Contra Costa Times- VA must clean up mess in Oakland regional office
Staff Report
Oakland, CA,
May 14 -
It seems the Coliseum's rowdy section during Raiders games is not the only "black hole" in Oakland. The regional office of the Veterans Affairs has earned that moniker from California veterans who must deal with it.
To hear them tell it, the office is where valid benefits claims go to die, or at least to languish.
That characterization seems more than fair after reading an audit report of the Oakland office conducted by the VA's inspector general. The report blisters the office, which is responsible for processing veterans benefit claims from Bakersfield to the Oregon border.
We find the audit results nothing short of outrageous on at least two fronts. Not only is the Oakland office far slower than the national average in handling claims, its accuracy rate once it finally gets around to it is abysmal.
As of April, the average wait on a benefits claim in the Oakland regional office is 320 days. The VA's national target for handling such claims is 180 days and the national average is 241 days, according to number supplied by Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton.
Moreover, it took an average of 125 days for an Oakland VA employee to even first look at a veteran's claim.
Even more alarming, when the auditors analyzed 60 random cases in two major categories -- temporary full disability evaluations and traumatic brain injury claims -- they found that the office incorrectly processed the claims in 33 of the cases. That is more than half.
This is simply unacceptable. It cannot be tolerated.
The Oakland office has 269 full-time employees to handle the 32,500 pending claims. The audit report says that the local office agrees with the inspector general's findings and that its management has been "responsive" to recommendations made.
In other words, they are working on it.
We have heard that before, but the claim is buttressed by a letter sent to Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Napa, from the undersecretary of veterans affairs for benefits. In it, she outlined an aggressive program involving intense and widespread retraining of case workers, additional oversight from higher management levels, a shifting of some processing to other VA offices so that the Oakland office can catch up on its caseload as well as the assignment of a new director for the Oakland office.
All of these seem reasonable and prudent, albeit belated, steps.
It is nice to finally see some action, but, as the audit details, the 10 oldest claims in the Oakland office have been pending between 1,040 and 3,187 days. Let us help with that math. That is between 2.8 and 8.7 years. As long as those cases exist, we have a difficult time calling the office "responsive."
It is doubly frightening to know that the VA nationwide faces a tsunami of claims in the next few years as our members of the armed forces return home from Afghanistan.
The time is now to give the veterans of our region not only the treatment they deserve, but the treatment and respect they have earned.