic workload. If you look over the

historical workload graphs, you find that there is no normal workload. You cannot say if we have X hundred thousand that is a normal workload. That just isn’t the case. It is up and down like a yoyo.

Another impact that we found was that too much time is not focused on claims processing. As the Chairman stated in his opening

statement, 24 million pieces of mail, 9 million telephone calls, 5.5

million folders to take care of. So there are a lot of things that are

done that are not specifically focused on claims processing.

One thing I point out in chart number 9 are the things that were

used as they did their BPR, better practices review. These were

some of the assumptions they had. This was four or five years ago.

It is easy to look back and say those assumptions weren’t very

good. It shows you it is difficult to predict. But they predicted a

static workload, there would be no future wars or conflict, nominal

legislative impacts, new claims by National Guard and Reserves

would not occur. Nor did they account for shifting demographics. I

merely point out that it is very difficult to look ahead several years

and make an estimate of what is going to be happening. As I said,

this is a one VA problem.

I wanted to show on page 10 the fact that there have been 10

relatively major changes in 13 years. Every one of those is a good

thing. Every one of those helps the veteran. But the fact is, we all

have to recognize each one has an impact on the workload. Each

time you have to either go back and review some of the claims you

have already adjudicated because the laws changed or you have a

sudden influx because more people are eligible for those benefits,

it affects the workload. It is absolutely the correct thing to do, but

it has a major impact.

As we look through we very quickly came upon three what I call ‘‘overarching themes’’ that I think really are the backdrop to the

problems that they have.

The first one is accountability. We felt, as we looked at this, that

it is fine to stand up and say I am in charge of this group, but you

have to know what is going on out at each one of those Regional

Offices. We felt that there was a breakdown in a Central Office

knowing what was going on or how those Regional Offices—each

one was operating. They had a very unusual organization, and I

will talk to that in a few minutes.

Communications we felt were very garbled. You had ‘‘fast letters.’’ You had regulations and manuals. ‘‘Fast letters,’’ as would

you expect, are things that they put out as soon as something becomes appropriate, whether it is a new law that they want to get

out fast so people can start working on it, where there is a change,

whatever it is, you send it out in the ‘‘fast letter.’’ But what we

found is that frequently the ‘‘fast letter’’ was in error. So within 2

weeks you were sending out another ‘‘fast letter’’ to change the first

letter. Further, the manuals that people are using to operate their

systems were not being kept up. Therefore, the ‘‘fast letters’’ might

be out there, but the manuals that told them what to do did not

reflect some of those things.

Finally, change management. There were many changes introduced when Mr. Thompson went in. He made a lot of changes and
11

rightfully so. Unfortunately, we found that the change management was not very good. And even though changes were imposed,

it seemed to me, as we looked at it, that each Regional Office got

to vote and said, well, I will put this change in 100 percent or I

will put this change in 50 percent or I will do this change next

month.

In one case, we were talking to some people from the veterans

service centers. I finally said, well, let me ask you a question. How

long are you having trouble putting these changes in? Tell me what

a couple of the changes are. They named them. I said, how long

have you had that change to put in? The answer in one case was

4 years. And I thought, for pity’s sake, you have a change for 4

years and now you are telling me you are having a problem putting

changes in.

So all of that speaks to change management, and it was not very

good.

I want to move now to findings, accountability of leadership and

organization. Unfortunately, being a nuclear submariner, our philosophy is pretty much as you see there. You get what you inspect,

not what you expect. Now you can’t run every organization in the

country that way, but it speaks to the way you ought to be leaning.

There is the lack of uniformity, that I mentioned. The Service

Delivery Networks they have out there, the way the are organized—I won’t go into it. It is in the report. But they just do not

make sense to me from an organizational construct.

The Office of Field Operations, a group at central headquarters,

had a very wide-ranging span of control, to such an extent we just

didn’t feel that they were doing the job that was expected. They

were doing a job, but they weren’t doing a job for which they presumably were designed.

The communications I have spoken to—regulations, manuals and

‘‘fast letters.’’

The compensation and pension medical exams we felt were a real

problem.

You will find in remands, by the way, that 20 to 30 percent of

the remands are predicated on some medical problem. Whether it

wasn’t the latest exam, whether the exam wasn’t done properly,

whether the request for the exam wasn’t correct, whatever the reason, about 20 to 30 percent of all your remands are predicated

upon the medical results that were put in to justify the decision.

We felt that part of the problem was that the physical exams

were being done at a low level at VHA. VHA is doing a very good

job in many things, but the physical exams which had to be done

for these people were being done at a low level, and there was not

much visibility. So no matter how those exams were, they may be

going back and forth between VBA and VHA and this is what

caused part of your long delay. Yet it didn’t have the visibility so

you could see what the problem was and jump on it and say that

is enough. So we think we addressed that.

The Records Management Center in St. Louis is run by VA and

is quite well done. We visited out there. We have a National Personnel Records Center, NPRC, which is run by the National Archives. I’ve got to tell you, if any of you ever go out there to visit
12

you will be amazed at what the results are. It is very sad to see

how it is.

The GAO report addressed it pretty carefully. But we went out,

for instance, and got back in the stacks where they have 80 million

records filed about 15 different ways. At one point, they pulled out

a box of paper, here was a sheet standing up like this which indicated that record was gone, so now you go over to see when that

record was taken: 1967. Now, part of that problem is that if they

go in there and find they can’t find the record, there is a great reticence for the organization to say we can’t find the record. If they

could immediately say we cannot locate that record, then VBA

should be able to start doing something to reconstruct the physical

evidence. But if you are still looking for the record, you are into,

again, a very extensive delay.

We looked at the training and work force and felt that there

were a lot of things that needed to be done in training to make it

overall better, more credible. We looked at resource allocation, and

we looked at integrated training across the board.

