Transcripts For CSPAN Hearing 20240703

You can finish watching this program on our website, c span. Org as we take you bye to a house hearing examining recent glitches in the va website. Ineffective payments to veterans and their survivors. You are watching live coverage on cspan3. Were here today to challenge the problems on the va. Gov. Va aggressively both a va. Gov over the past five years. Today it is more than website. It is a platform for veterans to access the care and benefits that they have earned. I agree the veterans should be able to manage their healthcare and benefits online. Rather than waiting on hold with a call center to do everything. But to perform all those functions va. Gov now interfaces with most of the systems we have discussed in previous hearings. Those systems and interfaces have significant bugs and some of them are simply obsolete. Va. Org has gaps and veterans falling into those gaps. Nearly 100,000 veterans, that we know of have been struggling with the va. Org bugs to access their benefits. In some cases, these problems have been happening for years. Va officials only recently discovered and disclosed it. In january, va notified the committee that 32,000 veterans disability compensation claims submitted through the website had been rejected. This had been happening since 2018. The website did not alert the veterans that an error had happened. They thought that everything was normal. This is unbelievable. They just chalked it up to the va being slow on the delivery of their benefits. They never even called or complained about it. That is how bad the va reputation is. The website did not alert them a error had happened. They thought everything was normal. It took the va seven months to send letters to notify them. Last month, as a tender file deadline under the pact act was approaching, about 5600 veterans received their messages when they tried to submit on the website. The va initially had no idea what was even happening or that it was happening. On top of that, more than 56,000 veterans requested to add or remove dependence on the va. Org and its predecessor were not process. Causing them to be overpaid or underpaid. This has been happening all the way back to 2011. The 56,000 is just an estimate and the department is still trying to come up with a plan on how to address the situation. Each of these four incidents was somewhat different. They indicate a troubling pattern. Were going to get to the bottom of what happened and whether the glitches extend and be on the benefits functions of va. Org and into other areas. This is the situation where the va is badly in need of independent oversight. The veterans need to know that our witnesses have thoroughly investigated the extent of the problems and this is not just the tip of the iceberg. The impacted veterans also need to hear from va much more quickly. Months and years is completely unacceptable. Seven months to mail letters to the veterans whose claims were rejected as unacceptable. The veterans who depend on updates for the process deserve immediate help. When the Va Central Office gets around to it, that is not an acceptable response. Va. Org is vital and we need to make sure it is built on a solid foundation. I appreciate our witnesses joining us to today to discuss how we are going to do just that. With that, i would yield to ranking mentor member for your Opening Statement. Thank you for the witnesses to be here today. Va. Org is the primary portal to access the care and benefits they have earned through their service to our country. It is concerning when we hear that there is an issue with the website. Especially when congress learns of three major issues in less than one month. In august va. Org failed to keep up with what we all knew was going to be a massive influx of disability claims. Veterans had intel 11 59 on august 9th to submit their claims or intent to file a claim associated with the p. A. C. T. Act to have any potential benefits backdated to when the bill was signed in august of 2022. Va received so many submissions that it broke the website ability to process them. Veterans began receiving error messages that cause confusion about whether the claim had been received or not. Earlier this month we learned that over 56,000 veterans were potentially negatively impacted by the failure to process veterans dependence that is update. And that it took v8 over a decade to recognize and fix this issue. Va still does not have a full understanding of the impacts of this issue on veterans in which veterans were affected. In the same notification, we also learned that there is an issue with va. Org that has been preventing veterans from being able to appeal their claim decision, which is their right. I understand that va claims these issues affect a small percentage of veterans. We owe it to our veterans to ensure they have access to functional and Reliable Technology to access their care and benefits. I do want to say thank you to secretary del benny and secretary jacobs for that level of transparency they have provided on the recent issues with the va. Org. I am not an i. T. Expert. I wont pretend that i fully understand the Technology Aspects of the issue. I do understand how they are impacting vendors. I appreciate the office of information and technology. Seems to be hyper focused on not only getting these identified issues fixed but establishing a process to ensure that any future issues are identified and fixed more quickly. I am happy to hear this and will work with the chairman to ensure that we hold you to it. While we are talking about va. Org, i want another issue with the website. Compliance with section 508 of the rehabilitation act of 1973, it continues to be an issue with vas website. We have raised this issue repeatedly with va and we continue to hear that va. Org fails to meet the needs of blind and