Project 2025 Recommendations: What It Means for VA (VBA) Benefits?

Introduction hello and welcome back to my channel my name is Dwayne I got a video for that Kimble United States Army veteran and retired VA rating specialist today's video I'm going to be discussing project 2025 as it pertains to the recommendations for VBA veterans benefit administrations now for those of you that may not know VBA handles all of the veterans compensation so make sure you stick around you definitely don't want to miss this [Music] video okay everyone before I get into today's video project 2025 and the recommendations they have for VBA I'm only providing my opinion towards these recommendations as a former VA Raider because VA Raiders work under VBA all right now it doesn't mean Republican Democrat Democrat Republican independent I'm just providing my feedback as to what the information they're recommending okay so let's go ahead and get into it I am going to share my screen okay so this is this was a lot okay so I just went through the only piece that I'm covering is VBA right above this they have VHA and then right behind it they have HR I'm only covering VBA because this was this is what a lot of ERS have been asking me for so it took me a couple of days to kind of go through it and what I did was when you see where I have underlining in blue I'm agreeing with it things that are underlined in red I'm not agreeing with it things I have underlining in black black I'm kind of on the fence but I will explain my reason behind that okay so it says veterans benefit Administration VBA okay needed reform the most evident and ongoing concern is the complexity of benefits which can lead to confusion for the veterans and if not mitigated early in the veterans interactions long-term distrust and animosity towards a VA I'm in total agreement with that because you know what I went through this process and exactly what they said here that's what I had for years when my claim was being adjudicated by the Atlanta Regional Office okay they gave me fits Upon Time After Time After Time on things that they should have been doing per the VA regulation that they were not doing and that's what a lot of veterans are feeling now as the VA feeling as though the VA has turned their backs on them I felt the same way and I was rating at the same time okay so I'm in agree with in agreement with this particular uh statement there okay so let's keep going then we get VA Must Improve Timeliness into uh the VA must improve timeliness of claim adjudication and benefits delivered okay veterans want the V VBA to provide timely responses to requests for benefit support render empathetic customer service and understandable explanations of those benefits and deliver those benefits without frustrating delays weeks not months now I'm in agreement with that can it be done yes and it all starts with mindset management mindset leadership mindset from the top down additional training give you an example if a vet submits a DBQ dis benefit questionnaire for increase and that DBQ is actionable and sufficient and you've heard me talk about this before why is that VA employee requesting a CMP exam when they don't have to that's prolonging those claims a lot of veterans are getting dbqs done and Nexus statements look it only takes a few minutes to see if it's acable sufficient if it is it's RFD ready for decision move to the ra activity boom claim approved that's it okay but that's not happening all right now identify Identify Performance Targets performance targets for benefits report publicly on actual performance each quarter and use these measures to to drive consist an improvement now they do that I've seen it and I've shared it in a video where they break it down per regional office okay how many claims did they work okay it gives a lot of information but veterans that doesn't impact V it impacts veterans but that data what does it do for veterans now these managers the leadership they know this okay they know this so I'm kind of disagreeing with this because leadership knows it and they're not being proactive about it enough in my opinion I've seen it I worked under it you got coaches you got assistant coaches they're just pencil pushes that's all they do they just move paper from here to there they're not implementing change they don't have the ability to implement change leadership upper leadership is not giving them the ability to implement change that they know that can help Okay but this information is out there but they're not doing anything with it in my opinion okay let's keep Develop Express 30 Commitment going it says develop a new pilot Express 30 commitment for a veteran's first fully developed disability compensation claim and organized the VBA to complete the first claim in 30 days now yes this can't be done there are a lot of individuals that came from the privacy sector like myself that were trained by Fortune 500 companies in process Improvement methologies okay so Express 30 that would be something like that would be a process Improvement methology right a process Improvement a lot of individuals are certified of the six sigment guess what the leadership at the VA is not tapping in to that knowledge to come up with things like this they're waiting on a directive from DC to do this okay they always would ask employees hey do it you know fill out this survey and do this and I would put stuff in the a remark section all the time and I just stopped I just stopped because nobody was listening knocking on the door nobody was at home they didn't care they had no focus groups to bring Raiders vsrs droves together and say hey how can we help you all improve now they say they did but I never was picked I didn't even hear anybody else being picked to sit on any focus groups okay so can this be done yes I tell you what check this out I could take the top five YouTube channels that talks about VA claims process we could come together come up with some and get get and give it to the VA and say this is how you get claims done in 30 days I guarantee it they not going to listen because they think they're the only ones that know and they don't so they