The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced it is working to improve its benefit claims process, including conducting a pilot project to reduce the time required to obtain healthcare records from private clinicians to speed veterans' claims decisions.
The pilot project involves use of a private contractor. When private medical records support a veteran's application for benefits, the contractor would retrieve the records, scan them into digital format, then send data to the VA via a secure transmission. The project aims to validate initial estimates that a specialized contract can yield records required to process veterans' disability compensation claims in seven to 10 days instead of the VA's average 40 days.
The test will be conducted using 60,000 records requests among regional benefits offices across the U.S. Once the study is complete, VA officials will analyze results and decide whether they should cancel, modify, or expand changes to procedures nationwide.
Exploring economical contract support for time savings is one of more than three dozen initiatives designed to address the VA's claims transformation plan, which aims to ensure that by 2015, veterans' claims are decided within 125 days.
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