VA Disability Benefits: Veterans Benefits Administration Could Enhance Management of Claims Processor Training
GAO-21-348
Published: Jun 07, 2021. Publicly Released: Jul 07, 2021.
Fast Facts
The Veterans Benefits Administration has over 9,000 claims processors for disability compensation. In 2019, VBA processed over 1.4 million claims and provided $88 million in benefits to veterans with disabilities.
Training is key to ensuring processors have the skills to effectively and efficiently handle claims—especially as VBA hires more staff, implements new initiatives, and changes eligibility criteria for assigning a degree of disability and compensation level.
VBA followed some leading practices for training, but needs a comprehensive plan and performance goals for its training program. Our recommendations address this and other issues.
Highlights
What GAO Found
The Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) has over 9,000 employees who process veterans' claims for disability compensation. To ensure claims processors have the skills needed to handle disability claims efficiently and effectively, training is a key strategy. Training is particularly important as VBA hires more staff and implements new initiatives.
GAO assessed VBA's training program for disability claims processors against leading practices for training related to planning, design, implementation, and evaluation. GAO found that VBA partially applied these leading practices.
- Planning. VBA's planning included some efforts to determine the skills and competencies needed for a trained workforce to process claims, consistent with leading practices. However, it lacks an integrated and comprehensive plan to ensure training improves individual and agency performance. Specifically, VBA's planning has not been guided by training program goals or a governance structure that sets priorities with a strategic focus on how efforts will contribute to results. Instead, VBA has used a project-by-project planning approach.
- Design. In designing its training program, VBA has used a variety of training delivery mechanisms, consistent with leading practices. For example, mechanisms include self-paced and instructor-led classroom training and software to manage and deliver training. However, VBA lacks criteria to inform its selection of the most appropriate mechanism to deliver each course.
- Implementation. Regional offices and VBA headquarters work together to deliver training, per leading practices. However, VBA's policies to monitor the extent to which claims processors have received required training are incomplete. Specifically, it lacks policies requiring VBA to identify and correct deficiencies in completing annual training for experienced claims processors.
- Evaluation. VBA collects and incorporates some stakeholder feedback about training and recently finalized plans to evaluate certain training, consistent with leading practices. However, VBA's efforts do not include key stakeholder perspectives, such as those of experienced staff and their supervisors, and VBA does not have policies to ensure evaluations are consistently planned and conducted. GAO's prior work indicates that evaluation has been a consistent gap in VBA's management of training.
VBA officials described several challenges to fully applying leading practices for planning, such as other higher priorities and the frequency with which the agency is tasked with urgent or emerging training needs. VBA also stated that it has some specific strategies in place to guide training efforts, such as setting annual training requirements. Nevertheless, fully applying leading practices for training would provide VBA greater assurance that its workforce is sufficiently skilled to efficiently and effectively process disability claims and provides high-quality service to veterans.
Why GAO Did This Study
In fiscal year 2019, VBA processed over 1.4 million claims for disability compensation and provided about $88 billion in benefits to veterans injured in service to their country. Claims processors receive training to help them determine veterans' eligibility for these benefits.
GAO was asked to review VBA's management of training for disability claims processors. This report examines the extent to which VBA applied relevant leading practices identified by GAO for planning, designing, implementing, and evaluating training, among other objectives.
GAO reviewed relevant federal laws, regulations, policies, and training materials; assessed VBA's efforts against relevant leading practices for training in the federal government; and interviewed officials from VBA headquarters and managers and claims processors at four regional offices, selected for variation on office size, region, and claims workload.
Recommendations
GAO is making 10 recommendations, including that VBA establish an integrated and comprehensive plan and performance goals for its training program; document and use criteria to inform its selection of training delivery mechanisms; develop policies to monitor compliance with required training; collect and incorporate stakeholder feedback; and evaluate training on a recurring basis. VA generally concurred with GAO's recommendations.
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status Sort descending |
|---|---|---|
| Veterans Benefits Administration | The Undersecretary for Benefits should develop and implement a policy detailing VBA offices' responsibilities to identify and address any deficiencies in claims processors' completion of annual regional office-selected training hours. (Recommendation 6) |
VA agreed with this recommendation. In 2022, VA established Training Compliance Training Staff Standard Operating Procedures that explains how VBA identifies and addresses claims processor training completion deficiencies, including the frequency of monitoring and steps to ensure that completion deficiencies are addressed. VBA has also incorporated training compliance into the Veteran Service Representative and rater national performance standards. The agency is also monitoring completion of annual regional-office selected training hours.
