Description
The Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) serves over 5.5 million Veterans across 56 regional offices with personalized benefits and services related to education, life insurance, home loan guaranty, and employment. In 2020, VBA guaranteed 1.2 million home loans and provided Post-9/11 GI Bill payments to over 600,000 beneficiaries.
Designated Services
Previously-reported Services
Applying for Education Benefits
Description
VA education benefits help Veterans, service members, and their qualified family members with needs like paying college tuition, finding the right school or training program, and getting career counseling. Customers need to determine which of the five programs they are eligible for: Post-9/11; Montgomery GI Bill – Active Duty or Selective Reserve; Reserve Educational Assistance Program; Survivors and Dependents Educational Assistance; and the Veterans Educational Assistance Program.
Why this service was designated
VA education benefits serve many critical functions including as a recruitment and retention tool, to supplement opportunities missed because of military service, and to assist in the readjustment to civilian life. On a broader scale, educational benefits are meant to enhance the nation’s competitiveness through the development of a more highly educated and productive workforce. In FY21, education benefits were used by 876K beneficiaries for a total cost of $11.5 billion in payments for five programs.
Filing a request for a Decision Review
Description
When there is a disagreement on a claims decision, Veterans or their beneficiaries can request to file for a decision review. The supplemental claim provides an opportunity for the Veterans and beneficiaries to receive full, partial, or further development of a claim. Veterans can file electronically or with a paper form for Higher-Level Review (VA FORM 20-0996, Decision Review Request: Higher-Level Review), but for the Supplemental Claim, customers need to send in a paper form (VA FORM 20-0995, Decision Review Request: Supplemental Claim) only. VBA is working on digitizing VA Form 20-0995.
Why this service was designated
VBA’s Higher-Level Review and Supplemental Claim process provides an important pathway for those who disagree with VA’s decision. A more senior reviewer will determine whether the decision can be changed based on a difference of opinion or an error. In FY21, VBA received 410,738 requests for a Compensation and Pension claims decision reviews, completed 381,808 reviews, and provided an average of $2,997 per retroactive award of benefits for each Compensation and Pension decision review granted.
Previously-reported Services
Prior to the first service designation exercise in 2022, HISPs were collecting data using methods unique to each agency, resulting in data that was not standardized. This previously-reported data was collected to increase visibility and awareness regarding customer experience through feedback data. Per A-11 guidance, service providers will collect feedback in a more standardized way.
Contacting the Benefits Administration contact center
Description
VBA sends surveys to those who interact with its call centers.
Quarterly data reported
Q2 2022
What we learned from this quarter's data:
A review of the comments from Q2 showed keywords such as “concern” and “frustration” were occurring at the same or similar frequency as “helpful” and “clear.” This suggests there is an inconsistent distribution of educational materials or absorption of Appeals Management Act (AMA) related to the Higher Level Review (HLR) purpose and process. However, it should be noted that with this suggestion there were multiple comments expressing gratitude with the VA decision maker explaining everything to eliminate issues and hurdles. There are some concerns, based on comments, that informal conferencing scheduling is inconsistent. Veterans have voiced “playing phone tag” with the VA which suggests a more aggressive and standardized approach to scheduling hearings should be considered. A review of the CX feedback from FY22 Q1 found a strong trend in the word “helpful” and “clear” from multiple Veterans that have used the HLR process. This is supported by CX feedback from FY22 Q1 that found a strong trend in complimenting how issues and events in the HLR process were explained which enhanced the Veteran experience. Professional behaviors with VA personnel operating in the HLR process showed consistency with Q2 as it did with Q1 with comments both complimentary and concerning operating within the same feedback range as it did in Q1. Overall this suggests VA personnel are doing the correct actions at the beginning, with room to grow in operational aspects. Informal Conferences continue to be identified as a hurdle with regards to scheduling. Comments have been identified as frustration within the communication of these informal conferences. However, it cannot be concluded if this is a point of view difference or an actual issue that should be addressed. It can be suggested, however, that a more aggressive approach to scheduling can be recommended. No new pain points have been identified at this time. This quarter, the Enrolling in School survey saw substantial increases over the other two benefits surveys. Additionally, as did the Applying for Benefits survey question about the usefulness of the GI Bill Comparison Tool saw an increase; however, the increase was expected based on GI Bill Comparison Tool updates made this year. Satisfaction scores dropped while trust scores remained the same. However, satisfaction scores have increased and are in line with trust scores again. Quality continues to be the lowest-scoring domain, though it increased this quarter. We believe Quality is being affected by the perception of uncertainty caused by system upgrades and the deployment of the enrollment verification requirement. As students become acclimated to those changes, their perceptions of Quality seem to be improving, especially as we identify and address system issues caused by modernization. Additionally, the process after submitting an application or receiving a Certificate of Eligibility also continues to score lower. Call wait times became a new pain point this quarter due to enrollment verification, though that score was increasing by the end of the quarter. VBA is reviewing all aspects of its Education VSignals collection, analysis, and decision-making processes this year. VBA is also continuing to deploy technical and automation improvements as part of the Digital GI Bill initiative that should improve scores in the Quality domain.
