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125 DAY CLAIM

Dateline: VA Central Office

810 Penny Lane Washington, DC 20420

In a bold move to reduce the backlog, VA’s Under Secretary for Benefits, Allison “in Wonderland” Hickey announced VA will be handing out free Starbucks® cards with the initial notification that they have received your Fully Developed Claim (FDC). The cards have a $25 dollar limit but you can refresh the card if you are denied. To do so, Vets will log in to Ebenefits site and click on the Starbucks® logo once the denial is uploaded to the site. This takes approximately six weeks. The cards are good for 2 months but if you file your claim within the next month you may get retroactive Starbucks® benefits for up to a year before your original filing date. VA officials are still unsure how this will actually result in any free coffee in the future.

The latest iteration of the FDC, according to an anonymous VA spokesman, was to drum up business and flush out some of the older Veterans filing the old-fashioned paper claims. The idea, according to the unnamed source, is to eventually forbid paper claims entirely. By letting Vets know this now, it is hoped all the claims will be filed sooner and they can once and for all rid themselves of the paper filers.

“We figure to put the fear of God in them with the new VBMS. Lots of the older guys are computer-ignorant so we’ve got that going for us. If they can’t file electronically, that pretty much sinks the old claim boat and boy are we ever counting on that. This alone will reduce the backlog at least 60% until 2016 when it is expected to hit two million claims a year. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

As for the resultant backlog inexorably building at the Board of Veterans Appeals, the plan is to revamp the CFRs outlawing any more evidence that can be admitted after the Regional Office denial. This alone, is expected to result in the eventual demise of the Appeals Management Center (AMC) and their immense volume of remanded claims for development.

Bradley Mayes, former Director of Comp. and Pen. in DC and now the titular head of the Manchester Regional Office up in New Hampshire, had this to say:

“For years we’ve been telling anyone who would sit still long enough about our streamlined process that insures fairness and a rapid resolution to claims appeals. This reduction of evidence innovation, while it may disenfranchise a large number, is just the panacea for the backlog. We’ll be running it like a Chinese dry cleaners- in by ten and out by three. We expect the VLJs will be deciding about eight to ten appeals a day.”

So what’s in the pipeline? VA is considering hiring psychics for the next generation of claims adjudications. Veterans will simply call the Prize Redemption Center at 800-827-1000 to talk to them. The specially trained seers will be fully conversant with the new M-21-2 MR (Mental Review) and capable of rendering the decisions on the spot within seconds. With the proper implementation and training, this can be applied to the BVA Appeals process as well.

Special VA M-21 PsychComputer

Psychic Conversion to 38 CFR method

Mr. Mayes added that with  the introduction of the Psychic Rating System (PRS), VA will   be able to rid themselves of those bulky electronic .pdf folders and slim down to even smaller, hand-held computers. “VA is on the cutting edge of technology and we want to lead the knowledge race into the twentieth century.” When informed that he was already in the twenty first century, Mayes added ” See? It’s working.”