Dear Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on behalf of the American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO (AFGE), the exclusive representative of employees in the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA)

I currently serve VBA as a Decision Review Officer (DRO) at the Cleveland VA Regional Office (RO). I joined VBA’s workforce in September of 2001. I worked with the Tiger Team Remand Unit that resolved some of the oldest pending Board of Veterans Appeals remands in the country and served as an operational model for VBA’s Appeals Management Center. I also served as a Specialized Rating Veterans Service Representative (RVSR) in the Tiger Team and the Cleveland Resource Unit of the Appeals Management Center. My duties with VBA have also included temporary assignments to a Remand Quality Review Project which was intended, at least in part, to identify common errors occurring at the RO level which necessitate remand of cases to the RO by the Board of Veterans Appeals. I have also served as an instructor in Centralized Challenge Courses for newly hired RVSRs. I currently serve as AFGE’s representative on the VBA Design Committees for Basic and Journey-level RVSR Certification Testing. Prior to my employment with the VA, I was an attorney in private practice.

In reviewing past Congressional testimony by VBA, I was struck by the consistent reference to increased complexity of claims and continuing judicial refinement of the duty to assist veterans under the Veterans Claims Assistance Act of 2000 (VCAA) as factors contributing to the claims backlog. Yet, VBA’s testimony never mentioned the obvious impact of increasing claims complexity and duty to assist mandates on employees’ ability to develop and adjudicate claims, or review case development and adjudications upon notice of disagreement from claimants within the time constraints imposed by productivity requirements set by management.

Training and Performance Management Are Closely Linked

All who work in VBA claims processing agree that increased claims complexity and additional duties imposed by law are perhaps the most important factors slowing performance and reducing productivity. Therefore, in addition to adequate hiring, effective training must be an essential component of any VBA effort to increase the timeliness, accuracy and consistency of claims processing. Ultimately, the veterans seeking benefits are shortchanged by VBA’s failure to make any accommodation in performance standards to reflect growing claims complexity and new legal requirements. VBA’s insistence on holding claims processors to production standards that do not allow adequate time to develop, consider, and resolve complex claims in accordance with the duties imposed by law is a disservice to veterans and undermines the intent of the Veterans Claims Assistance Act.

GAO found in its May 2008 report that VBA’s training program for claims processors does not consistently track completion of training or ensure that training requirements are uniformly adhered to at the RO level. To the extent that GAO recommends that VBA be held accountable for fully implementing and tracking the training it mandates, it is laudable. However, I am very concerned that the report could be misread to imply that individual claims processors are ultimately responsible for ensuring that they complete their mandatory training requirements. Ultimately, it is VBA management’s responsibility to provide the necessary time and resources for employees to complete well designed, comprehensive, up-to-date training programs. No individual claims processor can demand of local management that he or she receive training when a determination is made that employee resources are better devoted to other concerns, such as fulfilling a monthly or fiscal year production goal. Management’s failure to devote time to the initial and continuing education of claims processors in favor of fulfilling a short-term production goal is similar to VBA eating its seed corn, since it deprives claims processors of the means to become more efficient, accurate, and fulfill their ever changing and increasingly complex duties.

Similarly, management’s failure to ensure adequate training time impairs the ability of VBA’s certification testing program for VSRs and RVSRs to be an objective measure of training effectiveness. This places an unfair burden on individual claims processors who are thus less likely to achieve a passing score on certification testing, and in turn, advance their careers.  

In order for training to be meaningful, management must afford the participant time to read and analyze the material, and internalize its meaning through cognitive effort and practical application. The complexity of the claims process administered by VBA does not admit to simple resolution by reference to checklists, decision trees or presentation of information without elucidation. This complexity is well illustrated by a videotape that was recently shown to VBA claims processors on the application of GAF (global assessment of functioning) scores in the context of assigning disability ratings for service connected posttraumatic stress disorder. This two hour training video focuses on one very discrete issue in rating a very specific type of claim that is fraught with difficulties. It serves as a reminder that even well-prepared training material presented by highly competent and learned professionals can be of limited value in the absence of an opportunity for meaningful interactive learning. Training materials must be combined with the opportunity for trainees to receive timely feedback from an individual who understands the subject and can provide relevant, consistent, and immediate guidance to trainees struggling to internalize the meaning of the material in the context of the duties attendant to their positions.

Similarly, while materials such as Fast Letters, Training Letters, and Decision Assessment Documents may be useful in drawing a claims processor’s attention to a particular nuance or change in the claims process, they do not necessarily serve as useful training tools. The usefulness of such materials is further diminished if claims processors are not given adequate time to digest the materials VBA provides to notify them of changes in interpretation or implementation of policies, regulations, statutes, or case law.

GAO’s favorable findings about the effectiveness of centralized new hire training confirm the benefits of a curriculum that is developed, designed and implemented through Central Office. Therefore, I urge this Subcommittee to support greater centralization of mandatory continuing training, specifically a nationally uniform curriculum taught by a cadre of instructors at every RO who have completed the Instructor Development Curriculum, and who are available to implement training materials designed by Central Office.  The presence of a team of qualified instructors at every RO, charged with implementing a relevant curriculum developed by Central Office staff and accountable to Central Office, would help close the gap between VBA Central Office’s expectations for training and conflicting or incompatible goals of local management.

The breakdown in VBA's training process seems to occur at two critical junctures: first, at the RO where time devoted toward training may be viewed as an unwarranted impediment to achieving immediate production goals; and second, between Central Office and ROs because Central Office does not adequately identify trends in errors that are amenable to training or provide enough specific curricula for continuing employee education.

