Inspection of VA Regional Office San Juan, PR

The Benefits Inspection Program conducts onsite inspections at VA Regional Offices to review disability compensation claims processing and Veterans Service Centers operations. The San Juan Regional Office management team faces challenges in providing quality benefits and services to veterans, to include improving the quality of formal benefits decisions. At the end of March 2009, the VARO had the lowest accuracy associated with these decisions in the nation at 60 percent. Also, the Regional Office did not meet the requirements in 10 of the 15 operational areas reviewed. The Regional Office management team needs to provide additional management oversight and training for responsible personnel in processing claims identified as diabetes, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and traumatic brain injury (TBI). The management team also needs to improve controls over the following areas: Correcting errors identified by the Veterans Benefits Administration’s (VBA) Systematic Technical Accuracy Reviews (STAR), completing Systematic Analysis of Operations (SAO) accurately and timely, safeguarding veterans’ personally identifiable information (PII), safeguarding VARO date stamps, handling claims-related mail, responding to electronic inquiries, and processing fiduciary activities. We recommend that the VARO improve oversight of the quality assurance process for the operational areas found lacking. We also recommend the VARO ensure mandatory PTSD training modules are completed. The Director of the San Juan Regional Office concurred with all recommendations but offered qualifications and commentary on some issues. We have responded to each of management’s assertions in the report. Management’s planned actions are responsive and we will follow-up as required on all actions.