getting paid all this money meaning VA leadership for what okay so I'm in agree with that that and because that Hire More Private Companies can be done hire more private companies to perform disability medical examinations delays in completing the examinations could be eliminated with more external capacity I disagree with this because dbqs from private doctors push that more but I think and this is my opinion they're not pushing it because hey one of these third party contractors got a 1.5 or 1.3 or 1.5 billion dollar contract so why are you g to go out and give another 1.5 billion maybe take half of that and give some training to some private examiners across the country to do this for veterans because they don't have their finger on the post of the veterans especially as it pertains to these public dbqs on their website that veterans can use and take to their private doctor and a lot of veterans are saying a lot of negative things about these thirdparty examiners they're not listening the exam was only five minutes they didn't ask me questions all this stuff okay so why are you going to give another billion dollar contract to another private company to do the same thing and then it's going to piss more veterans off why not use that money and somehow hey you need a DBQ done from your private doctor or have more DBQ clinics like they have at the Tampa VA Medical Center here in Florida and I have a video on that as well okay Hiring Additional Staff now let's keep going hiring additional staff to process claims is costly and is inflexible and has yielded mixed results I agree with that with the number of people they have now it could be done but it all comes back to this when that claim first comes in if it is ready for decision it needs to go to the raing activity and they can knock it out no exam no other development is necessary okay and check this out here's a little secret Insider tip when I rate it guess what a lot of Raiders were sitting there emailing their coaches me included I need work can you send me some claims to rate now you may be saying Dwayne really yes we was sitting there waiting on work with the 1 million uh claim backlog and we're saying hey we need work we need work you know why because somebody some VA employees made the decision oh let's request these exams when they're not needed so Raiders are sitting there saying hey I need work from the vsrs and vssr saying oh we're requesting uh CMP exams because um we never receive training on what makes a DBQ actually more sufficient okay now some of this does fall on the veteran I must say because veterans have a tendency to send in thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of pages of evidence that has to be looked through and when that happens don't expect a quick decision on your claim all right but bottom line hiring additional people no because the learning curve you got to get them trained up but what can you do with the people you have now and the experienced people you have now okay let's keep Use Technology to Perform Work going then they going to say the best way to provide benefits faster more accurately is by using technology to perform most of the work technology currently exists in the private sector but VBA lacks the expertise to use it this would be more of an organizational challenge than a technology hurdle uh kind of on the fence with that one parts of it agree parts that don't agree um it would be a a techn uh technology hurdle because then the V employees will have to revert to being more of uh quality meaning okay let me check what the system did okay uh because the system could lowball veterans which could mean thousands of if not millions of dollars of payments not going to the veterans that should receive them and then overpayments basic mistakes as it pertains to effective dates okay all of that so somebody would have to go behind this system and check each claim to make sure that system did it right okay so is it something out there possibly I don't know I've heard of anything they didn't go into detail um as what they were talking about new technology okay better tools training and management could reduce this substantially but rule changes at the departmental level would be needed management leadership overhaul [Music] leadership overall okay they came out with vbms vbms dasr when I first started you uh rating they used RBA uh 2000 a lot of typing a lot of typing now claims are electronic where they used to be paper Okay so they're making some strides meaning VBA uh but they're slow strides all right let's keep going under budget the VA schedule for rating disabilities has assigned disability ratings to a growing number of health conditions over time some are uh continuously related or wholly unrelated to military service the further growth in presumptive service connected medical conditions pursued by Congress and veteran service organizations begun with agent or and most recently burn pits Airborne okay toxins has led to Historic increases in mandatory VBA spending and recent years yes guess what Freedom isn't free okay so a lot of veterans are up getting hurt during training combat other situations and now they're no longer active duty and they have these issues freedom is are free guess what America you got to pay for that okay so increase the budget for VA Health Care VBA whatever it is because Freedom isn't free all right let's keep going that could have been it okay no here we go Personnel pursue reforms of human Capital Management process and operations within the VBA to build a more Blended Workforce with more contractors to process claims this would free federal employees to perform other duties and be involved slowly with final decision to award benefits that is very confusing so as a VA Raider former VA Raider I'm thinking I'm like okay what are you talking about okay I think uh memory Serv me correct VBA tried this uh with a company I want to say out of Louisville Kentucky if I'm not mistaken and they were doing some pre-development and VA employees spent more time correcting those errors on top of the errors that the VA employees are already making and they shut it down