Strategic Goal: Provide One VA world-class service to veterans and their families through the effective management of people, technology, processes, and financial resources. VA will operate as a veteran-focused organization that provides high quality, accessible, and timely information and service through the development and maintenance of a high-performing workforce, the application of state-of-the-art technologies, the continuous improvement of processes, and the effective allocation of dollars.

Objective: Improve VA’s overall governance and operational management, and access to benefits and services to meet or exceed the expectations of veterans and their families, while ensuring full compliance with applicable laws, regulations, and financial commitments.

Performance Goal: Process original and supplemental education claims in an average of 20 days and 13 days, respectively.

Claims processing timeliness is directly related to the volume of work received, the resources available to handle the incoming work, and the efficiency with which that work can be completed. By streamlining work processes and minimizing hold time, dramatic improvements in timeliness are achievable.

We will pursue several initiatives during the fiscal year that will significantly improve timeliness of education claims processing performance. The most important ones are briefly described below.

• Develop and install electronic data interchange/electronic funds transfer (EDI/EFT) – VA is reengineering the administration of the education programs by replacing the current system of manual eligibility and entitlement processing with an expert system, and by replacing the current system of mailing monthly benefits checks to veterans with the electronic transfer of funds directly into their bank accounts. The expert system for eligibility and entitlement processing requires electronic submission of enrollment information from training facilities to VA. The electronic transfer of education benefits will use existing commercial EFT.

• Continuity of Operations Plan – This initiative will use contractor resources to conduct a thorough review of the education processing environment in the four regional processing centers. The study will provide recommendations for maintaining operations in the event of a disaster and identify solutions that will permit a more dynamic direction of resources to concentrations of work.

• TEES (The Education Expert System) – This project is an umbrella initiative that will include changes to existing benefit payment systems; changes to VACert, the application used for electronic transmission of enrollment information, and implementation of an Internet version for the same purpose, VANetCert; development of new programs for delivery of benefits for flight, correspondence, on-the-job training, and apprenticeship training that will interface with the expert system; and implementation of a comprehensive expert system.

Achievement of this performance goal is not directly dependent on other agencies.

There are no major management challenges that will affect achievement of this performance goal.

The timeliness of education claims processing is measured using data captured automatically by the Benefits Delivery Network as a part of claims processing.

The Education Service staff confirms reported data through ongoing quality assurance reviews conducted on a statistically valid sample of cases.

(For additional information on this performance goal, refer to General Operating Expenses, Volume 4, Chapter 2C.)