	Background

VA has two basic cash disability benefits programs. If the Board denies benefits or grants less than the maximum benefit available under the law, veterans may appeal to the U. S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. The accuracy measure used by the Board understates its true accuracy rate because the Board’s accuracy rate calculations include certain deficiencies that would not result in either a reversal or a remand by the court. VA Does Not Systematically Assess Consistency of Decision Making

Even though evidence suggests decision making across regional office and Board adjudicators may not be consistent, VA does not systematically assess decision making consistency to determine the degree of variation that occurs for specific impairments and to provide a basis for identifying steps that could be taken, if considered necessary, to reduce such variation. In its 2003 performance plan, VA acknowledged that veterans are concerned about the consistency of disability claims decisions across the 57 regional offices. VA, however, does not assess variation in decision making. Accordingly, we recommend that the Secretary of VA direct the Chairman of the Board of Veterans’ Appeals to:   Revise the quality assurance program so that, similar to VBA, the calculation of accuracy rates will take into account only those deficiencies that would be expected to result in a reversal of a Board decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims or result in a remand by the court. In 3,657 of these cases, veterans go on to file appeals with the Board. After regional offices resubmitted denied cases to the Board for a final decision, the Board granted at least one of the requested benefits in about 26 percent of the cases, denied all benefits in about 49 percent, and remanded about 25 percent once again to regional offices for further rework. Appendix III: Comments from the Department of Veterans Affairs
What GAO Found

For fiscal year 2002, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will pay $25 billion in cash disability benefits to 3.3 million disabled veterans and their families. Veterans who are dissatisfied with VA's 57 regional offices' decisions may file appeals with VA's Board of Veteran's Appeals. In about half of such appeals, the Board has either granted the benefits denied or returned the cases to regional offices for rework. Additionally, VA reported an accuracy rate of less than 70 percent for regional office disability decisions when it tested a new quality assurance program in fiscal year 1998. When the Board itself denies benefits, veterans may appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. In over half of these appeals, the Court has either granted the benefits denied by the Board or returned the decisions to the Board for rework. In fiscal year 1998, the Board of Veteran's Appeals established a quantitative evaluation program to score its decisionmaking accuracy and collect data to improve decisionmaking. The accuracy measure used by the Board understates its true accuracy rate because the calculations include certain deficiencies, such as errors in a written decision's format, which would not result in either a reversal or a remand by the Court. VA does not assess the consistency of decisionmaking across the regional office and Board disability adjudicators even though VA acknowledges that in many cases adjudicators of equal competence could review the same evidence but render different decisions. Although available evidence indicates that variations in decisionmaking occur across all levels of VA adjudication, VA does not conduct systematic assessments to determine the degree of variations that occurs for specific impairments and to provide a basis for determining ways to reduce such variations.