Recommendation: The Secretary of Veterans Affairs should clearly articulate in VA's appeals plan how VA will monitor and assess the new appeals process compared to the legacy process, including specifying a balanced set of goals and measures--such as timeliness goals for all VBA appeals options and Board dockets, and measures of accuracy, veteran satisfaction, and cost--and related baseline data. (Recommendation 2)
Agency: Department of Veterans Affairs
Status: Open
Priority recommendation
Comments: VA concurred with this recommendation and, as of March 2020, addressed some but not all aspects of it. Regarding monitoring, VA has made progress in monitoring and addressing workload changes in its new and legacy appeals processes. For example, VA has developed sensitivity models and other analyses to monitor and forecast future VBA and Board workloads, production, and staffing requirements to help VA manage the new and legacy appeals processes. Further, the Board is aiming to complete non-remanded legacy appeals by December 2022 by first addressing hearing-requested appeals. However, VBA and the Board have yet to specify a complete set of balanced goals for monitoring the new and legacy appeals processes (e.g., timely and accurate processing of appeals while ensuring veteran satisfaction). For example, the Board will not establish timeliness goals for all new Board options until after collecting additional data during implementation of the new appeals process, thus delaying VA's vision for what successful implementation should look like and hindering awareness of resources required to achieve that vision. Regarding comparing the performance of the new and legacy appeals processes, VA officials have previously reported that they intend to use timeliness and productivity metrics from section 5 of the Appeals Modernization Act. Further, VBA and Board officials have articulated steps they are taking to collect, through surveys, comparable information on veterans' satisfaction with the new and legacy appeals processes. However, VA has not fully articulated detailed steps and timeframes for assessing the relative performance of the new and legacy appeals processes. For example, VA has not indicated how it will assess whether or the extent to which the new process, which also allows for multiple appeal opportunities, will achieve final resolution of veterans' appeals sooner, on average, than the legacy process, as we recommended in GAO-17-234. We will consider closing this recommendation when VA provides documentation indicating how it will assess the new appeals process against the legacy process vis a vis balanced measures.
Recommendation: The Secretary of Veterans Affairs should augment the master schedule for VA's appeals plan to reflect all activities--such as modifications to information technology (IT) systems--as well as assigned responsibilities, interdependencies, start and end dates for key activities for each workgroup, and resources, to establish accountability and reduce overall risk of implementation failures. (Recommendation 3)
Agency: Department of Veterans Affairs
Status: Open
Comments: VA concurred with this recommendation. Since our report was issued, VA took significant action on its project plan and in February 2019, implemented the Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act of 2017. VA provided increasingly more details in updates to its plan about sub-activities related to processing legacy appeals, monitoring implementation, drafting Board policies, training, and testing of the new process. For example, VA added activities related to the Rapid Appeals Modernization Program (RAMP) test of the VBA-only options as well as the test of the new Board options. In spring and summer 2018, according to VA officials, VA set a baseline schedule for implementing appeals reform in response to the potential February 2019 implementation date established in the Act. In October 2018, VA provided us with lower-level schedules and other related information that allowed us to conduct a more detailed assessment of VA's IMS against applicable best practices criteria. However, as of December 2018, VA's schedule did not fully align with best practices. For example, VA's schedule did not contain a work breakdown structure that defines the work, activities, and resources necessary to accomplish implementation-details that would inform resources and time needed for the project. (For details on this assessment, see GAO-19-272T.) While VA fully implemented appeals reform in February 2019, incorporating such lessons learned into future project planning could help VA improve its project scheduling capabilities. Specifically, in February 2020 VA reported that Caseflow-VA's replacement system intended to support appeals reform-had "minimal functionality," with many functionalities yet to be implemented. We will consider closing this recommendation when VA has produced a more complete plan for-and that establishes accountability and reduces risk of failure related to-developing, implementing, and integrating remaining key functionality envisioned under Caseflow. We will also continue tracking whether the Board addresses long-term Caseflow planning under recommendation 2 in GAO-17-234.
Recommendation: The Secretary of Veterans Affairs should ensure that the appeals plan more fully addresses risk associated with appeals reform--for example, by assessing risks against a balanced set of goals and measures, articulating success criteria and an assessment plan for RAMP, and testing or conducting sensitivity analyses of all appeals options--prior to fully implementing the new appeals process. (Recommendation 4)
Agency: Department of Veterans Affairs
Status: Open
Priority recommendation
Comments: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) concurred with our recommendation to more fully address risks associated with implementing a new appeals process. As of March 2020, VA has taken many steps to address our recommendation, although key steps are remaining for VA to better assess risks associated with implementing appeals reform and managing appeals workloads in the legacy process. Specifically, since May 2018, VBA and Board officials reported developing and using new sensitivity analyses that would allow the agency to project potential budget needs and staffing requirements. Further, VBA is using these analyses to more accurately predict resolution of legacy appeals given certain assumptions. Furthermore, in addition to testing two appeal options available within VBA through its Rapid Appeals Modernization Program (RAMP), VA conducted small-scale testing of the three new Board appeals options through the Board's Early Applicability of Appeals Modernization (BEAAM) pilot, testing that was missing from VA's original November 2017 plan. VA also reported using lessons learned from testing all appeals options to update the implementation process. However, as designed, RAMP and BEAAM lacked well-defined, measurable criteria for assessing lessons learned from its testing, and the agency did not fully test all aspects of the appeals options before moving to full implementation in February 2019. Even though VA has fully implemented the new disability appeals process without addressing these aspects of our recommendation, many of the other principles of sound planning practices that informed our recommendation remain relevant, even after implementation, to ensure the new process meets veterans' needs. Specifically, VA has not developed mitigation strategies for all identified risks, such as veterans appealing to the Board at higher rates than expected or choosing more resource-intensive Board options, such as those involving new evidence or a hearing. As of January 2020, the more resource-intensive hearing option accounted for over 50 percent of new appeals inventory. At the same time, the Board reported it plans to prioritize resources on reducing the legacy appeals inventory and on the least resource intensive appeal option for which it established a timeliness goal. Although the Board has increased productivity, addressing legacy hearings will take several years as veterans may continue choosing the new hearing option at high rates and the Board prioritizes other workloads. This circumstance could subject veterans to longer wait times and increasing backlogs under the hearing option. As of March 2020, VA also has not established a complete and balanced set of goals and measures for the new appeals options, which are a necessary pre-condition to effectively assessing risk. Lacking a complete set of goals and measures, VA may not have comprehensively identified key risks.