Information technology, we did not get into in great depth. However, we did feel that part of this change management problem was

a lot of the IT type changes that were put out that had not been

either properly tested or, if an individual one had been tested, the

synergism of that particular IT change had not been effected

against another change or the way another system happened so

you didn’t know what the synergism was as you put changes out.

This causes a great problem. Therefore, control of IT, control of the

changes we felt was bad.

We looked at VETSNET, and all of you are aware of VETSNET.

That is a system that will eventually replace the Benefits Delivery

Network (BDN). The Secretary is intimately involved in that, as is

the CIO. We did not get into it in great depth. However, we did

point out there were several problems.

The same thing with the BDN. This is the system that pays all

the veterans. We were concerned that it hadn’t been kept updated.

As a result, we made some recommendations. I know they are, in

fact, being carried out, so the BDN does remain as reliable as it

had been, which has been very, very high.

Finally, we felt very strongly that VSO professional relationships

had to be encouraged, enhanced. We were very impressed with the

VSOs who came to talk to us and very pleased with some the recommendations they had. I think that they have accepted our report

and will work very thoroughly with us.

I want to mention one more thing, by the way, as far as methodology went. We allowed everybody who wanted to come and talk

to us to come. Nobody was precluded, preempted from coming to

talk to us. At the end, I put out the word to every organization.

Everybody who wanted to come in and talk to the chairman alone,

I would be glad to talk to them. We had about six individuals and

four or five organizations who came in, and we talked at some

length to make sure I understood what their concerns were. They

understood essentially where we were going. I did not talk to them

specifically about recommendations but to make sure at least we

all appeared to be on the same page. Credibility I felt was ex-
13

tremely important as we tried to put this rather difficult problem

together.

Looking at your 16th slide or 16th view graph, there are a couple

things we did on the backlog, one is the Tiger Team, I think you

have heard about that. We have a Tiger Team in Cleveland that

is looking at the 75-year-old-and-beyond group, the World War II,

the Korean vets, but particularly those claims that are over a year

old and trying to get on top of those. Many of those are for lost

records or whatever. So we felt by having a Tiger Team that just

focused on that would allow the rest of the ROs then to focus on

other claims and not get bogged down by one of those more difficult

ones.

We said that they should defer introduction of new IT initiatives.

This does not mean that they no longer have IT initiatives. It

means they can continue working at headquarters or wherever

they want to work them, but don’t introduce new IT initiatives

until we get on top and over the hump with the backlog.

We requested that BVA be intimately involved in processing of

remands. One of the longest delays you have is BVA saying they

are going to remand. They remand for many reasons. Some of them

are very good, some of them very problematical. We are saying we

ought to be able to set up some type of organization where BVA

gets the evidence when they determine you need some more medical information. BVA gets the information rather than sending it

back to the RO; having the delay time in the mail; getting in the

queue, which delays it even further; and, finally, the guy gets it

and starts to work it, this takes more time.

If we can do it at BVA, we should be able to reduce a lot of the

time necessary to take care and adjudicate the appeals and do it

properly without any loss to the veteran. In fact, we expect it to

be a much more expedited system.

In the record recovery from NPRC, as I say, it is really quite bad

now. We hope that some of our recommendations will help.

Under the direct labor hours: I went out to the Veteran Service

Center (VSC) managers last week, when I told them at a retreat,

that we can come up with some of these things to increase labor

hours available. But they (the managers) have to know what they

are because they have to know when they have an hour or two here

that they are saving. Otherwise, it is going to be frittered away.

But these things, deferring Eligibility Verification Reports

(EVRs) and Income Verification Matches (IVMs), are possible

things to do.

Expediting favorable decisions: as I told you, more and more

claims are coming in with multiple issues. Therefore, why can’t we

help the veteran by saying: look, number one and number four are

obvious. We can give you 10 percent disability right now on those.

We can’t adjudicate number two and whatever ones are left right

away. But let him get started getting his money immediately for

the ones that can be done easily, rather than waiting until you do

all of the issues. We think that this is a thing that should be able

to help the veteran.

Extend the time frame for routine compensation exams: There is

an area in the manual, where it says for some types of exams you

have between 2 and 5 years to come back for re-exam. It has
14

seemed to be the policy or at least the case that frequently they

would say, come back in 2 years. If you are given a leeway of 2 to

5 years, why not just say come back in 5 years? Why make the guy

come back every 2 years and therefore get back in the system and

whatever problems that presents?

Then we look at competitive sourcing of predetermination. We

determined it can be competitively sourced; in other words, have a

company come in at a particular RO as a test and see if they can

carry out the predetermination phase where you are getting all the

records, you are getting all the information you need. Is that a good

idea or not? I am not sure. But it is at least something we ought

to look at. That was our thought.

In promoting accountability: again, we are back to change management. The communications discipline, the fact that the letters

went out as I described, that shouldn’t happen in any organization.

What you have to have is someone who will—one person—who will

clear the letters that go out so you have somebody that has a sense

for what is going on in the whole organization.

Credit brokered work: Sometimes we send work from one RO to

another. If one RO can’t do all the work that one has, we send it

over to another one. But we have no way of crediting the guy that

did the work. Now, the guy that gets the credit is the guy that

didn’t do the work but had to send it over to another one. So we

are saying, look at that system.

Restructure VBA management: as I talked before about the

SDNs and the Office of Field Operations. Redefine claims processing errors: As we look at errors, if you made a bad claims decision,

that is one error. If you made a misspelling in a letter, that could

be an error, also. Well, that is ridiculous to have those two errors,

so completely different in importance, be equal errors. So we are

asking that this be looked at carefully.

The information technology: I mentioned deferring introduction

of the initiatives, the BDN, the VETSNET, and commencing One

VA system integration, looking at IT from a total VA prospect. So

that is one of our recommendations.

