Evaluation of Veterans' Disability Benefits Program

Veterans' Disability Benefits: Opportunities Remain for Improving Accountability for and Access to Benefits Delivery at Discharge Program 02/24/10. Although VA awards disability benefits more quickly under BDD than through its traditional disability claims process, gaps in program management and accountability remain. For example, VA does not separately measure the total time its personnel spend developing BDD claims. As a result, VA has limited information on potential problems and improvement opportunities regarding BDD claims. GAO continues to believe that VA should measure BDD development time; however, VA told GAO it has no plans to capture this information. GAO also found that VA implemented two initiatives to improve the BDD program—i.e., consolidating BDD processing in two offices and instituting paperless processing of BDD claims to increase efficiencies and improve security of information—but did not evaluate whether or the extent to which desired improvements resulted. Finally, GAO found that VA was not completely or consistently monitoring BDD operations at all locations. VA has since taken steps to review BDD operations at more sites and has revised its protocols to ensure more consistent reviews of BDD operations. GAO