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
Q3 2022
What we learned from this quarter's data:
OAR’s review of 3rd quarter data identified: • Customer satisfaction remains higher for Veterans/customers participating in an informal conference. • Free text comments reveal some frustration related to the communication and scheduling of these informal conferences. • Satisfaction with the HLR process is influenced by decision review outcome (i.e. if decision is granted, satisfaction score increases; if decision is denied, satisfaction score decreases). Two insights from Moments That Matter to Veterans include: • VSignals AMA FY22 Q3 surveys revealed a strong trend of Veterans/customers providing compliments related to how we explained the higher-level review (HLR) process during informal conferences. • Comparison of cases where all issues were granted compared to cases where all issues were denied shows a significant positive sentiment trend for those cases where all issues were granted. This has an impact on Veteran satisfaction with the HLR process and impacts our scores. Going forward: • The nature of the HLR decision process does not lead us to believe that satisfaction scores will increase over time because we do not expect the grant rate to increase significantly over time. • OAR will continue reviewing the trend analysis on Veteran outcomes and seek ways to improve satisfaction scores. EDU’s review of 3rd quarter data identified: • Ease/Simplicity and Efficiency/Speed have consistently scored the highest of all domains. • The overall EDU survey response rates increased noticeably in Q3. • ECC time to connect to a phone representative emerged as a new pain point as indicated by satisfaction score decrease in Q2 and again in Q3. • Quality continues to be the lowest score domain. Two insights from Moments That Matter to Veterans include: • “Receiving Benefits” substantially increased survey responses from Q2 to Q3. • “Apply for Benefits” and ECC trust scores both decreased for Q2 to Q3. Going forward: • EDU expects to see gains in the Quality Domain as VBA continues to deploy technical and automation improvements as part of the Digital GI Bill initiative. • VBA is addressing staffing shortages related to the ECC time-to-connect pain point. • EDU expects trust scores to increase following an annual pattern as students return to school in Q4.
Service details
Transaction point: e-mail survey with online response collection
Channel: email
People served: 4880
Surveys offered:
Responses: 1178
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: 46732
Surveys offered: 0
Responses: 2148
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: 48474
Surveys offered: 0
Responses: 2302
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: 28861
Surveys offered: 0
Responses: 1578
Transaction point: e-mail survey with online response collection
Channel: email
People served: 14585
Surveys offered:
Responses: 3562
Transaction point: e-mail survey with online response collection
Channel: email
People served: 19287
Surveys offered:
Responses: 3549
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
Q3 2022
What we learned from this quarter's data:
VA continues to perform fairly strongly across its outpatient surveys in regards to satisfaction and trust.
Service details
Transaction point: Follow-up Survey upon receiving Outpatient Services
Channel: email
People served: 8639420
Surveys offered: 2300999
Responses: 376365