As many of you know the VA keeps records with a system called Aspire.

You can also look at the individual RO’s Aspire, here.

I looked at the data for the past 13 months, which is all that is available through Aspire.  If I am incorrect, and any of you know how to access data from Aspire older than 13 months, please feel free to comment or contact Ask Nod.   Based on the VA’s numbers for the past 13 months, this is how the VA is doing:

1.  Veteran Homelessness.   Its getting worse.  It took the VA 96.1 days to process homeless Vets claims in May 2011, while in June, 2012 it had worsened 25.9% and takes 121 days.  It is unclear why Shinseki boasts that Veteran homelessness was reduced, when this would appear to show that it was getting worse, fast.

2.  Rating Claim Processing Time.  In May 2011 it took 170 days for the VA to process a claim. 13 months later:  253 days.  This worsened by 48%, so there is no good news there,  either.

3.  Insurance.  ******  Without a doubt the VA’s (life) insurance program is the best managed, fastest turnaround, in all the VA.   The VA actually improved the insurance program. Where it used to take 3.8 days to process a SDVI claim, 13 months later this was reduced to 2.6 days.  You are reading it right.  Insurance claims are processed in 2-3 days, while comp claims take about a hundred times longer.    And, look at the accuracy numbers…all well above 90% for VA insurance.

The big question is why the VA insurance program is sooooooo much better and faster than VA comp?  Do Veterans widows deserve their compensation faster than the Vets themselves?

I will admit that at least part of this is less complex with insurance than compensation.  After all, have you ever met anyone 30% deceased?    I sure hope I don’t get a 0% deceased rating, or would that be good after all?  A 0% compensation rating means that you have to appeal to get any benefits.

Yep. 100% deceased. Pay the Widow

However, the complexity would not be the whole reason.  After all, if someone had a leg blown off  via a bomb in Iraq, would that not be as obvious as if he were killed?  Why can’t that claim be processed in 2 or 3 days?

4. VA Executive compensation and bonuses.   I actually heard, once, back in the early 1970’s, where government employees pay was delayed because of a computer glitch. The delay was a weekend.  The following Monday…the VA execs made sure it would never happen again.   My question is why can’t we apply whatever the VA execs did to the employees who got their payroll out late to apply to Veterans compensation?   It seems simple enough to base the VA executive compensation times on how quickly the employees process VETERANS compensation.   No more 253 days..but zero days late.   The VA backlog problem really is resolvable .It is simply that there is no motivation for the VA Executives to get the job done, since they get bonuses for poor performance as well as good.

300+ days to rating to prevent fraud in case he’s faking it. May require field investigation to makes sure he’s not gainfully employed

Yep. No flies on VA.