Member Randy sends us his ideas on how to cure the vA problem.

Swab the deck

Square your area away

Whatever terms you care to use there is a heaping pile of BS needing to be cleared out of DC. Specifically the DVA and the minions who control it. If Uncle Shin needs a suggestion for cleaning here is a homemade recipe for him.

Cut the red tape and get the C/P departments down to a manageable number. Say 30-50 people, depending upon historical numbers of adjudicated claims. Out of those employees you would retain the best at following the CFR’s to the letter. Perhaps divide the body into different departments with each department only working on a particular area of the body. These employees would work for a minimum of  four years per department and would then rotate into another section. By the time they have finished the rotation they will have gained the knowledge needed to clean this up and move toward a stronger cohesive group of employees.

Stop looking to add newbies to the program until or unless you want to bring in a few to begin training. Let them cut their teeth on the most tender of morsels such as tinnitus, hernia, burial etc. claims and make sure adequate training is provided to them.

Also, I would advocate stopping the current bonus system based on closed cases. If current employees cannot survive on the current wages then get out because there are others who are more than willing to step it up a notch. A typical GS-15 position is making roughly 85-90,000/year.

It seems rather simplistic and does not have several million dollars behind it but I believe it is a start. We get nowhere without first taking a step.

Randal 7/8/12

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