April 2012—Congressman Filner, you have my word that we’ll have this backlog under control by 2015. We now have the tools and the finances to implement the Secretary’s directives.

July 2013—Congressman Miller, The new VBMS, which converts files over to electronic format, is on schedule to be implemented at the rest of the Regional Offices as planned. Thanks to VA’s new Six Sigma and Kaizen training, we have everything well in hand.

September 2013—Congressman Miller, We have now completed the VBMS installation in all 56 Regional Offices and the backlog is decreasing much faster than any of us imagined. Fortunately, my background at Accenture was of immense help in overcoming innumerable obstacles.  I am proud to report that we are “all systems go, sir”.

December, 2013—Congressman Miller, fortunately for our disabled Veterans, we are gradually dispensing with the backlog and see some daylight at the end of the tunnel. It appears we will have eliminated the backlog completely before January 2015- well ahead of our earlier projections. Veterans should expect an easy up or down decision within 125 days soon and the accuracy is expected to be a breathtaking 98%. The VA has been able to attain these stupendous figures by working overtime and sending some claims to other, less utilized Regional Offices in Alaska, South Dakota and Montana. Unfortunately, in order to motivate the raters, we had to re- institute the bonuses temporarily but that is a short term setback. May I have some Kleenex, please?