Finally, I would say to you that the VBA serves the veteran best

by doing it expeditiously while emphasizing quality and consistency. We talked about productivity, but the guy wants it as fast as

he can get it. He wants it right, but he would like it fast. That is

what we addressed.

The situation is that VBA problems require a One VA focus.

VHA has to help and is; BVA has to help and will be. The VSOs

and VBA must work together to continue to foster a working relationship with cooperation, professionalism and responsibility to assist the veterans as they try for these benefits.

Finally, I feel strongly that veterans deserve nothing less than

full and unqualified assurance of consistent, equitable and expeditious handling of their claims.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my statement. I will be glad to answer any questions.

[The prepared statement of Admiral Cooper, with attachments,

appears on p. 32.]
15

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Admiral, for your statement and for

your longstanding service to the country and also to the veterans

now. I have just a couple of observations, then one question.

First, possibly the most underrated yet important recommendations of the Task Force is to upgrade the Benefits Delivery Network, known as the BDN. Because getting roughly $2.5 million

compensation and pension checks out monthly is part of keeping a

public trust. We cannot let BDN fail while VETSNET languishes

in its eighth year of development. The BDN recommendation alone

makes this report worthwhile.

I found interesting some of your statistics—that the staff had

been reduced over the years at the BDN, and apparently that was

transferred over to get the VETSNET program operating and so

forth. It seems like we are disintegrating one system while we are

trying to implement another system.

Admiral COOPER. I would say to you, Mr. Chairman, they immediately jumped on that; and over at VBA they immediately put

money into it and are hiring and doing, as I understand it, the

things necessary to ensure that BDN does not fall.

Mr. SIMPSON. Secondly, a brief review of the backlog of compensation and pension claims over roughly the past 5 years shows

that reopened claims typically outnumber original claims by about

three to one and that about two-thirds of the pending reopened

claims are from veterans who currently are receiving disability

compensation or pension. About two-thirds of the appeals pending

before the Board of Veterans’ Appeals are also from veterans receiving benefits.

Third, I like very much the Task Force recommendation to put

claims adjudication work and associated FTEs at the Regional Offices that achieve results. Veterans deserve no less than that.

Admiral COOPER. We think that should be a very helpful step.

Mr. SIMPSON. One of the other things I have noticed—I have

gone through many of these things in the 3 years I have been in

Congress—is whenever we do a report or Task Force or GAO report

or IG report or something, it seems like there are shelves backed

up with former reports with recommendations that may or may not

have been followed up on.

I like particularly, as I talked to you earlier about this, your recommendation on page 5 that the Task Force recommends an oversight group external to the VBA be constituted to ensure that the

remedial actions are properly and effectively implemented. I think

this is one of the keys to making anything work—to make sure

that you have oversight over it to ensure that things are being implemented as the recommendation is put forward.

Admiral COOPER. Yes, sir.

Mr. SIMPSON. I strongly agree with the Task Force recommendation to use veterans service officers more effectively in bringing forward ready-to-rate claims. Because the service officers, or VSOs, of

State, county and city Veterans’ Affairs Departments have power

of attorney.

Former Under Secretary Thompson testified last year that some

3,000 service officers are in a position to help in this regard when

trained, thus bringing true meaning to the VA/service officer part-
16

nership. That partnership could be very critical in helping reduce

this backlog.

Admiral COOPER. Absolutely. And the training is an important

cog. It is very important the training be looked at. Some of the

training for VSOs has been done and now needs to be enhanced.

But the training is a very important aspect of this.

Mr. SIMPSON. Lastly, I would like an insight from you, Admiral,

regarding what seems to be 50 years of incremental policymaking

by Congress in the adjudication area. The Transition Commission

recommended that Congress examine the policy foundations that

drive the VA’s disability compensation program, and the Veterans’ Claims Adjudication Commission and the GAO recommended that

Congress examine various policies that drive the claims system.

Would you please elaborate on what policies and statutes the Committee might examine, if any?

Admiral COOPER. I would like to take that for the record, because

I have been focused for 90 to 120 days on specifically what Mr.

Principi can do as Secretary. I would be glad to take that and get

back to you. I really focused on group things that could be done.

As we talked—but I didn’t write them down—we came to things

that might call for congressional action but we just stayed away

from them because we were very focused on what could the Secretary do. But I will be glad to take that for the record and try to

come in with some knowledgeable statement.

Mr. SIMPSON. I appreciate that.

(See p. 160. question 3.)

Mr. SIMPSON. I notice that your report was directed by the Secretary to those actions that he could take administratively himself

and not require congressional action. But, as you mentioned in

your testimony, there are things that drive the adjudication process, actions that Congress takes and those types of things, that,

while they are appropriate things to do, they have consequences

that we have to be aware of at the time and possibly remediate at

the time we take those actions.

So I appreciate, again, your service to the country and to the veterans and this report I found fascinating. Anybody that hasn’t read

it I think ought to get it out and read it. There are some very, very

good, solid business recommendations in this report. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Mr. Evans.

Mr. EVANS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Getting it right the first time is the proclaimed goal of the claims

processing efforts. Can the goal of getting it right the first time be

achieved in a timely manner with current resources?

Admiral COOPER. With current resources—First, everybody will

never get it right the first time. You strive for that and you push

very hard to get better, but you are always going to have some reason why people don’t think it is the right decision——

There are enough. In my opinion, today, there are enough resources in VBA to do the job that has to be done. They have gotten

in each of the last 3 years 600 to 800 people. So they have had a

good influx of people. It is now a matter of training those people— and they are very smart people, by the way. The GPA of the people

they are getting coming out of college is very high. I think they are
17

quite satisfied with the hiring they have done. But, like anything

else, on a complicated process like this each one has to learn, and

there has to be a learning curve. I think eventually they will get

there.

But I do not think myself—and I have discussed this with the

Secretary, and I don’t want to quote him, but I would say right now

that the resources necessary are there right now.