Service details
Transaction point: e-mail survey with online response collection
Channel: email
People served: 19270
Surveys offered:
Responses: 3674
Transaction point: e-mail survey with online response collection
Channel: email
People served: 14527
Surveys offered: 0
Responses: 3836
Transaction point: CX data is collected using an online transactional survey disseminated three times a week within 2-5 days after callers have interacted with the call center.
Channel: email
People served: 40299
Surveys offered: 0
Responses: 2782
Transaction point: CX data is collected using an online transactional survey disseminated three times a week within 2-5 days after callers have interacted with the call center.
Channel: email
People served: 47666
Surveys offered: 0
Responses: 2709
Transaction point: CX data is collected using an online transactional survey disseminated three times a week within 2-5 days after callers have interacted with the call center.
Channel: email
People served: 48375
Surveys offered: 0
Responses: 2417
Transaction point: e-mail survey with online response collection
Channel: email
People served: 4887
Surveys offered: 0
Responses: 1246
Description
The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is the largest integrated health care system in the United States, providing care at 1,293 health care facilities, including 171 VA Medical Centers and 1,112 outpatient sites of care of varying complexity to over 9 million Veterans enrolled in the VA health care program.
Designated Services
Previously-reported Services
Utilizing in-person primary care
Description
Primary Care gives eligible Veterans easy access to health care professionals familiar with their needs. Primary Care provides long-term, patient-provider relationships, coordinates care across a spectrum of health services, educates, and offers disease prevention programs. Primary Care now serves as the foundation of Veterans Health Administration (VHA) health care and became the first point of contact with the health care system for Veterans enrolled in VHA.
Primary care is the provision of integrated, accessible health care services by physicians and their health care teams who are accountable for addressing a large majority of personal health care needs, developing a sustained partnership with patients, and practicing in the context of family and community. Patient Aligned Care Team (PACT) is a customized patient-centered medical home model of care adopted and branded by VHA. Most of our Veteran patients utilize VHA’s primary care service and have their own PACT.
Why this service was designated
Primary Care is the largest health care service in Veterans Health Administration (VHA). There are over 80,000 VHA employees that directly or indirectly provide primary care services. Further, the budget for primary care (and other related ancillary services that constitute ambulatory care in VHA) was over 27 billion dollars in 2020. There were over 11 million primary care appointments in the VA during FY21.
Utilizing inpatient medical/acute care
Description
An enrolled Veteran patient may require inpatient care due to a variety of factors concerning their current health care. VA inpatient care includes a full spectrum of treatment including medical, surgical, mental health, dialysis, and acute care. VA inpatient care provides access to intensive care units (medical, surgical, mental health, cardiac), transplant care, spinal cord injury centers, traumatic brain injury units, and polytrauma centers. Depending on the care the enrolled Veteran requires, the Veteran may be admitted at a local VA medical facility; a further from home VA medical facility; or a local medical facility that partners with VHA.
Why this service was designated
VHA has a large number of inpatients every day on average, and it is one of the core health care service offerings. In 2020, VA spent over ten billion dollars to directly support inpatient medical care within the VA (medical services and medical facilities) and another six billion dollars for inpatient medical care in the community (outside of VA).
Previously-reported Services
Prior to the first service designation exercise in 2022, HISPs were collecting data using methods unique to each agency, resulting in data that was not standardized. This previously-reported data was collected to increase visibility and awareness regarding customer experience through feedback data. Per A-11 guidance, service providers will collect feedback in a more standardized way.
Receiving outpatient services
Description
VHA sends email surveys to everyone who receives outpatient services.
Quarterly data reported
Q2 2022
What we learned from this quarter's data:
The insights collected digitally enabled veterans to submit feedback about their outpatient services. As soon as Veterans pressed submit digitally, the insights were available in Veterans Signals (VSignals), VA's CX deployment/collection/analysis software capability, within seconds. Veterans Health Administration used those insights to action plan for immediate to short-term service recovery and also for long-term program and systems improvements.
Service details
Transaction point: Follow-up Survey upon receiving Outpatient Services
Channel: email
People served: 8663572
Surveys offered: 2050105
Responses: 345457