low vision veterans. This is disappointing, especially as many of these veterans lost their vision due to conditions attributed to their military service. We owe them the same level of access as their sighted colleagues. I hope to hear from todays witnesses about a plan to ensure that this resource is available to all veterans equally. I look forward to todays testimony and i yield back. Thank you. Two thank you, p. A. C. T. Mr. Control or any other members of the data subcommittee be permitted to participate. Without objection, so ordered. I will now introduce the witnesses on our first and only panel today. We have assistant secretary for information of technology del benny. We have Charles Worthington. And finally have the executive director of the office of business integration in the better and benefits administration but i asked the witness to please stand and raise your right hands. Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to provide is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Thank you and let the record reflect that all the witnesses have answered in the affirmative. Mr. Del benny, you are now recognized to deliver your Opening Statement on behalf of the panel. Good afternoon. Tonic for the opportunity to testify about department of Veterans Affairs va. Org website. I am accompanied today by mr. Charles worthington, the chief Technology Officer and ray tell us executive director of the office of integration from the Veterans Benefits administration. As this committee is aware of from our numerous meetings since my confirmation va is committed to providing Exceptional Care services and seamless unified experience to our veterans. Vas office of information and technology cooperates with various offices to achieve this mission with the delivery of stateoftheart technology, including va. Org and modernize website with the digital front door. Nearly 14 million unique veteran and others use va. Org each month to access information about the services and benefits provided by the department. In august, we had over 19 million unique users. In healthcare space in particular we are an Industry Leader in our veterans uses of the healthcare portal. The website is designed with a clear and intuitive navigation menu enabling users to quickly find the information that they need. Va. Org is one of the most and i guess a comprehensive digital experience that provides veterans of single location to learn about, apply for use and manage their va healthcare benefits. Since is relaunch in 2018, va. Org has seen dramatic growth. Both with users and the breath of Services Offered on the platform. There is numerous features to va. Org during antigrowth period. For example, veterans can now apply for caregiver benefit, request a debt waiver and reviewed their debt and copayment balances, schedule healthcare appointment and check in for those appointments on the day of service. Integrating the legacy systems into va. Org is not without its challenges. As we actively notify on september 5th, va uncovered several technical issues impacting a small percentage of the website traffic we are working very hard to address. I want to make it clear that despite the limited scope of these issues, we view these problems is unacceptable. We deeply apologize to the impacted veterans. We are working relentlessly to ensure no veteran is negatively impacted by these technical issues and ensuring veterans receive effective dates and respect their original submission timeline and for giving any overpayment that that may have been created due to the technical mistakes. Moving forward, the department is taking immediate steps to prevent these issues or issues like this from happening in the future. Va will resolve these issues and prevent them from happening again and addressing more quickly when needed. Most importantly, make sure that all impacting veterans get the better of services they deserve as quickly as possible. Chairman rosen dell and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear today. Va. Org is one of the most important initiatives and we have made a great deal of progress amid tremendous growth and capability. We look forward to continuing to work with a subcommittee to address our greatest priorities and the challenges we face in our digital transformation. We value your commitment and support for our veterans. This concludes my testimony and we look forward to answering your questions. Thank you, mr. Delbene. Your statement will be entered into the hearing record. We will now proceed to questioning and i recognize myself for five minutes. Mr. Delbene, at least 94,500 veteran benefits have been delayed or disrupted because of the va. Org problems. I understand you are proud of the website with the veterans that use it. Misses 94,500 veterans and their families whose personal finances may be disrupted or who may be waiting for months or years, as we have heard in the record already, for disability compensation. Mr. Delbene, do you believe there is an acceptable error rate in va. Org. If so, what would you define as an acceptable error rate. Atomic for the question. I dont think the is anything acceptable to have errors that occur on the website that are processed in a way that assures their intent. By that, in many places i think we have challenges that were working on is when an error occurs in the system, make sure he gets passed off to human being who can do the right thing in most cases. In that sense, i dont think there is an acceptable error rate. More particularly, i think every air that does occur because of software, errors will occur. We need to fix those errors and we need to make sure a veteran is handling the appropriate way what concerns me the most about the va. Gov is that it took years to notice that i want to hear about your internal review emma causes. First and foremost, how will