VA HEARING FEB 15 & 16, 2006 SAINT PETERSBURG, FLORIDA

VA Compensation and Claims Commission were in St. Pete to say what they were about, what their schedule is and what they are trying to accomplish.  They had a public hearing to listen to those that wished to speak, while others wrote down questions and comments for the commission to review later. Below are some of the photos taken by the Veterans Post's staff.

For the K.I.S.S. solution to end the backlog of Claims Click Here.

Photos best viewed when they are seen 6 across. Click photo to enlarge, back arrow to return.

A Simple Solution To Fix The Backlog Of Delays And Denied Claims

       Instead of using the 30,000 paid and volunteer service representatives that file claims for Veterans, and then submit them to 5,000 VA employees who deny the claim because of a date or grammatical error...  Which only causes additional man hours of handling and shipping the claim folders around the country...

      With an average of over 40 hours spent by the Veteran in preparing, requesting, explaining, getting affidavits and additional medical records for each claim, followed by the representative organization packaging and preparing the file to go to the VA for review...  Followed by months of waiting for the VA to respond to the claim to say what is missing or needed in the claim before they can review it...

       Just have the Veteran appear with an appointment in front of a VA reviewer who makes the decision.  The VA reviewer can then look at the file and tell the Veteran what they are eligible for and what they are not.  The VA reviewer could also "assist" (as required by law) the Veteran by telling them what would be needed to complete a claim or file for a higher rating.

       For any claims the Veteran qualifies for, could then be signed by the reviewer. Since the reviewer used to deny claims, now they can just approve those that qualify.

       Even if the appointment takes two hours, this would save a hundred man hours, hundreds of dollars and months, even years of waiting for a reply on each and every claim.  If the Veteran failed to get their claim through, they will know it right then and there.  Another appointment can be set for 30 to 90 days later to get the additional documentation needed to satisfy the requirements for the claim.

       If we say there are 1,250,000 backlogged claims.  If only 20 man hours were cut from the processing of these claims, it would save over 20 million man hours, which is thirty years work for 1,000 VA reviewers.

       This new system would cut down all the middle people that handle the files prior to getting to a reviewer.  It would cut down the transport time from one agency to another.  It would save the taxpayers millions of dollars is man hours, processing, shipping and transportation costs... It will remove the frustration, anger and the feeling of betrayal by the Veterans toward the government. But the most important item, is it will allow the Veteran to have their claim filed and reviewed in a most timely manner.

This solution was taken from the Veterans Party of America's Web Site. www.VeteransParty.US

We think it is a realistic solution to what has been bogging down the VA for decades.  If every reader would cut and paste this response to their political representatives, we can get everyone reading from the same sheet of music.