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| Veterans Benefits Administration | The Undersecretary for Benefits should establish a policy to help ensure recurring training evaluation efforts that align with leading practices, such as those outlined in VBA's strategy for evaluating training. (Recommendation 9) |
VA concurred with this recommendation and has addressed it. On December 9, 2021, VBA published VBA Letter 20-21-19, Evaluation Training Policy and Memorandum. This policy letter establishes requirements, roles and responsibilities for evaluating training programs and training systems sponsored, created, or implemented by VBA. The policy requires evaluation plans for all mission-based training programs, and ensures recurring training evaluation efforts. It also requires VBA business lines to adhere to agency guidance for evaluating training programs and training systems, as presented in VBA's annual training evaluation strategy. It aligns with OMB guidance for implementation of the Foundation for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018, as well as leading practices for training.
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| Veterans Benefits Administration | The Undersecretary for Benefits should collect, analyze, and share lessons learned from the Blue Water Navy training effort with internal stakeholders, including those from offices responsible for training. (Recommendation 10) |
VA concurred with this recommendation and has significantly addressed it. Specifically, the agency prepared an after-action report summarizing the development, implementation, and results of the Blue Water Navy training effort. This report was discussed at an August 2021 meeting with training stakeholders, including representatives from VBA's Compensation Service, Office of Field Operations, and the Office of Human Capital Services. The report is stored on an internal SharePoint site and, according to VA officials, is easily retrievable to others who may need to produce training under similar circumstances.
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| Veterans Benefits Administration | The Under Secretary for Benefits should establish a governance structure that identifies clear lines of authority among the VBA offices responsible for guiding strategic training efforts and establishing clear accountability for the success of these efforts. (Recommendation 2) |
VBA generally concurred with this recommendation and has taken action to address it by developing a charter to establish a governance structure. Specifically, the charter states that this governance structure will ensure strategic, programmatic and operational governance of the training program. The charter initiates the formation of various boards, including an Executive Training Board responsible for overall strategic direction, including oversight of the training budget; and a Training Oversight Council that includes senior decisionmakers in VBA offices, such as Compensation Service. Major duties of the governance structure include establishing priorities, developing training plans, and implementing metrics to measure returns on investment, among others. The governance structure includes VBA leadership, as well as representatives from VBA offices, such as the Office of Field Operations. As of May 2024, the Training Oversight Council members were designated and had convened while the Executive Training Board members had not yet been designated. We encourage VA to continue successfully implementing this governance structure, which could help VBA align its training efforts with accountability for training program results.
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| Veterans Benefits Administration | The Undersecretary for Benefits should document and use criteria to guide analysis for when a given training delivery mechanism should be used. Goals for the training program could be helpful in determining the appropriate criteria. (Recommendation 4) |
VA concurred with this recommendation and has taken action to address it. Specifically, the agency developed the VBA Media Selection Tool, located on the VBA Training Center of Excellence website. This tool provides clear guidance to training developers on determining the most appropriate media or training delivery mechanism. This action addresses the first part of the recommendation to document criteria. VA also addressed the second part of the recommendation by developing and updating courses using the media selection tool. The delivery mechanisms recommended by the tool were based on specific learning objectives and the media needed to achieve each objective. For example, for certain learning objectives where claims processes must demonstrate proficiency on a complex task, the tool recommended interactive software that can also generate an evaluation of student performance, including time and error scores.
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| Veterans Benefits Administration | The Undersecretary for Benefits should establish and monitor minimum training requirements to prepare all course instructors at regional offices to conduct claims processor training. (Recommendation 5) |
VA agreed with this recommendation. VA had updated its guidance on instructor requirements in February 2023. A VA memo states that instructors must now be VA-certified instructors, have completed prior instructor training or completed a new instructor training course. However, this minimum training requirement only applied to instructors of new claims processor training. In October 2023, VA required instructors of all claims processor training (including experienced claims processor training) to provide documentation showing that they had met one of the three instructor training requirements. A May 2024 standard operating procedure lays out VBA's process for monitoring its instructor records to ensure all instructors have up-to-date documentation of their qualifications.
