Review of Alleged Data Manipulation at the VA Regional Office Little Rock, Arkansas

On July 11, 2014, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) received an anonymous allegation that staff at the Little Rock VA Regional Office (VARO) inappropriately applied the Veterans Benefits Administration’s (VBA) Fast Letter 13-10, “Guidance on Date of Claim Issues,” dated May 20, 2013. The complainant alleged that adjusting the dates of claims was done to give the appearance that VBA was making more progress than it actually had in eliminating its backlog of disability claims. On June 27, 2014, the Under Secretary for Benefits suspended use of Fast Letter 13-10 after the OIG determined staff were misapplying the guidance at another VARO. We had previously reported to the Under Secretary for Benefits that the guidance was used inappropriately to adjust dates of claims for unadjudicated claims discovered in the files. Changes to veterans’ claims were made to process old mail instead of unadjudicated claims information found in the files. We substantiated the allegation that Little Rock VARO staff adjusted dates of claims for unadjudicated claims discovered in the files; however, staff did so in compliance with VBA Fast Letter guidance in effect at that time. We reviewed documentation on 48 unadjudicated claims that VARO staff located in claims folders from May 22, 2013, through June 20, 2014. Staff adjusted the dates of claim for all 48 cases we reviewed, resulting in the claims having more current dates than the dates they were initially received within VA. Staff we interviewed raised concerns that the use of this guidance led to providing veterans with incorrect information on claims processing timeliness. The application of this guidance was also considered inconsistent with VBA standard policy requiring use of the earliest date that a document is stamped as received at a VA facility as the date of claim. Staff typically process claims in their workloads by claim type and age, generally working the oldest claims first. This VARO maintained records of the changes made to veterans’ claims per the requirements in the guidance. To mitigate the potentially adverse effect the date adjustments would have on veterans’ benefits, Little Rock VARO staff took the initiative to develop a spreadsheet to track all unadjudicated claims found in the claims folders where dates of claims were changed. This action provided VARO managers with assurance that staff could easily identify the claims and initiate required development actions. Based on our review, we concluded that adjusting the dates of aging claims to more recent “discovered” dates resulted in a lack of assurance that staff would expedite processing of the discovered unadjudicated claims, further delaying benefits decisions for veterans. Adjusting the dates of claims also misrepresented the time required for VARO staff to process the claims, potentially making performance look better than it actually was. In order to minimize confusion or misinterpretation of guidance for future claims processing, we recommended that VBA maintain a standard, universal policy for establishing dates of claims. In a memo, received January 8, 2015, the Under Secretary for Benefits (USB) concurred with our recommendation and reported VBA terminated the use of FL 13-10, effective June 27, 2014. The memo also indicated all VARO staff had been instructed to immediately follow the permanent procedural guidance found in VBA’s governing directives for all claims, to include “found” claims. However, as outlined in this report, we concluded that VBA did not take action to terminate FL 13-10 until January 22, 2015. Further, we remain concerned that VBA’s permanent guidance related to dates of claims continues to provide for an exception that allows VARO staff to use a later date of claim, despite having evidence that an earlier date of claim exists.