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Strategic Objective
Increase Customer Satisfaction through Improvements in Benefits and Services Delivery Policies, Procedures, and Interfaces
Strategic Objective
Overview
Summary:
VA is a customer service organization. Complicated application processes, long processing timelines or difficulties getting information and appointments all impact the client’s experience and satisfaction. Veterans and eligible beneficiaries deserve a support system that is responsive to their needs. VA must keep pace with Veterans’ expectations and transform its customer services – soliciting regular customer feedback, streamlining processes, and delivering consistent service across customer-preferred channels.
We live in a connected world. The rapid pace of technological advancement is reshaping Veterans’ expectations regarding how services, benefits, and support should be delivered. Today’s client expects instant access to information and self-service options via the Internet, and increasingly through mobile devices like tablets and smartphones (and the next generation “smart” devices that are yet to be deployed).
To provide a personalized experience, we must listen, learn, and understand the needs and expectations of those we serve. We must have the knowledge, information and insight to understand why some choose not to fully engage with VA.
Strategies:
VA will provide timely, accurate decisions on Veterans’ disability claims and eliminate the claims backlog. We will then implement a robust plan, and revisit procedures to ensure claims are addressed in no more than 125 days with at least 98 percent accuracy. The plan includes redesigning policies and procedures, continuing to enhance training for claims processors, and utilizing the most advanced IT. We will also increase the use of video teleconference hearings to address claims appeals.
VA will continue to expand implementation of PACT to improve partnerships with Veterans and eligible beneficiaries, increase team-based care coordination and management, and expand access to care. VA will improve patient-facing and clinician-facing e-health systems by expanding the development and use of health-related virtual modalities. These modalities include telehealth[1], E-Consult[2], secure messaging, MyHealtheVet, and mobile applications.
VA will enhance client satisfaction by capturing client data once, sharing it enterprise-wide, and using this client data for a lifetime, which will promote more efficient use of data across business lines. We will identify sources of consistent, reliable, and authoritative Veteran data. We will establish architecture, business rules, roles and responsibilities, and governance to enable VA lines of business to use the authoritative common client data to improve delivery of benefits and services to Veterans. VA will gain access to additional external data, knowledge, and experiences so we can broaden our understanding of our client’s needs and expectations. We will enable secure, privacy-protected electronic exchange of personal, health, and economic data on Veterans from induction oath through the final survivor benefit.
VA will rethink its operations as a Department, defining the fundamental crosscutting capabilities and interdependencies required to perform them. We will identify and address any internal organizational, policy, procedural, perceptual, and cultural boundaries that constrain our ability to coordinate, integrate, and deliver benefits and services.
VA will streamline its virtual presence (Web sites, portals and call centers), reducing duplication and enhancing personalization to enable clients to get the information they need, on their schedule.
VA will increase access to burial benefits in national cemeteries through its plans to construct five new national cemeteries and by recognizing and addressing the unique needs of Veterans and eligible beneficiaries who reside in densely populated urban areas as well as sparsely populated rural locations. We will ensure that the service and appearance of our national cemeteries meets the highest standards commensurate with these national shrines.
[1] Telehealth uses information and telecommunication technologies to provide health care services in situations in which the patient and practitioner are separated by geographical distance. Telehealth in VA increases access to high quality health care services using Clinical Video Telehealth (CVT), Home Telehealth (HT) and Store and Forward Telehealth (SFT).
[2] E-Consult is an approach to provide clinical support from provider to provider. Through a formal consult request, processed and documented in the Computerized Patient Record System, a provider requests a specialist to address a clinical problem or to answer a clinical question for a specific patient. Utilizing information provided in the consult request and/or review of the patient’s electronic medical record, the consultant provides a documented response that addresses the request without a face-to-face visit.
Read Less...Progress Update
Final Assessment: VA, in consultation with the Office of Management and Budget, determined that performance toward this objective is making noteworthy progress.
Achievements: In FY 2015, VA made progress in improving access and reducing wait times for Veterans. As of October 1, 2015, VA completed 97 percent of appointments within 30 days, 92 percent within 14 days, 87 percent within 7 days, and 23 percent same day.[1] Between
June 1, 2014, and October 1, 2015, the electronic wait list went from 56,271 appointments to 40,956, a 27.21-percent reduction and the New Enrollee Appointment Request line is down 81 percent.