you approve your ability to detect and solve these problems in realtime . Thanks for the question but im going to passes 12 Charles Worthington and have him take that one on. Tonic for the question. We are working right now to create too great a review of each of the products so we can get a realtime sense of the error rates with all of the downstream services to deliver that future. Something that we learn as result of this incident as we did not have a fast enough ability to identify these issues as they occurred. That is what we are focused on with this First Priority of Getting Better monitoring. We made a lot of process progress on we announce that to you all. All the benefit application forms are in this dashboard with a great sense of what the success rate of each of those actions are. We view that that the time that it took the va to identify these problems is unacceptable. We are working hard to make sure that does not happen again. Mr. Worthington, as you answer these questions. We will identify four areas that have extensive problems and delays. Which ones are you addressing first . And exactly how are you working how many people do you have focused on those tasks . This is a top priority of our va. Gov team to get a sense of health of each of those products. Weve got to stand up with a dozen or more folks talking about the progress in increasing the monitoring of the systems. As i mentioned, the benefits application forms are already monitored and paying a lot of attention to the Health Enrollment form, which is the upcoming deadline of september 30th for the special enrollment period. We are seeing positive results with that. As mr. Delbene said, the ability to know with confidence that once a veteran has hit submit that that transaction will be honored, even if there is an error. Were paying attention to those because we know that those are the source of the two issues that led to all this. What do you think is a reasonable turnaround time for disability compensation claims . Let me preface that with assuming that all the proper documentation is turned in. All the proper documentation is turned in, what you think is a reasonable time for dispel the claim . Right now we define it is about 25 days. In the world i live in, were trying to do as quickly as possible. That is the expectation veterans have in the real world. The answer is as quick as we can. I know weve had different programs to do that. I hope that answers your question. Mr. Worthington, have you determined the va. Gov problems and whether the extent and the other function of the website like healthcare . We are looking closely at that exact question to identify if there were similar problems such as the dependency claim or 526 claim errors. We have not identified anything on that scale. That is something we are looking at very intently. I am down to i would like to recognize Ranking Member cherfilusmccormick for your questions. I wanted to get back to the issue that you touched upon. I want to be clear. Why did it take you so long to become aware of the issues . If i may tonic for the question. You have two separate that into which particular issue. In the case of dependency application to change, early on in 2021 there is identification of an issue. The rules that were processing those were failure cases. At that point, there was a processing in place that were processing error sheet that came out in a report that came out. Those were all manually handled by people to make sure the right thing happen. We thought that was the extent of the problem instead we heard from veterans that there were other issues coming up. That was actually towards the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023. For the longer period of time, we did not think there was a problem. Once the broader problem was identified, we set up a Cross Functional Team to go tackle that issue and solve the bug that we do not know existed. In that case, that explains the gap. It was a very rapid to find issue. The claims application, that was found quite rapidly and resolved rapidly. The issue we have in august of the website having errors, we fix that quickly as well. It depends upon the particular instance youre talking about. We were talking about the issues identified on september 5th in congressional notification. Which you touched upon. Can i get your that any veteran who missed out on the benefits because of the status issue will be made whole and they will receive those backdated benefits . If i may, i will have mr. Handle that one. We are in the process of assessing those. We will make sure that they get the benefit that they have earned and deserve. No better and will see a debt because of the i. T. System failure. That is the process that working for not to create a debt because of the issue that caused it. Mr. Delbene im sure youre where we hold a series of hearings every year in the spring. We hear pleas from the blinded Veterans Association for a better oversight of va section 508 compliance. They have raised concerns about only va. Gov but also with the i. T. System that veterans use both as recipients of care and benefits. And as employees of p. A. Why have they not met the mandate of section 508 compliance specifically the va. Gov portal that veterans rely on to access their care and benefits. We take compliance very seriously. I personally think it is a commitment that we need to honor an amp of our work there. Let me break that into a couple of different parts. The first thing is va. Gov has a lot of content on it but it can be separate into webpages or a lot of pdfs. We have been making steady progress in identifying the most webpages and use pdfs and making sure they are compliant with 508. If you then take the va. Gov, the functional part of it. It was built from the beginning to have a framework that makes it accessible to the blind. As