Philly VA; incentives for doing their jobs
The Washington Times reports that the Philadelphia branch of the Veterans’ Affairs Department is paying incentives to claims processors for meeting goals on veterans’ disability claims;
The new Philadelphia program is designed to push employees to clear a backlog in disability claims. The team that has processed the most claims at the end of every other week will receive a breakfast, luncheon or snack as a reward, according to an incentive fact sheet obtained by The Washington Times. Each team that hits its target of claims processed before Feb. 28 will receive a $15,000 bonus to be divided among team members.
Funny how when I work, the pay check I get is always incentive enough to do my job in a timely manner, but then, I didn’t work for the VA. Some VA employees see similarities with other VA incentive programs;
An employee at the Philadelphia VA facility said the program could lead to the same kind of cooked books that landed the Phoenix VA in trouble and ignited the nationwide scandal that cost the former VA secretary his job and led to vows that the department would put veterans’ needs ahead of the bureaucracy.
“This is more of the same failed and lethal methods,” said the employee, who said it often takes months to properly process a claim but almost no time to deny it. The incentive plan could encourage employees to deny claims in order to clear cases quickly.
I know there are VA employees in our audience ot there who have thoughts on this. I’d love to hear them,
Category: Veterans' Affairs Department
Just couldn’t stop laughing over this,
‘An employee at the Philadelphia VA facility said the program could lead to the same kind of cooked books that landed the Phoenix VA in trouble and ignited the nationwide scandal that cost the former VA secretary his job and led to vows that the department would put veterans’ needs ahead of the bureaucracy.
“This is more of the same failed and lethal methods,” said the employee, who said it often takes months to properly process a claim but almost no time to deny it. The incentive plan could encourage employees to deny claims in order to clear cases quickly.’
I can just see the asshattery going down now…
The incentive program at my job is ‘work or get fired’.
I also have to maintain quality standards; if my work is sub-par, I get one chance to shape up. If I don’t, fired.
I shoulda’ gone to work for the VA. No, never mind that; my high work ethic would get me fired.
This may sound funny, but then again, Veteran’s claims are on the line. In some cases, Veterans are dying because of these backlogs. Not so funny now, uh?
Same incentive plan here.
Semper Idem…My whole career in telecommunications was the same incentive. Since we worked on live telecom switching systems at night, when 911 service could be affected, there was always an extra incentive of, “remember if you screw up, it’s a career decision”.
This will not bide well. Like the person in the article pointed out, this will not motivate people to do a better job, it will motivate them to become better and more sly at cooking the books. Mark my word, we will here of this again in a bad way.
I believe it was Einstein who said “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.”
What a bunch of idiots leading the VA. I don’t have a problem with the rank and file they have always been very accommodating when I dealt with them.
It’s only going to get worse. As someone who fights over the covers at night with a VA comp person, the shear volume of claims is amazing. “Vets” with literally one day of service claim all sorts of stuff. You can get 10% for a shaving rash. PTSD? “The DS yelled at me and I can’t sleep”. You don’t even have to prove MTS, just say something happened and you can’t talk about it because it was too traumatic. There are sites out there about how to fool the system. No wonder people are forging DD 214’s because it’s getting to be very lucrative and worth the risk. Of course none of the government computer systems talk to each other. I’m getting old and grumpy. I really do think the WWII vets are the greatest generation. Very few ever bitched about it and demanded money for a hangnail. Does not apply to true wounded Veterans. But, when you pay people to be “sick”, there is no incentive to be well.
Quaero: How do you get these malingerers out of the system without hurting actual disabled Veterans?
I don’t know about you, but I’d rather see a hundred fakers game the system than see one hurting Veteran turned away. I know, the bludgers are a serious pain, and need to be rousted upon discovery. Criminally charged, too. But when the system errs, I want it to err on the side of the claimant.
This is the same reason the Social PC Police use for Welfare. “Oh well we know there’s fraud, but it would be too much of a bother and cost and we’d hurt other recipients if we tried to curb the fraud.”
Granted, in this case if they are actual veterans, at least they served.
But, I just don’t see very much effort in the Gummint trying to deal with Fraud, Waste and Abuse. Even when its rampant and a high % issue.
Naturally, we’d continue to investigate claims and prosecute fakers. That said, what if a claim is ambiguous, like PTSD? A lot of that is based on self-reporting; how do you verify that? What’s to stop LCpl Leatherneck from claiming PTSD from going on a few uneventful patrols in Outer Armpitistan?
Like I said, benefits fraud is an atrocity. That said, turning away a hurting Veteran is even worse. What I said about erring on the side of the Veteran still stands.
You want to stop benefits fraud, have all claimants testify under penalty of perjury that their stories are true and correct. Then hit the fakers with heavy fines and prison terms if even one relevant aspect of their claim is found fraudulent.
Don’t think I’m disagreeing with you. I find it far more important to get veterans their claims/disability.
And yes, vets should get what they deserve even if it costs more, there’s more fraud, etc. Other gummint agencies should be tracked first in that regard.
As far as the perjury option, that reminds me of something I heard recently about the courts system. “It used to be about who told the truth, now its more a competition of who’s the best liar.”
Semper Idem: we already do what you suggest (make people swear under oath that they’re telling the truth when they apply for VA benefits). The bottom of virtually every VA application form has the following language immediately above the signature line:
That doesn’t do sh!t to deter those out to scam Uncle Sam. They know there’s virtually no chance they’ll get caught – and even if they do, there’s very little chance they’ll do time.
