FOR RELEASE:  August 24, 2002

Evans Urges VA to Make Consistent, Correct Decisions on Veterans Claims for Benefits
Veterans Question Low Average Benefits to Illinois Disabled Veterans

Washington, DC – Lane Evans (D-IL), the Ranking Democratic Member of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, is urging the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to make correct and consistent decisions on veterans’ claims for benefits.  Evans’ call for improved consistency follows his receipt of a report from the General Accounting Office (GAO) titled “Quality Assurance for Disability Claims and Appeals Processing Can Be Further Improved.”  Evans requested the report.   

In its report, GAO notes the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) projected “that the average compensation payments per disabled veteran in fiscal year 2002 would range from a low of $5,783 in one state to a high of $9,444 in another state.”  Noting that the highest average annual benefits are paid to Maine disabled veterans and the lowest to Illinois disabled veterans, Evans stated “I cannot believe that Illinois disabled veterans are so significantly less disabled than Maine veterans.

According to the GAO, “VA does not assess consistency between decisions made by regional offices and the Board [of Veterans Appeals] even though evidence suggests this issue may warrant VA’s attention.”  According to GAO, a 1997 VA analysis found a significant number of decisions were decided differently by the regional offices and the Board of Veterans Appeals (the Board) based upon the same evidence.  According to Evans, such inconsistencies in VA benefits decision-making prompt veterans and their advocates to question if their claims are being fairly considered.  Without an analysis of the kinds of claims in which the same evidence is interpreted differently by different adjudicators, it may be impossible for VA to improve its consistency in decision-making. 

Evans noted that VA has implemented a successful Decision Review Officer (DRO) program in which regional office DRO staff are permitted to allow a denied claim based upon the same evidence considered by the original rating staff.  While DRO’s are directed to provide feedback to the original decision maker, Evans believes that much could be learned by a systematic analysis of common issues involving claims for conditions such as musculoskeletal conditions, psychiatric problems such as PTSD and other commonly disabling conditions. 

According to the GAO report, none of the “quality review efforts of either VBA or the Board are designed to systemically assess the degree to which veterans with similar medical conditions and circumstances may be receiving different decisional outcomes or to help identify steps that could reduce such variation if necessary.”  “This analysis is needed,” Evans said and that “without such analysis it is not possible to determine if the wide discrepancies in payments between low benefit amount states such as Illinois and payments to high benefit amount states such as Maine are due to real differences in level of disability or other factors, like inconsistent decision-making.”  

Evans noted that Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony J. Principi “has agreed that consistency is an important goal, and the Department has work to do to achieve it.”  VA believes, however, that consistency can be attained by improved training and supervision programs without the systemic analysis recommended by GAO.   Evans urges the VA to perform the systemic analysis recommended by GAO in order to assure that VA’s training and supervision efforts are targeted to the most error prone decisions.

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