we move more and more functionality onto va. Gov , we will inherit that accessibility. The one pivot we have made is to actually target the things that are most used. Whether it is documentation or functionality. I think were doing pretty well there. There is more to do. Know that we take the commitment of 508 incredibly seriously. What is your timeline for full implementation or substantial completion . The effort towards 508 will be an ongoing effort. If you take webpages, we are in the 90 compliance in terms of the number of hits that happened are going from the most popular pages on down. Some of the thornier issues are in application spaces where there is customs. I those i think those will take a while. I meet with the team every month to review our progress. Do you have a goal date arrange that we can follow up on . It is a good question. I would love to get in a regular dialogue with you so i can show you our progress. I think we actually have an update for staffing on our progress on the 27th. If there are specific questions, we would love to talk to you and walking. But i would love a regular engagement. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I go back. Thank you, represented cherfilusmccormick. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to go back to the 56,000 , when did you first discover this issue . Did i hear you say early 2021 . Mr. Tellez, do you want to take the chronology a melon . We first heard about in november of 2021. It was brought to us by i. T. October of 2022, we discovered the 32,000 veterans im talking about the 57 57,000 dependencies and goes back to 2011. We discover that in august of 2021 that is when we discovered there was a number of dependency claims that were being rejected from the system. We work with i. T. To set up something to investigate what the issue was. It was not until january of 2023 when we discovered there was a different problem or a bigger problem when we got feedback from call centers from veterans who were having challenge with dependency there were not on the list that we had. We discover that maybe a different issue. Mr. Delbene , what is the Quality Assurance . What are your checks . We have an issue from 2018 that you finally started addressing in august of 2023 and we had an issue from 2011 that you finally found in august of 2021, a decade later. What is your Quality Assurance on your website . There are people. My point is this. There are people behind every i. T. System. Were talking about i. T. Systems as though they are autonomous. They are not. What is your Quality Assurance for veterans. As the chairman pointed out, they did not follow up and nobody caught it. Where are the people in the system . In the typical scenario, software get developed by developers and be passed to of fuel full qa test. Im not about the preproduction. Im talking about once you get it up and running, who is doing the quality checks the 10 check, whatever. Who is doing matt . That may be a question for mr. Worthington. He was doing that check . It should not have taken a decade for us to find this if you have a qa process in place. Let me start and i will definitely pass it to charles for more elaboration. Any of the systems that we run are monitored and have qa on them. Theyre checking for any error conditions that occur. In the cases youre talking about here, these are places where those error conditions were not caught by monitoring. We meet every single day of the year and walk through any issues that occur. One of the questions i asked most often, was that error or check caught by monitoring or not . We need to do more monitoring of situations like this. We are constantly adding to that monitoring. In these cases, it was a missed era check. We just have to admit that. We constantly prove it. There is more to do. You have the era check in place but it did not work. It did not hit these particular circumstances. Charles. I think the challenge that we encountered with dependency claim issue is that the traceability of a transaction from the va. Gov website into the downstream systems, many of which are old. We do not have good traceability at this time of the transactions. That is one of the things are working to address. What we like to have is an ability to check that every transaction that is received on va. Gov has made it into the downstream system so it can be processed or if there is a failure that there is a backup manual process. Was responsible for missing the quality checks and was their action taken against the person responsible for that . Are we holding anyone accountable for these errors . Charles and i would both say we hold ourselves accountable. It is our responsibility at the end of the day. We want to work hard to make sure they are right. At the end, they have to hold us accountable. Second, we have tried since i have parted of creating an environment, i coined the phrase, embrace the red. You cannot have teams when they come into the status meetings fearful for their jobs if they come clean on an issue. My time is up. I appreciate your response. I think that people need to be held accountable. Holding someone accountable is not just saying that you are accountable. It is sanctions against someone that missed this. In this case, 56,000 veterans are paying the price. Chairman, i yield back. Thank you very much representative itself. The present of the trial, five minutes of questions. Thank you. Did anything happen to either one of you for this, i would say egregious, act against 56,000 veterans . You are to be held responsible. I heard you say that. If someone came to me and said we want to take action, obviously im just trying to get clarification for myself. No one above you came down to level and said because of these errors that were made on 56,000 veterans, that is right as the iraqi war was drawing down. I am just