Review of veterans' disability compensation benefits in the 21st century : hearing before the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, United States Senate, One Hundred Eleventh Congress, first session, September 17, 2009.

Review of veterans' disability compensation benefits in the 21st century: hearing before the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, United States Senate, One Hundred Eleventh Congress, first session, September 17, 2009.

21st Century System for Evaluating Veterans' Disability Benefits recommends improvements in the medical evaluation and rating of veterans for the benefits provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to compensate for illnesses or injuries incurred in or aggravated by military service. Compensation is a monthly cash benefit based on a rating schedule that determines the degree of disability on a scale of 0 to 100. Although a disability rating may also entitle a veteran to ancillary services, such as vocational rehabilitation and employment services, the rating schedule is out of date medically and contains ambiguous criteria and obsolete conditions and language. The current rating schedule emphasizes impairment and limitations or loss of specific body structures and functions which may not predict disability well. 21st Century System for Evaluating Veterans' Disability Benefits recommends that this schedule could be revised to include modern concepts of disability including work disability, nonwork disability, and quality of life. In addition to the need for an updated rating schedule, this book highlights the need for the Department of Veterans' Affairs to devote additional resources to systematic analysis of how well it is providing services or how much the lives of veterans are being improved, as well as the need for a program of research oriented toward understanding and improving the effectiveness of its benefits programs.

For years, in addition to experiencing challenges in making disability claims decisions more quickly and reducing its claims backlog, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has faced challenges in improving the accuracy and consistency of its decisions. This statement discusses issues surrounding VA¿s Systematic Technical Accuracy Review (STAR) program, a disability compensation and pension quality assurance program, and possible ways, if any, this program could be improved. It focuses on actions VA has taken, including those in response to past recommendations, to: (1) address identified weaknesses with STAR; and (2) improve efforts to monitor the consistency of claims decisions.