And under the Law of Unintended Consequences, I see a dramatic rise in BS disability claims.
I work along VBA employees in LR. There are only 7-10 people(I’ve been told) with the skills necessary to approve & adjudicate a claim. So your appeal gets approved, you wait in line for a year with the thousands of other folks for these special people to sign off on your SC award. That’s where the bottlekneck is. Their job’s not that special!
Let me add this…the peeps who ask you for the same paperwork over & over have nothing to do with the decision. Don’t cuss them or call them stupid cos they put it in ur file to make u look bad. VA DRs. Won’t validate ur claim, go to a private doc that’s seen a VN vet die waiting. They help. Good luck and don’t apply w no bullshit claim
If the pResident were serious about clearing the backlog, he’d do something really simple. Activate a National Guard and/or Reserve admin unit for a couple of months to handle the backlog. Boom, done. And I can promise that the actual soldiers will be willing to help the veterans without any special incentives.
Damn Flagwaver I wished I would have thought of that. Good idea.
Good idea. Funny thing, years ago my higher command actually sent a team to DFAS to help them deal with the overload of travel vouchers that were significantly overdue.
It can be done, but it would mean that the VA and DoD would have to talk to each other…Gasp! Heaven Forbid!
“If the President was serious about clearing the backlog” – oh, stop, yer killing me! Bwaaaaahahahaha, damn, I can’t breathe… OK, someone hand me a Kleenex… all right, better now.
I prefer “We’ll be auditing the IT logs constantly, we’ll be deploying secret shoppers, we’ll be conducting 24/7 video surveillance. If we catch you cooking the books, you’re going to move to the Hotel Graybar and get a new roomie named “Spike” who thinks you have a purty mouth.”
Poobah: best I can tell, it’s not so much VA employees “cooking the books” – they’re just somewhat inefficient. The real problem seems to be “veterans” (some who actually served, some completely fake) who are scamming the system out of bennies they simply don’t rate.
It’s somewhat a pain to get, but hey – from their perspective, it’s free money. For some people, a little perjury or forgery is just the risk they’re willing to take for a chance to ride the gravy train. And, hell – they know they stand virtually no chance of getting caught anyway.
I’d be very surprised if at least 10% of VA claims aren’t outright fakes, and another 10% weren’t exaggerated as hell. I personally think the real totals are closer to 15% and 1/3, respectively – and I wouldn’t be shocked if they were higher still.
About 7 months ago, I wrote a series of articles about the VA. The last – which has links to the previous articles in the series – can be found here.
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=49239
FUBAR may well describe the VA. I guess I’ll have to find time fairly soon to do the series on suggested fixes.
At some point in the not-so-distant past, the few apologists for the VA stopped commenting here. I suppose I contributed to that inasmuch as I do not believe the ‘few bad apples’ theory. Instead, I believe in the systemic, institutionalized clusterf— that is the VA. The VA is no different that any other element of government. If you give a shit and want to perform well, you will be beaten down until you conform to mediocrity or quit.
Some things never change.
I’m all for the VA speeding up the process, but this will just help the Stolen Valor scammers from slipping though the cracks. There seems to be plenty of that now.
The incentive for green suiters is that even if we do exceptionally well at our job, we might still end up losing our job JUST before we can retire. Yay….Oh, wait.
Really,really bad idea… really bad, horrible even. The answer is that they need more qualified employees to handle the claims that they have. They also need to change the system a bit as well, as it lends itself to mistakes being made in favor of those who shouldn’t be getting compensated, and causing those who should to have to wait for years for their claims to even go through the first time.
Unfortunately it is not a simple task, as it is largely more legal process than one of common sense and medical documentation compared to actual military service. You cannot just throw more bodies at it, and you can not just speed it up.
Well, the military has lawyers, doctors, administrators, processors, and has its own systems for medical determinations of disability. So why would it be impractical to “throw more bodies at it” to “speed it up” as you say?
Definitely not a simple task though.
We’ve talked about it a gazillion times, but the very first step in a claims process should be verification of eligibility. Don’t care if it’s done electronically or by carrier pigeon, just get it done. First.
That step alone would quickly weed out the imposters and fraudsters. No, the VA should never accept “proof” from the “veteran.”
Wouldn’t help for us old coots, but it would also stop some of the bleeding if every vet was given an electronic copy of his/her medical records. Or, have a VA official in every unit who hand carries the medical records of every separating vet and inputs them into the VA system.
There must be hundreds of other ideas, all of which would simplify the mess, and at least quit compounding the problem. The system is broken – it doesn’t work, so why do they continue to do what they have always done? The first thing they should do is quit doing what we already know doesn’t work.
And give bonuses or other “incentives” to people who contribute to the problem? Fire everyone who thinks that is a good idea.
How’s that Shitseki firing going so far?
Just like I predicted.
The VA has always done this. When I worked in the Vet Center Program the regional office people got bonuses for processing claims fast. The problem was, the fastest way to process a claim is to turn it down. All my patients had to go through the appeal process to get their legit claims processed correctly. They all won on appeal but the originator got his bonus for processing it in a timely matter to begin with. This will continue.
I just retired in May and submitted complete claims by 24 August. I then went to the VA Aspire website and found the average time it takes to process a claim…253 days. Could be worse, some locations are in the 350+ days.
The care I have received at the hospital I go to has been excellent. The individuals have all been wonderful. No issues there.
That being said, the pure amount of time it takes to execute the claim even with all the required documents seems…perplexing.