Mr. EVANS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Bilirakis.

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Admiral, first, thank you. Thank you for your service all through

the years for our country, for our Republic and for your services as

far as this report is concerned.

You have already indicated, in response to a question I guess

from Mr. Evans, that you have focused on what can be done without any congressional action or judicial action being required. Not

meaning to belittle the report—because, frankly, I admit I haven’t

read it—I have concentrated in one area, and I very much appreciate your emphasizing the veterans service officers and the role

that they can play. Frankly, I have always thought that they can

play—they do play a big role. They can play even a bigger role if

we do it right.

I wonder, can you tell us what percent of claims are initiated

through a veterans service officer, through a VSO?

Admiral COOPER. No, sir, I cannot.

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Were you concerned about that? I mean, you have

indicated here your M–1 recommendation which, frankly, I think is

terrific, the utilizing of the VSOs more effectively and empowering

them to accept evidence, et cetera, et cetera. I think that is all good

stuff.

But I guess my concern is—and I am past commander of a post— that most of the veterans are not members of posts, unfortunately.

Probably 80 to 85 are not members of posts. I would suspect most

of those people, if not virtually all of them, do not even go through

the post or through a veterans service officer, whether it be directly

through a post or maybe it be a county service officer or whatever

the case may be. So they file their claims directly with I guess the

Regional Office. Is that correct?

Admiral COOPER. That is the way they would do it. But I would

say to you, and I am basing what I am saying mostly on the county

where I live right now, I see there is a lot of activity going on by

the veterans services organization sending mailings to veterans

saying, look, we can help you. It is obviously for enrollment but

they are saying we can help you with claims if you have claims.

I would also say to you that certainly in my county, the county

VSO service officer is extremely active. As a matter of fact, the

other day I gave him my report after I had given it to the Secretary; and that day he said, you know, my lady down here, she

is just working awfully hard. She gave me 23 claims today. So, obviously, that guy is working very hard.

But I would say to you——

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Would those people, those veterans who filed

those 23 claims, have gone to that county VSO directly or would

they have gone through the post first?
18

Admiral COOPER. Probably to the county directly. Because if they

had gone to the post I would have expected the post to handle it.

Every week this gentleman and another man from the Vietnam

Veterans have a radio program for an hour and veterans call in

and ask questions. So my random sample of one would indicate

that both the service organizations themselves and the county reps

in some counties have gotten quite active.

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Would we agree that when the veteran goes to the

VSO, county, post, both, whatever the case may be, that the

chances are better that that claim is probably going to have been

completed—I know the claim forms are damn complicated, which

may be another area, Mr. Chairman, that we can look at. But

would we agree there probably would be—the chances are better

that those would have been completed correctly and, in other

words, you have better efficiency that would lead you to more timeliness?

Admiral COOPER. I don’t know everything I am talking about,

but I would say, in answer to your question, the probability is yes,

that it would be done. Because you have somebody who is experienced, has done it before, has been trained to do it and, just like

anything else, knows where to plug in to find out what is being

done. So in that respect logic would say to me; yes, that would be

a better way or that is better for the individual veteran to be

plugged in like that.

Mr. BILIRAKIS. The question I guess arises, should we then require as a part of the process that veterans go through a VSO in

terms of filing for their own good.

Admiral COOPER. I would be reticent to say that. Because you

are taking away an individual’s chance to go in and put it in for

himself. If you are requiring him to do this other thing, one of the

things—I may be wrong. I will be glad to have someone correct me.

But the guy joins the veterans service organization—and maybe he

doesn’t want to join the veteran service.

Mr. BILIRAKIS. He doesn’t have to be a member of the veterans

organization to put in a claim.

Admiral COOPER. Then I am in error. I would say you want to

be reticent to require anything like that. You might recommend to

your constituents, for instance, that they do that. But I don’t think

that you would want to require that they do that. Everybody recognizes a disparity across the country of the various organizations

that might be helping. Some are very, very good; and some aren’t

quite as good.

Mr. BILIRAKIS. But even those that aren’t very good probably are

better than the veteran filling out that complex form himself and

the form not being complete and proper information not included.

Therefore, it comes right on back to them, and it has to start from

scratch. And talk about delays in the filing of the claim.

Admiral COOPER. My impression is a lot of that has been rectified to an extent by the duty to assist. Now, I may be wrong in

some of the things of which you are speaking. But the duty to assist addressed that.

Mr. BILIRAKIS. If they don’t go through the service organization— I don’t mean to really continue to harp on this, but if they don’t

go through that VSO in one capacity or another, then who has the
19

duty to insist? You are talking about the Regional Officer. But, in

the meantime, that form may have gone back and forth God only

knows how many times, at least one time, because the initial information that is so necessary was not there because the veteran is

not—you know, not experienced in terms of filling out the form.

I don’t know. It seems to me that I guess what I am saying, Admiral, is that, you know, these are great. And I think Mr. Evans

brought up the oversight, you brought up the oversight, that is just

important to have some sort of an oversight and these things get

done. I know it is going to speed up the process. But if these claims

start off badly because they haven’t been filling it out correctly,

then it is really going to delay it tremendously at the outset.

Admiral COOPER. I certainly can’t disagree with that. It is a matter of how much do you want to impose on people. I think the service organizations, if we can continue to improve that, can be a large

step. I would be very wary of requiring that some guy can’t just

walk in off the street and put in his application. In other words,

somebody should be able to walk into the RO and say, I want to

put in a claim, which someone there should be able to help him to

an extent. But I do think the VSOs do a good job in helping the

people.

Mr. BILIRAKIS. You have one service office in Florida. That is in

St. Petersburg, FL. You have someone from the Panhandle or

Miami who wants to submit a claim, they are not going to jump

on a bus or plane and drive to St. Petersburg to submit the claim.

