Military Audit

From USA Today:

"Military faulted for poor handling of medical records"

The Army, Navy and Air Force share some of the blame for why veterans wait so long to get compensated for wounds, injuries or illnesses they suffer while serving in uniform, according to a Pentagon Inspector General audit released this week. It is the job of the Department of Veterans Affairs to process about a million compensation claims filed each year by former service members. But even before that work can begin, the VA must receive from the military branches each veteran's medical records. Auditors found that particularly the Army and Navy are taking too long and are too sloppy about gathering those records together and sending them to the VA. Even after the military and VA went to a paperless system of transferring those records on Jan. 1, delays only got worse, auditors say. They attributed this to Army, Navy and Air Force paper handlers struggling to adjust to a new computerized system. In a letter sent to service branches in June, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel complained that this transfer of medical records "is taking too long" and ordered the Army, Navy and Air Force to speed it up and provide regular updates on their progress in that direction. About 270,000 claims by veterans are currently languishing for longer than 41/2 months, a significant reduction in backlogged cases since the VA came under intense criticism last year for its slow handling of compensation cases and instituted widespread changes. During a portion of that time period, the VA was waiting for medical records from the service branches to verify evidence of wounds, injuries or illnesses to justify paying compensation to veterans. The audit report said the Defense Department's "failure to make timely and complete (medical records) available to the VA likely contributed to delays in processing veterans' benefits claims." Auditors found that during 2013, three out of four medical files requested from the Army were taking longer than 45 days to reach the VA and 28% of files were incomplete. An audit of Navy efforts, which includes medical files for veterans from the Marine Corps, found that a little less than half the files requested were reaching the VA in 45 days. Up through the end of last year, the records were transferred in paper files. But even after that process became computerized, the delays and quality of the paperwork only got worse, auditors said. Only 17% of Army medical files were provided to the VA within 45 days and the quality of the work also fell off slightly, the audit shows. The timeliness of delivering to the VA Air Force and Navy medical records dropped dramatically. Auditors blamed this on "training, staffing and process implementation (that) likely affected the results (so) our results may not reflect future trends."

^ This doesn't surprise me. It is still disgusting how long it takes any government agency in the 2nd decade of the 21st Century to process requests, etc. Everything can be done with the push of a button and yet people are both lazy and stupid and don't want to do their jobs correctly. I'm sure if there were more audits at different agencies and departments they would find even more short-comings. Hopefully, these findings will be used to fix the whole process of soldiers, veterans and their families to get the care and support they deserve. ^

http://www.usatoday.com/story/nation/2014/08/01/veterans-compensation-delays-military-va-inspector-general/13456047/