United States Department of Veteran Affairs

Improving The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs system for processing claims.

The Challenge

Overhauling a 25-year-old system to reduce backlogs and resolve veteran appeals quicker. If a veteran suffers from an injury or disability related to their military service, they can file a claim to collect money from the VA. The VA either approves, denies, or partially approves the grant, and a veteran can appeal if they disagree with the decision. About 11 to 12 percent of claims lead to appeals, and in 2017, nearly half a million appeals were sitting in a backlog.

In 2017, the system used to track and process appeals was more than 25 years old, difficult to use, and ill-equipped to deal with the increase in appeals volume. Attorneys and judges who relied on the system were frustrated. In some cases, it took them years to get to an appeal.

The Solution

Gray Co-founder Ari Perez led a team to build out Caseflow -- the replacement for the old IT system. The team administered an agile development approach to replace the older system piece by piece while building up the replacement. Caseflow is a suite of web-based tools that streamlines the appeal process for lawyers and judges in the following ways:

Helps judges prepare for hearings and accurately capture veterans’ testimony during the hearings.
Accurately and securely tracks the data of every veteran appeal that is submitted.
Provides an evidence review tool, which enables lawyers and attorneys to more efficiently review and annotate the hundreds or thousands of pages of documents they often have to review for an appeal.
Facilitates the movement of appeals decisions to ensure they are processed and completed.

The Results

Lawyers and judges are happier with the efficiency of Caseflow, and the number of mismatched documents has been reduced by 40%. Caseflow Reader is now being used by 800+ judges and attorneys at the Board of Veterans Appeals and according to USDS, 17 labor years were redirected annually.