They are likely to fill it out themselves and mail it in or whatever

the case may be. And a lot of delays would ensue because it is not

done correctly.

I know I have taken up more than my allotted time. But I feel

strongly about the role of VSOs. Unless we can get them to become

a bigger part in all of this, I feel like we have knocked our heads

against the wall all through the years. We have worked on this

committee all these years, almost 19 years now, and we haven’t

really seen that much of an improvement. I wonder if there isn’t

something like that is simply done which might really improve the

process and not cost anything.

Mr. SIMPSON. I appreciate the gentleman’s observations. Mr.

Reyes.

Mr. REYES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Just to echo my colleague’s concern, when when I or my staff

talks to veterans, including outreach to the homeless veterans, this

is the number one issue that frustrates them and that is the fact

that at some point in the process they have made an attempt to

get benefits. They have been rejected and have been rejected without, according to what they are telling us, without any explanation.

They have been rejected and been rejected, according to what

they are telling us, without any explanation and further builds up

the frustration of not being able to tap into the benefits from the

VA. So that is a very real issue and I think it is a very real issue

across the country, because I know in many different areas that is

the number one concern that everybody has. But I have got a couple of issues here, Admiral, and the first one deals with the recommendation that the time in which veterans have to provide information to the VA be reduced from 60 to 30 days, and that is ob-
20

viously an attempt to improve timeliness. But as you know, the

statute provides the veteran with 1 year to provide information.

In implementing your recommendation, will this not reduce the

time or, in reducing that time frame, will this not result in premature denials of the claims, a churning of these claims that really

makes an office’s productivity appear much better than it really is?

Admiral COOPER. We don’t think so. Obviously, just like anything

else, these are people that are making the determination. The idea

is to try to expedite organizations whether it is a medical hospital,

a doctor or somebody to get them in faster. But you are correct.

The veteran has a year to put in. I think obviously it takes some

policing to make sure that you aren’t making decisions, bad decisions predicated on not getting information. Our thought was that

this should help the veteran to say, hey, I need that in 30 days,

rather than many of those organizations getting the information in

a couple of days. But you delay it a while, and delay it, and then

the whole system becomes bogged down. So our thought was that

the veteran is protected because he is allowed a year in this type

of thing. But we are trying to put a little push on other organizations to get the information that is necessary.

Mr. REYES. And again, the fact that there is that 1-year period,

and certainly with the new requirement that the VA assist veterans, we are hoping that this will dramatically change that. But in

lieu of that, it will require or it will give an agency or, a field office

an opportunity to make that one case stretch it out to several. That

is a concern that I have that feeds into what we are talking about,

and that is ultimately frustrating the veteran, and with this disconnect, the veteran may walk away from the case altogether,

which is not the intent.

Admiral COOPER. Well, I think that VBA has to look at that very

carefully. I would say you can only put so many rules in there and

you have to make sure that people are doing it right and that gets

back to our case. You have to know what your Regional Offices are

doing and make sure that they are doing it right and doing it

consistently.

Mr. REYES. Switching to something that is related, within weeks

of the Task Force’s reports issuance, the VBA rewarded the Regional Office with the highest remand rate from the board, which

by the way, this included a very high rate of remand to obtain VA

medical records, as I mentioned in my statement, with additional

overtime because it led the Nation again in, quote-unquote, productivity, which to me suggests that the VA is implementing the Task

Force’s recommendations in a manner which severely compromises

quality. In other words, there is a way to get ‘‘tick marks’’ for sending these responses out without really making an effort to get the

medical records and all of the things that would give us a more

comprehensive and better worked out case.

I am wondering, do you have any suggestions that based again

on this observation and what actually has happened that we would

redefine productivity or we would somehow correct an unintended

impact that this has had based on your recommendation?

Admiral COOPER. I am sorry, I cannot address the subject. I just

don’t know how they did it or what they did. I do know they are

trying to look to see just how productive each area is and what
21

they are doing and quality is included. But I just can’t discuss that

case. I don’t know the answer. I haven’t looked into the operational

part of it. I am sorry.

Mr. REYES. Well, perhaps we can give you some specifics and do

some follow up on that.

Admiral COOPER. We will do that. I will take that for the record

certainly.

(See p. 163, question 1.)

Mr. REYES. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Snyder.

Mr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, you

made the comment that the Idaho expression is never drink downstream from the herd. As a family doctor, my experience both as

a doctor and in life and in Arkansas is that if you look upstream

far enough you will find a herd.

Let’s see. Admiral Cooper, in your opening statement, your written statement, you refer to, I think, some ripple effect, I think was

your phrase, a ripple effect from changes that are made, whether

judicial or statutory, that they can have impact. And in this chart

on page 9, and we see that what you refer to as the pending workload, but starting in the year 2000, it wasn’t just a little ripple. I

mean it was this huge wave. I mean basically the system had done

pretty well with all those other changes that you cited, except

when we get to the year 2000. And then it goes dramatically from

389,000 to 668,000 and I assume it is still growing today. Do you

lay that at all on the duty to assist?

Admiral COOPER. Certainly from everything that we learned, a

great deal of it, yes.

Mr. SNYDER. So if we hadn’t had, which I think we all agree——

Admiral COOPER. Let me also mention, however, that they are

doing a lot and that is being eaten into, I don’t want to ever indicate that duty to assist was bad. This is just what happened and

now it is a matter of eating into that and seeing what can be done.

Mr. SNYDER. I understand that. But when we look back at things

that have occurred in the past, I mean, we have been able to handle things before, but this just overwhelmed the system, a real

wave. On this——

Admiral COOPER. But I am sorry. Let me mention one more

thing, too. Along with that is the other part that I mentioned earlier, the number of claims per war has increased dramatically, the

Gulf War being an example and the number of issues per claim has

gone from about three a decade ago to maybe seven to eight issues

a claim. And so as a result the time necessary to adjudicate each

claim is also longer. So there are several things that mix in with

that.