curious. No one has approached either one of you saying that this was a problem . They have definitely approached us and said this is a problem. And that is one of the proms with the va system. I greatly appreciate what the va does as a whole. When you down to the granular level, i think we have a problem with addressing the meter issues of leadership and not being held accountable for things that they do or do not do and uphold the fiduciary response was to veterans like myself, like this gentleman here at the salmon over there. Respectfully the environment and the culture that i have seen among the Senior Leadership undersecretary mcdonough has been one of pushing for excellence in terms of execution mike i agree. I think he does a fantastic job. That is not what im asking. You said you were in charge of it. I will move on. I think this is true for mr. Worthington as well. We our own worst critics. We hold ourselves to an incredible when i go home and talk to veterans of the community and i say and they asked me who is being held responsible. Am i supposed to say the va kim i think it poses a va and the people on my team. Okay. What happened to you . Nothing. You are sitting here and finally tell me that, zero. That is a problem youre trying to get past. That is the problem we have to go back to the base and they, we are doing everything we can to streamline the process. Mr. Tellez, are you a veteran . If i go back to my base and i say 120 days, they will lose their minds. That is something we have to do right now. Im asking you the questions. It is 120 days. If i go tell a veteran that, who is entire straits. I have is a question i dont work for the va. You see the frustration here . That is rhetorical. Dont answer. Mr. Tellez, there probably a lot of veterans who are concerned the va might have lost their claims in filings over the past decade because of this va. Gov website , their experience. What do my veterans what do our veterans need to do in order to course correct, if there is an issue. Thank you for the question. Right now if they are concerned that they did file a claim and they dont say when they check the status on va. Gov that they can call. If they do not see it they can call the call center and we will address the question. I have to go back to my veterans and tell them that the va possibly made a mistake so that you need to reengage instead of the va reaching out to the veteran and saying we made a mistake and we want to fix this. We have done some outreach of letters. That is both for the 526 issue for disability claims and 40 dependency claims. Which specific department in the va is handling that issue . Is that you directly. It is not me directly but it is the va. It would not be them as a whole . It would be a contingent in there somewhere. It is probably accommodation of Field Operations and policy divisions. I need a name. I have to get that for you. I will be looking for it tomorrow. Mr. Worthington, back to the i. T. Situation, if you will. You stated there has been a lot of progress. I am pretty savvy when it comes to the iot space. What do you mean by that . The website itself, every year is seeing an increasing amount of usage. For example, this past year weve had 64 million times were someone has signed into the website which is up 50 from the previous year. In that same platform that we used to va. Gov has enabled us to lunch the va mobile app, the health and benefits mobile app. That is been down 1. 8 million times and has a four star rating in the Apple App Store that is what we aspire to do is to give veterans an experience that will match what theyre getting in the private sector. We feel we are making progress. Although, these issues are top priority. Thank you. I yield back. For disclosure purposes, i am not a veteran. I appreciate your confidence in the work that i am doing here. I want to make everyone knows that everything i do here is focused on making sure that we do deliver those benefits to the veterans that they have earned. This is not a gift. This is something they have earned. As i was sitting here listening to that exchange and about people saying, i take accountability. I agree with my two representative friends over here. Saying that you take accountability and seeing the action for it are two dramatically different things. I saw problems taking face taking place at the hospital in montana. And had an extensive investigation analysis done. You want to accountable he is . We change the director. We have the director removed from Fort Harrison because she was not conducting the affairs properly. She was not a leader. She was allowing things to take place that should not have been taking place. That is accountability, gentle and gentlemen. That is accountability. Mr. Tellez, i am really glad to hear that the veterans who intend to file under the p. A. C. T. Act that were not received have been recognized and they have been resolved and taking care of. I do want to make sure that each impacted veteran that is applying for anything is taking care of. Will you consider every veterans appeal timely, who is unable to file the notice of this agreement when we Start Talking about the disability benefits and things like that. If it is not timely, are you going to recognize that . Clarifying question. Returning about the issue or appeal related to the idf. Quite frankly, any benefit whatsoever. If they have filed and they have filed within the timeframe that they were supposed to and they did not have recognition given back to them to even tell them the system did not recognize. Are you going to consider those all of those is timely filings . Weve got 94,000 people that have many applications. Somewhere along the line, they were not recognize. Veterans always has a right to appeal. We will consider the system errors as we consider the appeal obsolete we will consider