Veterans waited longer for benefits through St. Pete office, VA finds

The Tampa Tribune / TBO.com

Military News

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Veterans who filed benefits claims at the St. Petersburg Regional Office waited longer in 2014 because claims materials weren’t prepared properly, a Department of Veterans Affairs report says.

Inspectors also found that personal information was inadequately stored at a contractor scanning center, posing a risk of identity theft, according to the report by the VA Office of Inspector General.

Because of the problems, the average wait time at the St. Petersburg office increased from 152 days in June 2014 to 179 days the following December, the report says.

Investigators found a backlog of nearly 1,600 boxes and 42,000 packages sent by mail, with each package containing an unspecified number of individual claims, the report says.

This “significant backlog of unpressed veteran material” was the result of “inefficient preparation and handling of veteran-provided documentation” at a Noonan, Georgia, contractor center operated by CACI International, the report says.

The problem was in part the result of poor handling of the veterans’ materials by the St. Petersburg office, the report says.

Inspectors, acting on a tip from employees, checked a sample of 20 unprocessed claims and found it was taking an average of 30 days to process them — far longer than the five days called for in CACI’s contract.

Some were more than 30 days old, the report says.

The scanning is part of an effort by the VA’s Veterans Benefits Administration to make the claims process more efficient by eliminating paper and storing all records digitally.

One reason for the problem, according to inspectors, is that paper claims from the St. Pete office and other offices were disorganized and not ready for scanning when they reached the contractor, the report says.

Inside boxes, inspectors found “commingled loose papers with sensitive information for multiple veterans along with other unrelated VA hardcopy documents, such as blank forms, that were not considered claims evidence.”

The boxes needed to be returned to the St. Pete office, the report says.

The report includes an image of a poorly packed box, noting that it violates standards.

Another problem was a large increase of veterans’ claims shipped from the St. Petersburg office to the CACI scanning center as the office began the transition to the paperless system, the report says.

There was an increase of nearly tenfold in unprocessed veteran claims materials shipped from St. Petersburg to the CACI center between November 2014 and January 2015, when 1,600 boxes were received.

In an email statement to the Tribune, the VA said it “is committed to providing all eligible Veterans, Servicemembers, and Survivors with their earned care and benefits.

“The Under Secretary for Benefits concurred with the two recommendations presented in the OIG report, and marked improvements have been made in the processing of mail since the 2014 time period defined in the report.”

Officials from CACI International were not immediately available for comment. CACI, with headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, and operations in Tampa and around the world, is an information and services company that contracts with the federal government.

In addition, inspectors observed “a significant amount” of paper claims material, including personal and health information, improperly stored at the CACI scanning center, the report says.

The report says, “Despite VA’s information security requirements, in the contractor facility’s rear storage areas, we observed a large amount of hard copy sensitive veteran information haphazardly commingled with contractor company documentation, excess office furniture, and empty computer boxes that appeared to be trash.”

The report blames inadequate VA oversight, saying the claims are “potentially vulnerable to loss, theft, and misuse to include identity theft or fraud.”

The Office of Inspector General recommended the under secretary for benefits ensure that the St. Petersburg office is consistent in organizing and mailing veterans’ material and that the office director is held accountable for compliance.

The inspector general also recommends onsite reviews of the CACI center.

Officials with the Veterans Benefit Administration agreed with the findings and recommendations but rejected the finding that poor preparation and handling of the boxes contributed to the backlog.

The administration did not provide specific reasons for the backlog, according to the report, but did say that 40 percent of the storage boxes at the scanning site were already scanned and awaiting shipment to off-site storage.

Officials also agreed that the contractor improperly stored veteran materials at the scanning center but disagreed with the finding that materials were not secure, the report says.

As a result of the inspection, the Veterans Benefit Administration took several steps. It increased the number of site visits, provided more detailed instructions for site audits, and authorized an onsite government staff member for each contractor scanning site, according to the report.

Officials added that they have set up new detailed shipping instructions for all regional offices. Those changes “should reduce mail backlog further without the need to divert claims processing staff to mail management,” the Veterans Benefit Administration said, according to the report.