DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS
Veterans Benefits Administration - Year 2000 Goals
PREFACE
Vice President Gore’s National Performance Review is addressing the need to make government improvement more visible to the American Public. In this effort, 32 agencies that deal directly with the public and influence how the public views government have been designated as Reinvention Impact Centers. VBA is committed to reinvention goals that will deliver greater service to the public by or before the end of the year 2000. The VBA Year 2000 goals are interim goals developed as part of the strategic planning process. During 1998, VBA will be evaluating the measures we use to determine success. As a result, the measures may be modified to better reflect our commitment to great service.
Year 2000 Goals
The Veterans Benefits Administration provides benefits and services to veterans and their families with compassion, professionalism and enthusiasm. Our employees are dedicated to providing world-class customer service by working together in a continuous effort to improve the way we do business. Our goals for the end of fiscal year 2000 are:
Delivering Improved Service
- Process veterans’ compensation and pension claims in an average of 45 days, 30 percent faster than the 64 days it took at the beginning of 1996.
- Process veterans’ original compensation claims in an average of 92 days, more than one-third faster than in 1996.
- Make acquiring information easy and convenient by eliminating blocked telephone calls, limiting waiting time to no more than 30 seconds, and providing the information requested the first time.
- Meet or exceed all insurance industry performance in timeliness, accuracy, and customer satisfaction by issuing life insurance policy loans and paying life insurance claims in 2 workdays versus 4.2 workdays in 1996, and providing touch-tone telephone access and Internet service 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
- Rehabilitate 10,500 disabled veterans and assist them in gaining employment, up from 7,395 veterans in 1996 and more than double the 4,978 veterans in 1994.
- Use electronic data interchange to provide mortgage lenders with their evidence of guaranty on home loans on the day they request it as opposed to the present 1 to 3 week time frame.
- Process education benefits more timely and accurately through enhanced information exchange (i.e., enrollment, personnel and electronic fund transfer data) with educational institutions, students, the Department of Defense, Department of Treasury, and financial institutions.
Fostering Partnerships
- Build and strengthen partnerships with the Department of Defense, Social Security Administration, financial and lender institutions, educational institutions, veterans service organizations, Veterans Health Administration, Board of Veterans’ Appeals and others to improve customer service and the timeliness of benefits delivery. For example, the partnership with the Department of Defense regarding separation physical exams and electronic transmittal of discharge information will help reduce the time required to process compensation claims.
Internal Reinvention
- Consolidate 46 Loan Guaranty processing and loan servicing operations into eight regional centers, saving $25 million and 146 positions without diminishing service.
August 26, 1997