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| Veterans Benefits Administration | The Undersecretary for Benefits should develop and document a policy and related processes for collecting and incorporating feedback from relevant stakeholders on the strengths and weaknesses of its claims processor training program. This effort could be completed independently or as part of VBA's evaluation planning efforts for disability claims processor training. (Recommendation 7) |
As of September 2023, VBA developed and documented a training evaluation process. The process incorporates training data, evaluation reports, and the views of VBA's in-house evaluation experts, who make recommendations for training improvements. Each recommendation must have a decision on whether to implement it and the decision must have supporting documentation. However, as of July 2024 the process does not clearly articulate how these recommendations for training improvements incorporate views of training participants and other stakeholders. Routinely incorporating the feedback from stakeholders-including training participants, supervisors, and instructors-would help VBA make practical improvements to its training. In addition, at a July 2024 congressional hearing, VBA executives announced a new initiative to modernize its training program for newly hired or promoted raters. Continued efforts to evaluate its training program for this new initiative would be in line with our recommendations on evaluating training. We will consider closing this recommendation when VBA develops and documents a policy and any related procedures for incorporating stakeholder feedback to improve training for disability claims processors.
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| Veterans Benefits Administration | The Undersecretary for Benefits should ensure that Compensation Service completes and implements a plan to evaluate training of disability claims processors that aligns with leading practices, such as those outlined in VBA's strategy for evaluating training. (Recommendation 8) |
VA concurred with this recommendation and has taken significant action to address it. VBA has prepared evaluation plans for its training programs for new and experienced claims processors. These plans include a process evaluation to assess the implementation of training, as well as to measure participants' satisfaction, learning, behavior, and results. This action addresses the first part of this recommendation. In February 2022, VBA provided fiscal year 2022 evaluation plans for several components of its training program, and in September 2023 shared examples of evaluation reports. However, as of June 2024, VBA has not provided an evaluation plan or reports for PACT Act training, or for the annual required training for experienced claims processors. We will consider closing this recommendation when VBA demonstrates that its plans for evaluating training are being implemented.
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| Veterans Benefits Administration | The Under Secretary for Benefits should establish performance goals for VBA's training program for disability claims processors. These program-level goals should have specific targets to provide a basis for comparing actual program performance with expected results. (Recommendation 1) |
VA agreed with this recommendation. VBA developed a FY 2025 training plan for disability compensation claims processors. In this training plan, VBA reported goals for several aspects of its training program for disability claims processors. For example, one goal is for 100 percent of newly hired raters to complete virtual and in-person training with an 80 percent or higher level of proficiency. However, other aspects of the training program-such as the annual required training for experienced claims processors-do not have associated goals or performance targets. In March 2024, VBA established a governance structure that, if successfully used, could help VBA address this and our other recommendations on goals, plans, and evaluation. We will consider closing this recommendation when VBA establishes measurable performance goals to effectively assess its training efforts and the training program overall.
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| Veterans Benefits Administration | The Undersecretary for Benefits should develop and document an integrated and comprehensive training plan or strategy for its program for training disability claims processors. The plan should align training program goals with VBA goals and document how program activities will be prioritized to meet goals. (Recommendation 3) |
VA agreed with this recommendation. VBA developed a FY 2025 training plan for disability compensation claims processors. As of July 2024, we determined that while this plan has some improvements over prior year plans, it does not include all elements of a training plan, as described in our prior work on assessing training. These elements include linkages with the agency's strategic objectives, priorities established among competing demands, efforts to address employee developmental goals, and anticipated benefits and projected costs. For example, VBA's training plan describes how ongoing assessments can help determine training needs. However, it does not indicate when VBA will conduct these assessments, or the planned actions to identify training needs. Moreover, the plan is unclear about how the training program's goals align with VBA's goals. For example, VBA has longstanding efforts to track the accuracy of its claims decisions, which it reports weekly on a public website. However, the training program goals and measures do not address how VBA training will help achieve the desired accuracy of benefits decisions made by claims processors. In addition, at a July 2024 congressional hearing, VBA executives announced a new initiative to modernize its training program for newly hired raters. Continued efforts to plan and evaluate its training program for this new initiative, to include identifying employee skill needs and gaps, would be in line with our recommendation. We will consider closing this recommendation when VBA's training plan incorporates the results of its planned assessments, prioritize training needs, and addresses the other gaps we have identified.
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Best practicesClaims processingDisability claimsDisability compensationEmployee developmentHuman capital managementPerformance goalsVeteransVeterans affairsVeterans benefitsVeterans disability benefits