Mr. SNYDER. I understand. It is very dramatic starting the year

2000.

Admiral COOPER. Yes.

Mr. SNYDER. On this chart here that you talk about the external

influences and you have got the time line. Another one that caught

my attention was in 1994, where you refer to both Gulf War syndrome recognized but also military downsizing begins. Is the effect

of military downsizing just the natural logical one that you have
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increase in veterans? Is that—or is there something more subtle

there?

Admiral COOPER. I don’t know whether I can answer that exactly, but in the downsizing of course if the people were going to

be getting out they are going to become more cognizant of putting

in claims for their military duty, and I would guess that that is it.

I just don’t recall off the top of my head.

Mr. SNYDER. What caught my attention about that was the fact

that in my view that is inaccurate. I mean, I think military

downsizing began in the late 1980s. It did not begin in 1994. For

example, in the Army in 1986 there was 781,000 troops. By 1993

that had dropped to 572,000. So from 1986 to 1993 you had a drop

in the Army of 208,000. And then from 1993 to the year 2000 it

has been a drop of 90,000. So in fact, again, trying to account for

this huge problem we have had in the last year or two, even that

as an example that the system handled that. I mean even though

you had a pretty good increase. I mean you can see it in your chart.

It kind of goes up and then it comes back down. It is something

just distinctively or a series of things really flooded the system this

time. If everything in your list—both here short-term and median

term chores are done—if everything is done to the satisfaction—the

way you think they ought to be, where will we be?

Admiral COOPER. First, let me say that when I gave this presentation to the VSC managers, the question was, tell me, Admiral,

you are saying that we haven’t managed change very well and we

have had too much change and now you are indicating you want

more changes. And so I said, yes, that is something I have thought

about a lot. The fact is you are not going to implement all of them

simultaneously. It will be look and see which are the best, most

productive, the ones that can give you the biggest bang for the

buck to begin with and try to analyze which ones go together to

do so. I would never recommend implementing all of these simultaneously. Now, as to say where will we be after they are all implemented, if say in 2 years they are all implemented, I would hope

you would be at a greatly reduced backlog, but more importantly,

I think, a greatly reduced time to adjudicate each claim. I think

that is as important as the backlog itself, if the time is decreased.

Mr. SNYDER. I agree with you. I am trying to get a handle because granted you had a very short amount of time, I think, to

really do a huge systems analysis. If you were trying to, you know,

nibble at the apple or just take a huge bite that is going to solve

the problem, do you understand what I am saying? I mean, if

everything were done in 2 years, would it be expectation that the

problem would indeed be solved if you were correct in your

analysis?

Admiral COOPER. I wouldn’t use the term ‘‘solved’’ because it is

a continuing thing, just lots of people having medical problems and

other people helping to adjudicate it. So this is a difficult problem

no matter how you look at it. And is solving it getting it down to

250,000 backlog?

Mr. SNYDER. I would settle for that.

Admiral COOPER. We would hope that it might, but I don’t have

any quantifiable data to give you an analysis on that. These look

like things that could be done that would in fact affect the imple-
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mentation, affect the outcome, the reduction of claims and time to

adjudicate.

Mr. SNYDER. I think you have talked about this before, but you

used the phrase 2 years. I mean, what is a reasonable length of

time? I understand what you are saying about you can’t do everything and you wouldn’t want to do everything at once. But what

is a reasonable length of time to bring about systemwide these

numbers of changes? Is 2 years a reasonable expectation?

Admiral COOPER. I would say between 2 and 3 years should be

reasonable.

Mr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Snyder, and I would just say that

we live higher in the mountains because upstream is much shorter

than down in Arkansas.

Mr. Rodriguez.

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Admiral,

let me congratulate you for your hard work. In all honesty, you

have answered all my questions. One of them was regarding the

timetable that Congressman Snyder just asked you about. You said

it would take approximately 3 years. One of the things I also wanted to know was—how do you implement this assessment? I think

you have talked a little in terms of how we follow up on. But the

chairman had initially asked, as legislators how can we make sure

the recommendations are implemented? What kind of things might

be helpful in the future? You also mentioned that VA does not need

any more resources to implement these recommendations. Of

course we love to hear that, but I want you to kind of think about

that.

What about staffing needs? We have heard that almost one-third

of federal employees are scheduled in the next 5 to 6 years to retire. What kind of problems do we foresee in that area? Also, what

additional training or resources might be needed?

Admiral COOPER. You know, having been a budget officer in the

Navy, I always answer questions about resources with some trepidation. The fact is that people did a good job of planning and seeing that they were going to lose a lot of people. Therefore they put

their head down and came over to Congress and asked for increases, and I say over the last 3 years got increases. I think it is

an average of 700 to 800 a year over the 3-year period, and now

it is a matter of the delay and the training time to take care of and

absorb those people.

Now, could we possibly move some of these people into different

positions? Yes. We recommended a couple of things. For instance,

we recommended a program, an office of Program Analysis and

Evaluation (PA&E) like they have in Defense. I think there has to

be a certain maneuvering around, moving people around and readjusting the headquarters and how you use the headquarters, but I

must say today I think that they have the resources necessary.

Now, maybe next year when they come in with a budget call it

might be okay. When things have settled down and they know

where they are, they may say, yes, we need a few more. I think

today we could not justify asking for more resources. Now, that

doesn’t mean there may not be a couple of programs that they may
24

come in for, maybe IT programs or whatever, that they want to test

and do. When I talk resources I am primarily talking FTE.

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Any possibility you might come back in 3 years

and just follow up on that?

Admiral COOPER. Oh, yeah, there is a good possibility.

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you for your

hard work.

Admiral COOPER. Thank you.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Udall.

Mr. UDALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and may I ask unanimous consent to put a statement in the record also?

Mr. SIMPSON. Without objection.