Also, VA made significant strides in reducing the claims backlog from 611,073 in FY 2013 to 71,352, an 88.3-percent reduction at the end of FY 2015. The percentage of claims in the backlog decreased by 27.2 percent in FY 2015, from 46.9 percent on October 1, 2014, to
19.7 percent at the end of the fiscal year. 55.7 percent of claims received (718,394 of 1,289,599) have been Fully Developed Claims (FDCs), and 35.3 percent of completed claims (490,263 of 1,387,772) have been FDC, with an average processing time of 139.6 days. Using VBMS, 99.8 percent of disability compensation claims were processed electronically. The cumulative percentage of disability compensation claims received electronically by VA grew from 7.5 percent to 12.5 percent during FY 2015. This is an increase of 5.0 percent; a peak of 16.1 percent was achieved for the month of September 2015.
In FY 2015, VA established the Veterans Experience Office[2] (VEO) to streamline VA’s presence and increase customer satisfaction through improvements in systems and processes. VEO is currently working to improve services provided through VA’s call centers with the goal of establishing a single point-of-contact phone number for all Veterans.[3] VEO is also building a shared customer picture across all of VA’s lines of business through the Customer Data Integration initiative. Additionally, VEO launched vets.gov in the fall 2015 in order to create a single, unified digital experience for Servicemembers and Veterans.
Also, VA is continuing to improve Veteran satisfaction through the implementation of the Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 2014 (VACAA). Since the Veterans Choice Program (Choice) went into effect on November 5, 2014, more than 297,000 medical appointments have been scheduled through the Choice, and 378,192 Veterans have requested to receive care using Choice as of September 30, 2015.[4] Also, VA posts twice-monthly updates of wait-times for new and established patients at each VA Medical Center,[5] which shows VA’s progress on its efforts to increase access to health care.[6] VA expanded virtual care modalities by expanding access to tele-health, e-consult, secure messaging, and My HealtheVet. My HealtheVet now has 3,356,494 registrants marking a 12-percent increase to the year baseline, exceeding the end of fiscal year target of 10 percent. As of September 30, 2015, My HealtheVet had 1,643,769 patients opted in for Secure Messaging, marking a 50-percent increase to the FY 2015 baseline and exceeding the end of fiscal year target of 35 percent. VHA had a combined total of 2,297,473 individuals accessing care using a virtual format. VA also launched the VA App Store[7] in December 2014 and deployed mobile tablets to 7000 providers[8]. In November 2014, VA launched “Connected” VA-developed apps that connect the Veteran to their VA Electronic Health Record. VA also pilot-tested scheduling apps that allow Veterans to make online requests for Mental Health and Primary Care Appointments, as well as directly schedule their own Primary Care appointments with their VA Primary Care Provider.
VA continues to increase access to burial options for rural and tribal, as well as urban Veterans. One new VA-funded state cemetery (Aguadilla, Puerto Rico) and one new VA-funded Tribal cemetery (Seminole Nation, Oklahoma) opened in FY 2015. Three new national cemeteries have moved into the construction phase and two other new national cemeteries are in the design phase. The percent of respondents who rate the quality of service provided by the national cemeteries as excellent is 96 percent in 2015. Also, 90 percent of the U.S. Veteran population is considered to be served by a burial option in a national or state Veterans cemetery within a reasonable distance (75 miles) of their residence.
Challenges: VA faces several challenges in achieving this objective. A major challenge is that as VA improves access, more Veterans come to the VA for care.[9] Also, coordination of care with non-VA providers is complex, long-term and involves multiple stakeholders.
Also, the delays in deploying D2D have affected the total number of electronic claims received to date. D2D is now projected for deployment in the second quarter of 2016. The D2D functionality allows Veterans Service Organizations, County Veterans Service Organizations, and State Veterans Affairs agencies with their own claims management systems to directly submit electronic compensation claims.
Another challenge is acquiring land for the seven VA national cemeteries (formerly known as National Veteran Burial Grounds) and three of the Urban Initiative cemetery sites.
[1] http://www.va.gov/opa/speeches/2015/09_01_2015.asp
[3] http://www.va.gov/opa/myva/docs/myva_integrated_plan.pdf
[4] Choice Contractor Dashboard
[5] http://www.va.gov/health/access-audit.asp
[6] http://www.va.gov/opa/choiceact/documents/Fact-Sheet-Publicly-Available-Data.pdf
[8] http://mobile.va.gov/providers/successstories
[9] http://www.va.gov/opa/speeches/2015/09_01_2015.asp
