Site Visit Program Can Do More to Improve Nationwide Claims Processing

Program operations staff in the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) conduct site visits to regional offices to ensure that veterans service centers follow policies and procedures for disability compensation benefits. The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) examined whether program operations staff conducted site visits and identified deficiencies at regional offices, and if managers took sufficient follow-up action on frequently identified errors to improve disability claims processing. The OIG found that program operations staff generally identified deficiencies during site visits and communicated results to the relevant offices, which addressed those deficiencies. VBA’s Compensation Service summarized the site visit findings on its internal website, which all regional office managers can review. Staff also conducted trend analyses of deficiencies and shared an informal summary of error trends each year with VBA’s Office of Field Operations, which is responsible for providing direction to regional offices. However, the Office of Field Operations did not fully use the information from site visits to improve claims processing nationwide. The deputy under secretary for field operations expected regional office managers to be aware of issues raised in other regional office site visit reports, but there was no written policy for addressing frequently identified errors. The OIG made three recommendations to VBA for achieving nationwide improvement in the consistency and accuracy of veterans’ claims decisions. These recommendations included a formal annual report from the Compensation Service to the Office of Field Operations on all recurring deficiencies and action items identified by the site visit program during the inspection year, and a recurring action plan to address them. The OIG also recommended that VBA establish a follow-up process to monitor compliance with the new requirement and hold regional office managers accountable for making corrections and addressing action items in a timely manner.