[The prepared statement of Congressman Udall appears on p.

30.]

Mr. UDALL. Thank you very much, Admiral, for your service on

this Task Force and your service to the country, and I appreciate

you highlighting the poor follow-up by Central Office to assure national compliance with national policies. Given the historical resistance of many VA Regional Offices to oversight visits by Central Office staff, what suggestions do you have to improve monitoring of

Regional Office compliance?

Admiral COOPER. I have thought about that quite a bit and, quite

frankly, communications between the leader and the field is about

as important a thing as you can have. And I feel very strongly— understand I come from a background of Admiral Rickover—Admiral Rickover, I am sure all of you have heard of him, was fairly conscious of having absolute control. When you were a commanding officer of a submarine, you sent Admiral Rickover a letter at certain

times. And he would read every single letter and would call you on

occasion. Now, maybe that is too much, but I honestly feel that the

leader at headquarters has to have a verbal and written relationship and go out and visit with the people in the ROs to see precisely what is happening and get all the necessary records and information, to also see in that way how the quality is, to see how

the productivity has been. On-site looks are as important as anything. I strongly feel that you do need to have an outfit that goes

out and, excuse the expression, inspect once in a while. Nobody

likes to be inspected, but you can’t just sit back and think that

things are going to happen. And I equate it to being a commanding

officer of a submarine. If you are going to be the commanding officer, you don’t sit up in your commanding officer room all day and

not go back out to see what they are doing in engineering.

I think that is very important. As far as changes I mentioned the

fact that one answer to us was that a change hadn’t been made for

4 years and now the person felt inundated because there were

other changes that had to be made. My statement would be, if

there is a change that we agree to, that we think is really good and

will help every office better implement the process, then I would

sit down with the Regional Office Director and say, okay, now, son,

here is what we want to do and here is how we want to do it. Now,

you tell me, a date of when that is going to be implemented 100

percent in your office, and we will agree on it. And so once we

agree on it, my statement will be don’t tell me anything unless

there is a major problem, don’t tell me anything until the day, and
25

that day I expect an e-mail or a letter or whatever that says, hey,

we are done. Because if I don’t get it on that day, on that day plus

one then you better believe we are going to have a discussion.

And so the point is setting goals that are verifiable, that are

quantifiable and that are understood. Once understood, then you

expect those to be met, whether they are quality and or whether

they are productivity or whatever, training, whatever they may be.

But if you don’t set the goals for the people out there and then demand that they meet them, understanding that maybe part of it is

retraining. Maybe you have to retrain. I mean, you have to have

some human understanding and that. But if you don’t set the goals

and make them quantifiable, verifiable, understandable, then you

can’t expect the organization to run very well. But that is easier

said than done. I realize that.

Mr. UDALL. Thank you, Admiral.

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. UDALL. Yes.

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Admiral, you know, we have changes in the administration and every time you have a change of administration

you have new appointees, if you will. You know, what you say in

terms of characteristics to look—you look for a leader is wonderful

and I don’t think anybody here doesn’t agree with you. But you

can’t—you can only lead someone to the water. You can’t force

them to drink.

Now, if you were interviewing a person to be a leader in this regard, that is what you would expect to find. But you may not be

the one interviewing. So, again, should Congress take a role towards making sure that we get a type of individual that you are

talking about? Now, you know, that is over managing, micro managing and that sort of thing from this ivory tower. I am the first

one to say that and generally I am very much against that. But I

just really wonder here. I mean we have been dealing with this

problem for years and years and years and haven’t hardly seen any

progress to speak of. Comments?

Admiral COOPER. The responsibility for finding the people heading up the Regional Offices is the responsibility of the person who

is the Under Secretary for Veterans Benefits and he is the one that

has to make it happen. He is the one that has to testify before you

to tell how he is doing and what he is doing and why he is doing

and why this works and that doesn’t. And there are always going

to be cases where some things don’t work very well, but that is the

reason he is in that position.

Mr. BILIRAKIS. But he is in that position, with all due respect,

sir, because of political appointment.

Admiral COOPER. Hopefully that sometimes they will pick people

that are competent also.

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Sometimes. Hopefully. Sometimes. I am sorry.

Mr. SIMPSON. I thank you. Political appointment and competent

appointment aren’t necessarily exclusive, I guess. I appreciate your

report, Admiral.

There is one question I would like to ask, and that is that this

backlog has been building up, has been noticed for some years. It

is not just something that happened yesterday or 6 months ago or

9 months ago. Relative to your goals, you said that it was to reduce
26

the backlog by 50 percent over a 2-year period, reduce the time to

process claims by 50 percent. Looking at the composition of the

Task Force: three VA headquarter leaders, two current Veterans

Benefit Administration employees, one former employee, and two

VSO representatives.

Given these individuals on this Task Force, do you feel that in

making these recommendations, maintaining quality while at the

same time trying to reduce the backlog, an important aspect of this

was to make sure that you didn’t decrease the quality?

Admiral COOPER. Absolutely.

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Admiral. The Task Force Executive Director, Mr. John O’Hara, is with you today we see, and we want

to thank him for his service as well. John, thank you very much

for all you have done.

Admiral COOPER. Thank you. Let me say that he did a job for

us that they had 10 people on a couple of other 2-year studies, and

John occasionally only worked 20 hours a day and I had to chide

him on that. But he did a super job.

Mr. SIMPSON. Well, as I have said to you, looking at this, the fact

that it was done in 120 days is—generally we get this kind of report somewhere in the 5-year category when we ask for one. But

I appreciate the extraordinary amount of work that went into this

and the recommendations, and we look forward to working with

the members of this Task Force and with the VA to see what we

can do to make sure that we implement the recommendations and

so forth.

Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Chairman, very quickly, I am not—I don’t

know that you can give me the answer to this, sir. But I guess I

would ask if it is gettable. Can we determine how many of the

claims that are received by the Veterans’ Administration have been

initiated through a VSO?

