VA employees: Overtime won’t work
The Stars & Stripes reports that which we already know – the plan to force them to work overtime won’t clear the back log.
Members of VBA Truth — a group of anonymous claims workers with the stated goal of “raising awareness about what’s really going on in this dysfunctional agency” — said the overtime requirement announced this week shows that VA leaders don’t have a well-reasoned plan to end the backlog, and the problem isn’t just simply underperforming processors.
“We’ve been forced to work mandatory overtime the last two years, and yet the backlog remains,” said one VBA employee, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of firing. “It burns employees out and creates a feeling of resentment to the agency.”
As I mentioned earlier in the week, if the VA is like other government agencies, there is no overtime pay. An employee gets credit time which means that you get an equal amount of time off for the time you worked which creates a vicious cycle when the VA is trying to overcome a growing problem.
Department leaders said the required overtime, amounting to 11 or 12 days for claims employees, would have a “measurable impact” on reaching the department’s goal of eliminating the backlog in 2015.
VBA Truth members disputed that. They said similar overtime mandates, in spring 2012 and summer 2011, produced no real progress on the backlog.
I’ve heard similar complaints in my emails from those of you who work at the VA – that the problem is systemic and that the agency is flawed to it’s roots. But trying to change the way a government agency works takes leadership, and there is none at the VA.
Category: Veterans' Affairs Department
Anyone who has sit through a 2 hour class on TQM and did the red bead experiment knows that throwing time and resources at a problem doesn’t work if the process is totally flawed.
What would? Seriously. Is there a volunteer claims processor program? I bet you could find some vets for that. How about the guys waiting around to get out-processed from the Warrior Transition Battalions? I guarantee they have a vested interest in getting this cleared away.
I feel like I should start submitting claims now so I have a shot at having them addressed when I am eligible to retire in another decade.
Every one of those employees that are complaining should feel free to quit and go find another job. “It burns employees out and creates a feeling of resentment to the agency.” – Awwww, bless his heart… /sarc
Wotta bunch of TURDS!
This statement: “It burns employees out and creates a feeling of resentment to the agency.” just proves that the people at the VA don’t give a rat’s ass about veterans or their issues. I’m sure their CUSTOMERS, ie the veterans with service connected disabilities, felt plenty burned out during their 12 month deployments with forced overtime, long hours, multiple missed meals, separation from family, and, oh yeah, GETTING SHOT AT AND BLOWN UP.
New suggestion for the VA to fix their problem: claims over 2 years old are AUTOMATICALLY approved, only adjustment authorized is to increase the percentage. Claims over 1 year old are assigned to a specific case manager, case gets to 2 years, case manager is fired for failure to perform. Any processor who can’t adjudicate at least 30 cases a month is fired for nonperformance. Any processor who has over a 25% approval rate gets fired for nonperformance. Approval of fraudulent claims goes on a three strikes rule, three strikes, fired.
I admittedly know nothing about the VA but I too was wondering like #2 if or could they take volunteers to help?
How is that even possible. When they finish working on claims do those completed claims just get eaten by a big dog or something? Like saying my dog ate my homework?
Do claims get completed then transferred elsewhere to get entered then transferred elsewhere to get entered again, but this time for real? Except it’s not for real until they are transferred again to be entered into the real database?
Are claims people literally finding out that they are repeatedly working on the same claims that they’ve completed previously?
With they way the process works now it would be like volunteering to shovel shit uphill. They need to have some fresh non-governmental brains who have worked in a business where they either had an effective process or went broke.
Just reenforces my basic rule about the VA. “Never, ever go to the VA for anything. Never. Ever. Nothing.”
Gannett News Services, always a few hundred yards behind us…
As a disabled veteran, and a VA rater, I can tell you that most of you have it wrong. VBA is not totally disfunctional, nor is it devoid of good leadership. That doesn’t mean there aren’t things we can do better, but it also doesn’t mean that we aren’t doing some things correct now. At our RO, two year old cases are almost gone. Lots of us have been working MORE THAN the required 20 hours of overtime. And yes, our main priority is always our own families, but beyond that, we’re here for other veterans. Perhaps the VA wasn’t prepared, when war started in the Gulf, for the increase in claims. I don’t know. I wasn’t here then. But I do know that a lot of great Americans are working hard every day to help veterans and to help make the VA work better.