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VA Office of Inspector General
Claims storage filing area at the VA Regional Office in Winston-Salem, N.C.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has been dogged for years by complaints that the claims process is painfully slow. Now, a recent inspection by the VA Office of Inspector General shows exactly how difficult it can be to physically manage the volume of those cases.
At the VA's Winston-Salem Regional Office in North Carolina, an estimated 37,000 claims folders had been stored on top of file cabinets, according to the Inspector General's report released last week. Those piles had been stacked two feet high and two rows deep. The file cabinets were so close to each other that drawers could not be opened completely. More files had been stored in boxes on the floor and stacked along the wall.
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A load-bearing study found that the weight of the files exceeded the floor's capacity by 39 pounds per square foot.
"The excess weight of the stored files has the potential to compromise the structural integrity of the sixth floor of the facility," said the Inspector General report. "We noticed floors bowing under the excess weight to the extent that the tops of file cabinets were noticeably unlevel throughout the storage area."
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Inspectors found that the filing system had created an "unsafe environment" for employees; one worker suffered a minor shoulder injury in 2011 when folders fell from a filing cabinet. The filing system also put the records at risk, potentially exposing them to fire and water damage as well as loss and misplacement.
The inspection of the office was conducted in May as part of a nationwide effort to evaluate regional offices.
The Winston-Salem Regional Office, with 680 employees, serves more than 770,000 veterans in North Carolina. The state is home to six military installations, including Fort Bragg and Camp Lejeune, which rank sixth and eighth, respectively, in the largest number of discharges in the country.
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Staff at the office began having trouble storing files in 2005 when that location, as part of a national initiative, started collecting and processing disability claims prior to a service member's discharge. The office was one of two regional centers in the country to handle such cases, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Staff tried to transfer or retire 50,000 files in recent years, as well request more storage space. The office was denied extra room because of a lack of money and few external storage options.
Courtesy Winston-Salem Regional VA Office
Filing cabinets at the Winston-Salem Regional VA Office in a photo provided to NBC News on August 14, 2012.
In June, after learning that the floor load exceeded capacity, the office removed all folders sitting on file cabinets and placed them on separate floors. The office also intends to purchase a high-density file system for the basement, which will cost an estimated $405,000.
"We are on track to comply with (the report's) recommendations," the Department of Veterans Affairs said in a statement to NBC News.
VA is working with the Department of Defense to create an integrated electronic medical record that could be used between both agencies, but it will not launch until at least 2017.
Rebecca Ruiz is a reporter at NBC News. Follow her on Twitter here.
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I have to say it really amazzes me that we can't find the funds to improve the veterans programs and hire staff and people that can do a decent job. It amazzes me that we can't hire enough people to take the stress offof our VA reps,doctors and hospital staff and outpatient clinic staff
We can fine the funds in the amount of 450 million to clean up VietNam and even more money to pay them disability but there is none to find so the government can keep its bargin of the best health care in the world
The prob;em is we vets need to start screaming more at our politicians instead of each other . I fired off three letters to day and if I find a facebook page I post on there
The VA in Nashville is stacked up just as bad. The problem with dealing with these VA people is that they
know everything and you can't tell them anything. Everyone else is stupid and they are freakin' geniuses.
I had a DRO (decision review officer) tell me that the VA is a social program: welfare for veterans, free
money handouts. Think that has anything to do with why they just don't care?
Fred, your DRO needs some military experience. I'd be glad to help you boxed him up and airdrop him to a noncombat zone like Pakistan. I'll even provide him with a complementary uniform.
Oh, one more thing: see those files with the blue tape on them? That means that those files have numbers that end with 50 to 59. Makes you wonder just how big a stack 00-49 and 60-99 make.
North Carolina should handle the problem like the Alabama VA office in Montgomery does; shred the files and tell the vet they don't what happened to them, St Louis lost them, or my personal favorite, they were burned up in the 1970 St Louis fire (I've been told that; odd I was in 4th grade in 1970, maybe they meant my GI Joe's file).
Sometimes I'm puzzled by stories about government agencies that spend taxpayer's money on conferences or superfluous activities. Then I get angry over stories like this. I'm a veteran and luckily I haven't had to rely on my government for much. Apparently it's a good thing that I have no faith in anything the government promises me. When I joined, the draft was still pulling men in off the street and forcing them to serve. We were paid virtually slave wages (E-1 made $109 a month, an E-4 made $287 a month, add combat and jump pay and you were making almost enough to buy a used car, maybe). But I was promised veteran benefits...of course I wasn't counting on that, but it was a promise. I haven't used any benefits and don't plan on it, but I believe as deeply as I can believe in anything that I was lied to.
Commentators spew copious volumes of opinion regarding which party did or didn't do this, that, or another thing. The fact boils down to a simple philosophic concept...America sucks! Americans suck, their lives suck, their attitude about virtually everything sucks. It's only the fact that after World War Two the United States was the only economy untouched by the war that it was able to imprint itself on the rest of the world. Surely America has done good things, but it has lost it's way and has drifted into a moral decay and lack of purpose.
America has become a nation of convenience, it's attitudes and opinions shaped by whatever fashionable fade or current headlines that flashes across the television. A nation on the verge of economic collapse consumed by the pursuit of the newest mobile telephone or fashion shoes while millions live at near poverty levels. I believe in capitalism and free market forces, but it doesn't matter what system you believe in if your moral compass is skewed.
I apologize for this long diatribe, but what is wrong with us isn't the fault of one administration or another, not even successive political sea changes, but the fault lies deep within ourselves. We have devolved into our own worse enemy. Almost as if we had developed antibodies to ourselves and our national consciousness was attacking itself, we've developed a national case of socio-political AIDS.
I apologize to all the AIDS suffers for using the AIDS analogy, but the analogy fits. Worse yet, I feel a deep sense of shame and sorrow for the generations to follow. This isn't going to fix itself, it isn't just going to go away. We worry about landfills, re-cycling, saving some tiny little fish in the Pacific NorthWest, but we can't seem to find a way to save ourselves.
This is our screwed up government in operation. We spend billions on foreign aid, parties for GSA employees, importing wolves from Canada, throwing millions down the tube on Solindra-the list goes on and on.
We need to throw out of office all incumbents and have TERM Limits. It is a disgrace.
Now I know why my claim is still at that Sorry *%%*(% facility and they give my Congressman some stupid excuse that they have back log. Yeah I bet they do with a filing system like that. It is really pathetic that this is how we are handled when it comes to the VA, The government could have given them a better system to file our files and not this. WOW
Folks this problem started way before 2005. This Winston-Salem Regional Office is the absolute worst in the country. The antiquated system they are using hasn't been changed since 1945! The lousy so-called "service center manager" Pfanzelter is an incompetent joke who should have been fired years ago. Still worse is the fact that they blew through 5 million dollars last year at some lavish resort in Nevada or Florida or somewhere; supposedly on some sort of "training" camp. That's why they're now under investigation. Do you really believe that NO ONE at the VA has thought of the idea of digitizing these files? The VA could have fixed this problem YEARS ago; had they wanted to. Back when Togo West was head of the VA they hired hundreds of people just to handle the backlogs of claims. We're talking at least 20 years ago. Yet that is STILL the main excuse they use when a vet calls or writes to inquire about their claim; the same old tired lame excuse that "we're backlogged or we're hampered by workload constraints". The fact is that the VA does not want to fix this problem. If the VA became more efficient that would probably put thousands of their lazy do-nothing employees out of a job. The problem starts at the top folks. Unless and until the VA gets a director who is more than a politically appointed "yes man" problems like these are going to persist. All we vets can do is continue to fight them tooth and nail.