Rao bulletin 15 January 2015 html edition this bulletin contains the following articles
Download 6.84 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- ******************************** VARO Philadelphia Update 02 ► New Claim Incentive Program Questioned
- * Vet s *
Kristen Ruell of the Philadelphia VA benefits office with Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R-PA) before she testified in June before a congressional committee. She now says some employees are discouraged by the probes' slow progress The Germantown facility oversees benefits for 825,000 veterans in eastern Pennsylvania, South Jersey, and Delaware, and also houses one of the nation's three Veterans Affairs pension centers. Whistleblowers have alleged, among other concerns, that mail at the center has been shredded, dates on claims have been changed to hide the backlog, and employees have cherry-picked easy cases to meet unrealistic performance goals. The inspector general's review is part of a sweeping assessment of the national VA system. The Philadelphia VA Medical Center in University City and a clinic it runs in Horsham are also being investigated by the inspector general. But in Philadelphia, the brunt of the scrutiny has fallen on the benefits office. Officials there have denied that claim dates were changed to mask the backlog, saying the problems stemmed from a misunderstanding of VA policy. At an October congressional hearing, an official from the Inspector General's Office said she found that "difficult to grasp." At the time, she said the review of the office included more than 100 individual allegations. Inspector general's spokeswoman Catherine Gromek declined 31 DEC to say where that number now stood. But, she said, the volume of "issues that have been continually raised" has kept the office from issuing a report. She said the inspector general hoped to present a draft to VA officials, as is customary, in early January. The final version could come in late February. Gromek declined to discuss the investigation in detail. One VA employee, who asked to not be named because she feared retaliation at work, said she was interviewed 10 DEC by inspector general's staff about undated claims she occasionally found in the system, meaning they were not being processed and tracked. The employee, who has worked for the VA for six years, said that she did not know why it was occurring, but that it "looks like we have less claims than what we have." The congressional staffer, who is allowed to discuss the probe but did not use his name, said the Inspector General's Office did not expect to be able to respond to each complaint individually, as there were too many. The final report will group concerns into categories. That staff member said the congressional team that visited the office from 15 to 19 DEC - what was to be a routine two-day visit on other business - also saw the breadth of concerns being raised by employees. They included mismanagement, retaliation, waste of government resources, and lack of accountability for certain managers, he said. A spokeswoman from the benefits office said 31 DEC that administrators took swift action to correct problems when they were first raised last summer. As the review continues, the delay is affecting morale, said Kristen Ruell, an employee at the office, who has testified before Congress about her concerns. She said some employees who had made complaints were discouraged there had not been more change. "The employees think the investigation was a big joke," she said. "They think it was a big waste of time." Another employee, who asked that his name not be used because he was looking to leave his job, said he was hopeful that the delay meant the investigators were "trying to have all their ducks in a row and have a thorough investigation." [Source: Philadelphia Enquirer | Tricia L. Nadolny | Jan. 01, 2014 ++ ******************************** VARO Philadelphia Update 02 ► New Claim Incentive Program Questioned The Philadelphia VA announced a new incentive program earlier this month that rewards employees with cash and food for deciding cases quickly — a move that some employees say will encourage staff to rush claims and reject deserving applicants, once again leaving veterans struggling for benefits. For some, the program is too similar to one at the Phoenix VA hospital last year that led to patients dying while waiting for care, even as employees manipulated wait time data to collect bonuses. The new Philadelphia program is designed to push employees to clear a backlog in disability claims. The team that has processed the most claims at the end of every other week will receive a breakfast, luncheon or snack as a reward, according to an incentive fact sheet obtained by The Washington Times. Each team that hits its target of claims processed before Feb. 28 will receive a $15,000 bonus to be divided among team members. Different teams have different goals, ranging from about 400 to almost 1,000 claims processed, the fact sheet said. An employee at the Philadelphia VA facility said the program could lead to the same kind of cooked books that landed the Phoenix VA in trouble and ignited the nationwide scandal that cost the former VA secretary his job and led to vows that the department would put veterans’ needs ahead of the bureaucracy. “This is more of the same failed and lethal methods,” said the employee, who said it often takes months to properly process a claim but almost no time to deny it. The incentive plan could encourage employees to deny claims in order to clear cases quickly. The VA, though, insisted it will review the work for quality assurance, and said the Philadelphia office had a 92.8 percent accuracy rate in 2014. “The Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Regional Office (VARO) has been challenged to meet an expected level of performance to fulfill our commitment to providing timely and accurate benefits decisions to our veterans and their survivors,” the VA said in a statement. “An incentive program has been implemented to recognize team efforts that allow us to achieve exceptional performance while still maintaining quality standards.” But the Philadelphia employee feared those employees who took time to do a thorough review could be fired for not hitting processing targets. Rep. Mike Coffman, Colorado Republican, said bonuses should be given for ‘going above and beyond the call of duty, not just pushing paperwork for the appearance of statistics.’ “When you reward people for pushing paperwork, as we saw in Phoenix, you incentivize bad behavior. The VA needs to do its job, and it shouldn’t take extra taxpayer funds to get them to do that,” Mr. Coffman said in a statement. The Philadelphia VA is already under investigation for data manipulation, including hiding or shredding returned mail that could not be delivered and cherry-picking easy claims to process first to misrepresent performance, according to testimony from Linda Halladay, the assistant inspector general for audits and evaluations who appeared before the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs in October. A whistleblower alleged last year that at least 40 veterans died while waiting for care on a secret list at the Phoenix hospital. That report set off a nationwide investigation that found systemic problems across the country of data manipulation and putting bureaucracy ahead of veteran care. In response, lawmakers passed a bill that allowed veterans to seek care at private providers if they lived too far from a clinic or waited too long for an appointment. The bill also capped VA bonuses through 2024 at $360 a million a year, though it did not go so far as a House-passed proposal that would have ended all VA bonuses through 2016. A House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs staffer said it’s unclear why the VA would create a separate bonus system on top of the hundreds of millions awarded annually in employee bonuses. “This incentive plan is a typical approach for VA: Award bonuses to people for merely doing their jobs, throw money at problems without addressing their root causes, and focus on arbitrary numbers rather than quality and standards,” the staffer said. [Source: The Washington Times | Jacqueline Klimas | Jan. 12, 2015 ++] * Vets *   
Directory: wp-content -> uploads -> 2015 2015 -> Police Militarization 2015 -> 2015 ihbb championships: hs history Bowl Round 4 – Prelims First Quarter 2015 -> Wrtp/big step · 3841 W. Wisconsin Ave., Milwaukee, wi 53208 2015 -> Rao bulletin 1 December 2015 html edition this bulletin contains the following articles 2015 -> Darton College 2015 -> Training Workshop on Planning and Implementation of Multi-Sectoral Development Programme (MsDP) in Bihar Date : 6th 2015 -> Rao bulletin 15 June 2015 html edition this bulletin contains the following articles 2015 -> Rao bulletin 1 September 2015 html edition this bulletin contains the following articles 2015 -> Rao bulletin 1 August 2015 html edition this bulletin contains the following articles 2015 -> Science, and transportation united states senate Download 6.84 Mb. Share with your friends:
|