VBA should apply lessons learned from its Remand Quality Review Project to acquire data pertaining to common development errors by reviewing a statistically relevant sample of deferred rating decisions from a wide range of ROs. VBA should then use that data to tailor training to common development errors, including improper deferrals of rating decisions, and develop effective strategies to help employees avoid those time consuming errors in the first instance.  This type of feedback loop already exists in the health care arena to prevent medical errors, including the Veterans Health Administration that has long played a leadership role in medical error reduction.

Performance Standards Must Reflect Claims Complexity and Legal Requirements

VBA recognizes that increasingly complex claims and continuous refinement of the legal requirements attendant to claims processing has a detrimental effect on the size of VBA’s pending workload inventory. However, VBA has either failed or refused to recognize that those same factors have a detrimental effect on the productivity of individual claims processors insofar as additional time is needed to develop, adjudicate, or review claims. By not adjusting individual productivity standards to reflect the increasing complexity and difficulty of the claims process, VBA may once again be failing to provide the service its claimants deserve. The needs of claimants intersect with the requirements imposed on claims adjudicators precisely in the implementation of performance standards. If claims processors are required to choose between developing, rating, or reviewing a case in accordance with all legal requirements and fulfilling their production requirements, a temptation is presented to make a decision in favor of their own immediate interests. As an example, RVSRs are generally given no production credit for identifying development deficiencies in a given case, or directing action to correct those deficiencies via deferred rating actions. Often, such deferred actions are time-consuming and complex. Consequently, RVSRs are often met with a choice between meeting their productivity requirements and ensuring that decisions are rendered in accordance with all applicable duty to assist requirements and are, in essence, given no meaningful credit for ensuring that claims are adequately developed. One of the many unfortunate side effects of this problem is that the VSRs charged with developing claims oftentimes receive no meaningful feedback from RVSRs concerning development deficiencies. Of course, the ultimate effect of this system is felt by claimants, and reflected in an increasing appeal rate. Such a system of measuring “productivity” is disrespectful to claims processors and claimants alike.  Productivity requirements that do not take into account the increased time necessary to develop, adjudicate, or review increasingly complex claims in an increasingly stringent legal environment ultimately lead to bad service for claimants, since productivity is often rewarded over quality.

As AFGE has urged this Subcommittee in the past, I cannot overstate the importance of requiring thorough time-motion studies so that VBA performance standards for claims processors may be informed and adjusted by reference to valid and scientific data. Unless and until VBA has valid empirical evidence concerning what claims adjudicators can reasonably be expected to accomplish in a given period, any mandate concerning what those employees must do in the same period will be suspect. Moreover, insofar as such suspect standards are used to project the need for additional human resources or trends concerning future claims inventory levels, any projections upon which they are based will also be suspect.  The proposal in H.R. 5892 for a study of the VBA work credit system will provide valuable data toward this goal.

Nor should VBA continue to set performance standards for claims processors by fiat with reference to the “experience” of managers who are years removed from any meaningful contact with the day-to-day exigencies of claims processing, and expect to meaningfully address workload trends or human capital requirements.  These managers should be required to devote a portion of their workday (e.g. 50 percent) to developing or adjudicating claims in order to keep a fresh perspective of what it takes to conform to an individual position description. Such a requirement would also have the benefit of reducing the pending claims inventory. Therefore, I also support the requirement in H.R. 5892 that managers pass the same certification tests as the employees they supervise. The absence of such a requirement would permit non-certified supervisors to be charged with critiquing the work of certified employees, thereby seriously undermining the credibility of the certification process.

Increased tracking and implementation of continuing training at VBA is laudable, but only insofar as it will ultimately serve claimants. An educated and well-trained workforce should be one of VBA’s highest goals. However, VBA’s claims processing workforce must also be afforded adequate time to perform their duties in accordance with their training, and that consideration must be reflected in individual performance standards.

Methods to Increase Accountability and Reduce Rating Variances

If continuing training of VBA claims processors is made consistent by reference to a curriculum created by VBA centralized training staff and implemented by a corps of instructors accountable to VBA’s Central Office, rating variances could reasonably be expected to decrease as claims processors conform their individual activities to their uniform training.

Conclusion

I view the GAO report not as an indictment on claims processors’ skills, abilities, or willingness to learn as much as a description of VBA’s failure to provide relevant, useful continuing training or adequately track the efficacy of that training. Ultimately, training deficiencies at VBA are not the product of nor should they be the responsibility of individual claims processors.

The claims processing workforce at VBA is among of the finest and most dedicated workforces in government.  Unfortunately, insofar as VBA inadequately provides continuing training to claims processors and then attempts to hold them responsible for deficiencies in quality and productivity, claims processors may be disproportionately affected by inadequate training. To illustrate that fact it might be instructive for this Subcommittee to inquire of VBA whether they can recall a single instance of any VBA manager who has ever been disciplined, demoted, or formally reprimanded for failing to adequately train an employee. In contrast, there are numerous instances of long term claims processors with good work histories being disciplined, demoted, formally reprimanded, or even discharged for failing to meet their productivity or quality requirements.  The crux of the problem is a failure by VBA to provide the continuing training necessary for our members to be productive, efficient and accurate in fulfillment of their duties. The onus of inadequate training should not be disproportionately borne by employees charged with the day to day processing of claims or the constituency they are honored to serve. Thank you.