this is one of the factors. Delbene, you have been making a decision between the va. Gov and the system interfaces underneath them. Which you acknowledge widespread technical problems. Veterans are trying to apply for benefits and getting error messages. They are not interested in the distinction would be to know there is a problem. They dont know if it is va. Gov or the system underneath it. A problem is a problem to then. Doesnt any problem with any system that touches the website risk creating the errors . Im not 100 sure i understand the question. I will say that any error that starts from the perspective of va. Gov , regardless of what system a descent into, they will think about as the same error. We should not have to have our veterans understand the distinction between dbms and va. Gov. I think i am agreeing mr. Worthington, you been working with this distinction. Are you parsing out, if you will , where that problem actually is. Whether it is on va. Gov or whether it is the system underneath or whether it is the interface, the connection. For our teams it matters a lot where the specific problem is because youre trying to solve it. For the veterans, were not trying to explain to them the system failure is. We need to make a clear simple expiration for what is going on in any given case. That way they dont have to understand the inner workings of the va. Mr. Delbene, youve known for a while that va. Gov and other systems need a lot of work. Either you are just starting to understand how these systems interact or youve known about it and youre just now getting serious about tackling it. Can you break that down for me . What is going on . Since i joined january of last year, i have done deep technical dives across the entire portfolio of the va applications. This is been over 1000 applications. These issues have come up along the way. We talked about the one that happened just last month with the increase in traffic that went to the website. As the issue identified themselves, were tackling those as quickly as humanly possible. Ive been doing deep dives into the portfolio to practically identify those places where there are vulnerabilities that could show up that have not. Across the board, it shows that there is a lot of modernization that needs to happen across the entire estate that we take care of. Thank you very much. I will now recognize Ranking Member cherfilusmccormick. My question is for mr. Delbene. What is your plan to ensure the i. T. System used by blind and low vision va employees are accessible to support them while they are doing their jobs. That is a followup question for section 508. Tonic for the question. There is multiple classes of content, so to speak, that blind and visually impaired folks need to access. The webpages, pdfs and then there is the applications themselves. The applications are fairly thorny because of the complexity involved. It is not as objective and how you measure them. You have to take scenarios through it. We are identifying the top most important applications that people need to use. We are then grading them based on a scale from a to f. How good they are in the present. We are sending criteria with must fix issues before the application can get approved. We were doing discuss the hrm that were working on. We will tackle that across the entire fleet of applications to a point. We actually recently delayed the launch of our new time sheet application just because the compliance was not to where we thought it should be. You have to have teeth on this as well. What is the requirement for your Software Vendors . We need to push that. In a lot of cases, as you know, those applications are built by third parties. We need to set criteria to define musthave scenarios and have to get fixed. Will be able to get those criterias . It would probably better as a discussion then giving you h texture were pie. It is probably the question for the 27th. My concern is we are not getting any real deadlines. As we are anticipating to see changes, i am not given any set goals or deadlines to put these requirements in place. Making sure we can establish that is imperative. I do want to caution you that getting to 508 compliance because the breath of the portfolio will be more of a journey of being able to tell you but we can talk to you about our progress. We talked about our goals. I welcome my conversation with you. I long as we are meeting those goals and setting them, that is important for the compliance might be a stretch. We should have points to meet substantial completion. Without those points, we are moving without target in mind. We need to have those targets that were not looking 10 years later wondering why took us so much time. My next questions are about readiness. Those who deployed to combat zone and left the motor between september 11, 21 and october 1st, 2013 have 11 59 this saturday to enroll in va regardless of whether or not they have applied for the disability benefit. Given the issues experienced with the backdated benefit deadline in august, how confident are you that the va is prepared for an increase in applications before the Healthcare Access deadline . Tonic for the question. We have intensively scrubbed all aspects of what delivering that service means. Let me pass it over to charles sica talked about that website in particular in the back and systems it is connected to. I was just looking this up ends on the past 30 days we processed over 30,000 healthcare in rome is on va. Gov that compares to 12,000 in june and 13,000 in july. Were seeing a big increase. So far, the systems are holding up well. Were munching very intently as we approach the deadline. That is something we are watching closely and continue to monitor. Specifically, your confidence level is high . I would say that it is high, yes. Thank you so much. I yield back. Tonic Ranking