Admiral COOPER. We could certainly try and I will take that for

the record.

Mr. BILIRAKIS. It is something that your Task Force then can do?

Admiral COOPER. Well, my Task Force is me now, me and John

O’Hara, but we will certainly take that.

Mr. BILIRAKIS. If we can get that information and somehow, Mr.

Chairman, compare the timeliness, the efficiency if you will, of

those versus those that go directly to the Regional Office and don’t

go through a VSO, it could be a very telling type of statistics.

Mr. SIMPSON. We will get that information.

(See p. 160, question 2.)

Admiral COOPER. I would like to say that I am sorry that Mrs.

Hunt did not get a chance to talk today. I brought her over for appearances sake and so we were upgrading appearance.

Mr. SIMPSON. Well, we appreciate Mrs. Hunt’s work on this Task

Force also and all that you do. I know that, as was mentioned by

Chairman Smith at the very beginning, that those employees at the

VA are working to ensure that the veterans have what is coming

to them and when it is due them and, as you said in your report,

the veterans must be given the benefit of the doubt when making

these adjudication claims and so forth. So I appreciate all you have

done.

Mr. REYES. Mr. Chairman, if I could interrupt briefly.
27

Mr. SIMPSON. Sure.

Mr. REYES. Could we get an agreement to get some additional

questions on the record on some of these issues?

Mr. SIMPSON. Sure. If you would submit questions for the record,

and we will give you—— Admiral COOPER. Can I vote on that?

Mr. SIMPSON. We will give you time to respond to those. We appreciate it. Thank you very much.

This hearing is over.

[Whereupon, at 3:25 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

(29)

A P P E N D I X

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. LANE EVANS

Admiral Cooper, thank you for appearing before us today to testify on the Report

of the VA Claims Processing Task Force. You and the other task force members are

to be commended for the many recommendations the Task Force has made to improve claims processing.

I thank our Chairman for scheduling this hearing. Claims processing and particularly the huge backlog in veterans’ claims is a concern to every Member of this Committee. Now, the Committee should hear from Secretary Principi who made reducing the claims backlog a top priority. I request the Committee schedule this hearing

as soon as possible.

The task force made a number of short term and long term recommendations to

improve the processing of claims. I agree with many of the recommendations made,

in particular, the critical need for VA, the Department of Defense and the National

Archives to work together to address the chaotic state of records maintenance and

retrieval at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis.

I am also pleased with the emphasis the Task Force placed on improving and

maintaining quality while making efforts to improve the productivity of VA claims

processing. VA should get it right the first time. Anything else is detrimental to our

veterans’ interest.

I thank you for your service to our Nation’s veterans and look forward to your

remarks.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. SILVESTRE REYES

Admiral Cooper, I would like to thank you for appearing before us today. I appreciate the efforts you and the task force have made to address the backlog of claims

at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). I have been very concerned about the

backlog and the steps VA is taking to address it. I would especially like you to address the task force’s recommendation on rewarding productivity.

I am very disturbed about recent VA actions rewarding the productivity of offices

with such high error rates as Columbia, SC, to the detriment of offices, such as

Waco, TX, where employees are working hard to improve their accuracy. I hope that

the Committee will be able to address these concerns with the Secretary in the very

near future.

The Waco Regional Office, which serves my district, is the second largest office

in the Nation with over 28,000 claims and over 5,600 appeals pending since October

26, 2001. The Columbia Office is much smaller with over 7,000 claims and almost

3,000 appeals pending on that date. Yet in fiscal year 2001, Columbia had almost

three times as many claims as Waco returned by the Board of Veterans Appeals because of the need to obtain medical records from VA Medical Centers.

The Columbia Regional Office was rewarded for their efficiency with overtime authorization. The Waco Regional Office, with a much better record of accuracy and

lower rate of appeals, received no overtime. As a result, veterans served by South

Carolina receive faster wrong decisions and veterans served by Waco receive slower

correct ones.

This sends a very bad message to dedicated VA employees in Waco and other offices who take the time to obtain and review medical reports and service medical

records before deciding the claim.

I hope that the many helpful recommendations of the task force will not be lost

in the recent emphasis on ‘‘productivity’’ without regard to accuracy. I look forward

to addressing these issues further, and would again like to welcome Admiral Cooper

and Ms. Hunt.
30

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. TOM UDALL

Mr. Chairman and Representative Evans:

Good afternoon, it is a great honor and pleasure to be here today. Thank you for

holding this hearing regarding the Report of the VA Claims Processing Task Force.

I am looking forward to hearing the statement from the chairman of the Task Force,

Admiral Cooper, and from a member of the Task Force, Mrs. Hunt.

As we all know, the issue that the Task Force is dealing with is of critical importance. It is imperative that the VBA takes the necessary steps to reduce both the

veterans’ claims backlog and the time necessary to process each individual claim.

I am hopeful that the recommendations made by this Task Force help achieve those

very goals.

In doing so, however, I would also hope that the issue of the quality of claims

processing is not sacrificed in the name of greater productivity. While it is important that we process the claims as quickly as possible, they must also be processed

carefully to prevent further work for the claims processors, as well as for the well

being of the veteran.

1 have no doubt that the vast majority of VBA employees have performed their

jobs to the best of their abilities, but are simply overwhelmed by the daunting task

they face of processing a backlog or pending inventory of 533,000 veterans’ claims.

Nevertheless, it is imperative that these claims are processed and that changes are

made to the system to ensure that backlogs of this magnitude never again occur.

The men and women who have served in the defense of our country deserve to

have their claims processed effectively and efficiently. To that end, I thank the

members of our panel for their work on this important issue and for appearing before the committee today to discuss their recommendations.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to offer my remarks today. As always, I look forward to working with you and the Members of the committee on

issues important to all veterans.
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