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The PACT Act is the most significant expansion of Veteran benefits in generations, providing care and benefits to millions of Veterans exposed to burn pits, Agent Orange, and other toxic substances.
The passage of the PACT Act made the need to modernize our benefits systems even more urgent. It required adding new features and functionality to provide VA employees with the tools they needed to provide more benefits to more Veterans than ever before, while maintaining accuracy. The sheer demand on our technical infrastructure was substantial, and delivering on this ambitious legislation required an equally ambitious modernization effort.
Progress on Our 5-Year Plan
To deliver on the promise of the PACT Act, we started by developing a 5-year Benefits IT Modernization Plan, which we delivered to Congress in March 2023, as required by the PACT Act.
Last month, we delivered the 2024 Addendum to The Department of Veterans Affairs 5-Year Benefits Systems Modernization Plan (PDF, 2.9MB, 121 pages), which highlights the work we’ve done so far and looks ahead to the work that remains.
While we’re encouraged by the progress we’ve made as a team, this is not a one-and-done effort. We must aggressively prioritize and continue to pursue IT modernization that ensures we’re supporting systems that enable Veterans, their families, and their survivors to access the benefits and services on which they depend.
We’ve spent the last two years working across VA to accelerate the timeline for planned systems modernization, and we’ve made tremendous progress against our 5-year roadmap. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2023, VA focused on 70 modernization efforts, resulting in the enhancement of 40 systems in a highly compressed timeframe. As of August 2024, VA has 147 modernization efforts underway and is on track to continue accelerating advancements year over year.
The impact of these efforts is perhaps best represented by some of our successes in benefits and health care administration and delivery:
- More than 796,000 Veterans have enrolled in VA health care since the PACT Act was signed into law — a nearly 37% increase over the previous equivalent period.
- VA has received 4,838,631 claims for disability benefits (including 1,932,310 claims with PACT Act conditions) in the past two years — 42.3% more than the two prior fiscal years.
- As of January 11, 2025, VA has approved 1,461,759 PACT Act claims and awarded more than $8.9 billion in backdated benefits since the bill was signed into law.
- 913,459 Veterans have upgraded their priority groups, making them eligible for care with fewer copays.
- VA processed over 2.5 million claims in FY 2024.
- On September 25, 2024, VA processed a record 11,052 claims in a single day.
A Glimpse into Our Modernization Focus
VA hired new employees to help process the influx of claims, but this wasn’t enough. We also needed to provide digital solutions to help claims processors decide claims more efficiently, while enhancing the customer experience. Rising to this challenge required us to create additional functionality to support VA employees and end users.
Making It Easier for Veterans to Apply
VA Profile enhancements on VA.gov reduced manual data entry for Veterans by integrating known contact information and prepopulating data where possible. In addition, during call center phone conversations, VA employees received automatic “helpful hints” about missing information via a chatbot, prompting the employee to seek the relevant information or ask pertinent questions.
Improving Employee Training
Aggressive hiring called for an equally robust effort to improve training. We sped up onboarding by upgrading the VA Training Academy (ACAD) Environment in 2023 to establish a 2-week start cadence for training in the Veterans Benefits Management System (VBMS), the system VA employees use to process claims. We also enhanced the ACAD environment to mirror the production environment, using data that reproduces what new claims processors would see in an actual claims experience. In addition, we added a new capability to help new employees practice more complex claims and those with higher error rates to prepare them for the challenges they would face in the field. We remain clear-eyed on additional training needs to further improve the timeliness and accuracy of claims processing.
Enabling the Workflow of Claims Submissions and Decisions
As disability compensation claims are submitted, the workload must be balanced among VA regional offices. Modernization began in 2023 to address system limitations within the VBMS National Work Queue — the part of VBMS that assigns work and enables an increased claims load. Our re-architecture of the VBMS National Work Queue will improve claims management and on-demand distributions of claims to and from the field, which enables better workload distribution.
Decision Support for Claims Processors
We updated human physiological systems and calculators to remove risk of using outdated evaluations on claims. We added automatic “helpful hints” and reminders for claims processors when they encounter a complex claim. VA also rolled out a new summary document that indexes all the information and provides claims processors with a recommendation rating. The ultimate rating decision is always with the claims processor, but these tools help them locate and review the relevant evidence efficiently.
Foundational Work in Systems Modernization
We increased system capacity to handle the load of incoming enrollments and claims by moving VBMS to the cloud, which helped its resiliency and responsiveness. We increased our use of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to assist developers in creating new technologies faster and with greater built-in security. In essence, APIs provide a jumpstart for developers to begin their work. We also decommissioned several legacy systems, reducing VA’s system maintenance and security surface area and freeing up resources.
Improvements in Data and Data Usage
We’ve significantly improved our ability to leverage a wealth of Veteran data. By integrating data from separate systems and cross-referencing information from sources outside VA, a more complete picture of the Veteran is now available. This includes centralized and consolidated data for Veteran demographics, service, deployments, medals, awards, contact information, and Congressional district. This centralization of data allows VA to identify new opportunities for outreach to Veterans, whether for PACT Act or for future expansions of care and benefits.
Our “One VA” Approach
Our “One VA” approach to collaboration paved the way for all these wins. The foundational work outlined in the 2024 Addendum allowed us to achieve the first set of desired outcomes on our roadmap. With this foundation in place, we’re ready to continue growing VA’s ability to serve Veterans faster, more accurately, and more equitably while enabling our partners across VA to deliver a world-class customer experience. Working alongside so many Veterans, we’ve seen firsthand how impactful our modernization efforts have been to the community VA serves.
Millions of Veterans and survivors have already begun receiving benefits as a result of this historic law. VA is continuing to conduct the largest outreach campaign in our history with one goal: ensuring all Veterans and their survivors get the health care and benefits they deserve under the PACT Act.
If you’re a Veteran who served this country at home or abroad during Vietnam, the Gulf War, Iraq, or Afghanistan or a survivor of a Veteran, please visit VA.gov/PACT or call 1-800-698-2411 to learn more and apply today.
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