real quick uh it came and went like a thief in the night Improved VBA Acquisition Workforce okay improved VBA acquisition Workforce the V needs more worldclass contractor support currently uh of the top companies have contracts with the VBA and VBA needs to conduct more Outreach to private sector through senior leadership engagement in industrial conferences okay senior leadership engagement yeah they need they need to reach out they need to bring in pafic contractors especially people that specialize in coming in improving your process like I stated earlier process Improvement they're not going to do that because they don't think their crap doesn't stink it actually it does a lot of upper managements are getting a lot of bonuses for failing okay and I'll talk about that in another video to identify more effective and efficient ways to complete claims Establish a Knowledge Exchange Program definitely establish a knowledge Exchange program with top cheer private sector companies that do similar work the VBA is fundamentally a financial services organization a significant amount of his work has private sector analog that could be leveraged to improve service to veterans that is correct all day but again and I've talked about it before private companies I work for you know three top um 500 uh companies okay and they send you the training as a manager they send you the training to get this training whether it be Six Sigma certification other process improved methologies leadership course they invest in you a lot of people that go into management at the VA they do an interview oh yeah they they're really nice and they don't rock the boat yeah let's bring them into management so guess what they go into management and what I've seen these new supervisor they flip like they never were VSR or rvsr they like well you know I'm in management now you got a conscience right the goal is still the same to get the veteran service connected all right per of va regulation Sometimes some of them seem to forget that when they become managers okay uh okay well we got some more here VBA Staff Has Limited Experience okay so uh VBA staff has limited experience or insight into current private sector tools and methods and partially because the VBA struggles to complete compete I'm sorry with the VHA for it funding okay um majority of them do have experience because guess what they were in the military now doesn't mean that they subject matter experts or they just top-notch managers but we all know veterans we have a task we're going to complete that task right some individuals they lose that when they get out of the military all right so let's keep going senior Senior Executive Leadership Needs More Innovators executive leadership needs more innovators and Trailblazers oh yes they do uh qualities that have sometimes been lacking in VBA senior ranks sometimes how about majority of the time recruiting a more uh Rel relatively knowledgeable and Tech uh techn technically Savvy team sorry I got ton tag there like I said earlier leadership overhaul every time a new Administration comes in Secretary changes then they're like oh I can do it better then they give it a year two years and they can't do nothing somebody else comes in same thought process they don't do anything then elections come around again new Administration and that cycle just starts all over and over and over again I tell you what they need they need a veteran oversight committee people that don't work for the VA they could come in and look at some things and say hey we have talked to hundreds thousands of veterans and these are the issues that they're having what is your process on that oh it's not working let's try something else and then measure that over a period of time they're not going to do it because they don't think that crap stinks they don't want nobody coming in and bust open the books and say oh all these managers you got the majority of them are useless okay let's keep going all right Robust Political Control it says along with robust political control of the VA could bring about better solutions to vba's workflow challenges no no I totally disagree with that they need overhaul and Leadership okay um the managers that want to be there they need one make the bonus incentives for managers harder to achieve what did you implement to help reduce x amount of claims that was in the backlog and they have to be able to justify that before they get a bonus okay when you do that you're G to change that mindset a lot of them that's sitting there that are roads if you're in the military you know what roads are retired on active duty you going to run them out because they like you know what I'm not performing raise those performance standards for leadership just like you do for VA employees the production quota you're always raising those always raising raise those performance standards for those assistant coaches coaches assistant service center managers service center managers and regional office and I guarantee you you're gonna see a lot of people leaving because now you're holding them accountable and the ones that stay invest in them okay if they don't get it right get them up out of there all right so that's pretty much it Danny talks about human resources and administration so I know that was a lot make sure you go out and check it out okay I only covered VBA and again I'm only giving my opinion as a former VA employee as what these recommendations are I agreed with some and some I did not but at the end of the Leadership Overhaul day does VBA leadership needs to overhaul yes okay they got to get rid of them bonuses or if you don't decide to get rid of them say hey you didn't you didn't perform you didn't do anything you don't get a bonus and I guarantee you that mindset should change to say okay I'm here to manage this problem how can I do that all right give them some training and then put together some Matrix if they don't perform then they're no longer managers but it starts with the leadership all right so that being said make sure you like subscribe hit that notification button and as always share this video with your fellow veterans thank you