Member cherfilusmccormick. I will now organize representative self. Mr. Tellez , i want to address three different categories of veterans that we might see. Are you going to force veterans to pay back overpayments . Tonic for your question. No, we will adjudicate those claims. Okay. How about veterans that have been underpaid . Would you make them whole . Yes. Two veterans that have already paid back erroneous overpayments. We are looking at that to reclaim that money as a result of these defective error. You are planning to reclaim it if you have the authority. Yes. Oh, reclaim. Veterans who have already paid back some of the debt. I think we are looking to is how can we do that, yes. They have already been forced to pay back their overpayments. What are you going to do with them . As a result of this error, that is what we are looking at to provide the relief back to them. How many think of the mac . I do not have that dated today. I may have misspoke. Return met erroneous debts. They have been forced to pay back erroneous debts, already. How many would that be . I dont have that assessment. We will work on getting that. I know we are working on assessing the 56,000 population. By october, we can tell you a little more in detail what the population looks like. We have been talking a lot about process. It kind of frustrates me because i would love to talk about results as opposed to just process. Let me give you another process that we have been dealing with here in congress. That is the appeals process. The appeals board, for a long time, has not been able to do its job in a timely manner. We have put in a bill to add two judges to the appeals court. Because the board wont act in a expeditious manner. The process that we are discussing here gets a little frustrating to me because we cannot seem to have results that were trying to get at here. With that, mr. Chairman, i yield back. I recognize representative luttrell did the 32,000 veterans whose claims are lost and found in january, does that ring a bell . Where were they found . I think that will have to turn that to charles. The specific issue that occurred was between 1010 and the downstream system. Can you talk about the downstream, please. It is process using a system called dbms. Theres a couple interfaces to get that set up correctly. What we found these 32,000 . These cases, there was an error in the establishment of the claim. It was submitted on va. Gov. Same 1 to 32,000 . Similar type of error that led to the claim not be accepted. The data associated with the claim that which system did not pick it up . If they are similar. Say it out loud. The exact nature of the errors was a category. For example, there might have been a character in one of the field submitted that was not accepted and it had an accent on it. A did not pick up. Yet. But we found the original data is still maintained in the va. Gov system, which we can use to rekey kate the full claim. That original claim did not make it into the system. It could begin the processing due to the technical errors. So we have to rework multiple systems in order to be able to read by va. Gov. What we have developed is a backup process. If this type of problem would happen again, rather than take the automated visual path to her eight of pdf version of the claim, as if a veteran had mailed it and work it as a paper claim. A person is doing that or the team . The system will send the claim into our central mail porter where can get picked up just a paper, if it were to hit the case it the air case again. As a backup to the automated process. These 32,000 claims are being added onto all the other claims that are sitting in that silo. Correct . I would defer to ray on that. It is another addon . Just to be clear it is not the intake portal. It has a finite number of things awaiting processing. Were not talking about the large set of claims met are being worked. This is a particular portion of the totality we need to address this. That sounds like a fair assessment. To pick up from charles should there be an error and that paper form is created, it is inserted into the mail porter portal. About 32,000, were already working on those right now. Weve established about 25,000 of those. Of those, we have made decisions on about 14,000. We are taking action on those. We are reviewing them. From our perspective, these are claims that we have tested once and this point we just need to make sure that what was previously missed matches what we have. And then make it a ministry of action. Are we educate for areas where there are differences. We are working on those 32,000 claims right now. Mr. Worthington, let us do the math on this. What else are we missing . There is going to be something. It will pop up because one character or whatever that may be it will be a substantial number. If i had to guess given the amount of veterans at the va has to deal with are you directly in charge of the oversight of the system to find these faults . Yes. We are looking exactly at this category of bug that is tied up in the 526 and the dependency claim issue across all of the va. Gov features to see if there are any other places where we could miss something that could be similar. So far, we have not found any large number. Anything we do fine, we are identifying and build a Better Process and also make sure we do not have any similar types of cases, whether it is a claim or form that has been submitted that should have been worked but was not. Were looking intently at that right now. I will close with this. Im following up on ms. Cherfilusmccormick a statement. The reason the timeline makes sense. It does for us. This is another issue i have, they dont want to put a timeline on what we consider a success. I find it frustrating considering everything we are have to deal with with the va im talking out loud. Im not directly talking to you per se. There is no accountability to go swimming past that at 1000 miles per hour. That is unfortunate. If you unpack this thing, it is human being we are talking about. That is why dates are so important. That is why we want to know exactly when will this happen. You dont make it, we have three quarters away there and we fell short. We will keep going. I apologize, i went over. I yield back. Thank you. What we are going to do is a short and round, a lightning round, i like to call it. I think several of us have a couple of questions would like to wrap up with. Let me ask about the benefits i. T. Modernization in the p. A. C. T. Act. Speaking about quantifying measurable deadlines and accomplishments, that is exactly what im going to get to. We have 130 million in projects to upgrade the va. Gov in the plan. How much of that money have you spent so far and what can you show us that has been accomplished . What measured success can you share with us . In terms of the amount spent, i should get back to you. I need to get with the team and get with our Central Finance organization to find out how much is been spent. The process that we go through, with the 701 filing we have everything with what the investment is for. We lay down what the actual milestones are in terms of moving from the existing architecture to the new architecture. I can probably come back to you and say this is exactly where we are on the milestones. That is exactly what i want. I would like to see that spreadsheet. It says here is how much money we have spent. Here is the success rates and marks that we have hit to accomplish whatever task that you have laid out for those funds. Let us take that away to figure out the best way to accumulate that so addresses your issues. Greatly appreciate it. Representative self rated thank you, mr. Chairman. The Construction Authority was taken away from the va several years ago. Should congress consider taking i. T. Authority away from va so that you can focus on healthcare . Would that be something to streamline vas focus . Strictly on the veteran as opposed to this very complex i. T. Problem. When you say take it away, what did you have in mind to do with it . I dont know. The Construction Authority is my example. It was taken away and given to the corps of engineers because of construction missteps in the past by the va. Taken away from the va so that some Order Organization responsible for i. T. That va could focus on healthcare. How do we get va focused on 100,000 people who have fallen through the cracks . How do we focus you . Would that do it . I think that would be a mistake. It is built that mike did not take corporation between the stakeholders, the people using the software and the people building it. I suspected that would be your answer. My real quick question. I am not an i. T. Guy. I will use the term all of these things seem to disappear. Did you have a cash system, where they still there or they disappeared in the ethernet somewhere we dont know about . Can you find everything eventually or are they gone . I can answer that. We have a very good blog with all the benefit forms that was committed on va. Gov which is allowed us to reconstruct the claims. Even the ones that were not dealt with . That is correct. They were delayed due to the technical issues. We do have all of the data. I yield back. Okay. It seems as we are done. Thank you to all the witnesses and you are excused from the witness table. We expect more from va. Gov because in a few years time it will go from a convenient that a murder 80 very soon now. We have seen this in banking and insurance and so many other businesses and industries. Most americans dont want to walk into a building or dial a call center to handle the transaction. Most of them are drinking quite from their phone. They expect to do these things on a website 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They do expect the transactions to be accurate and efficient. And recorded, quite frankly. I agree that va. Gov is the front door of the department of Veterans Affairs. It is the right party to have because veterans need to have confidence. The committee focuses on this issue and is going to continue. We need to see what has been accomplished and what is left to do at the end of the va 90 day review. My colleagues and i understand very clearly that the systems that process va benefits have been neglected. That is why we prioritize these systems in the p. A. C. T. Act. In anticipation of the flood of the additional claims that we are going to have coming through. Before anyone at the Department Said a word about the glitches and bugs that we have been hearing about here today. The va must demonstrate that the Funding Congress is providing for the benefit modernization plan is being put to good use. Our witnesses can expect to be called upon again as they work their way through the plan. With that, i ask unanimous consent that they have time to revise and extend the remarks. Excuse me. I invite Ranking Member cherfilusmccormick to make closing statements. Thank you. I appreciate the testimony and answers of our witnesses this afternoon but i recognize that no i. T. Solution is perfect their evolving and changing. That evolution introduces risk. I appreciate that assistant secretary delbene came in person today to discuss issues with va. Gov. It was important for us to hear from the the leader accountable for these programs and the plan to address past issues and mitigate future disturbances to ensure that the i. T. System does not prevent veterans from accessing their care and benefits that they have very hardly earned. I yield back. Thank you Ranking Member sheila cherfilusmccormick. With that, i asked unanimous consent that all members can include extraneous material with comments but with no objection, so ordered. The hearing is adjourned