Since Aug. 6, the Kentucky Department of Veterans Affairs has been filing veterans’ benefit claims electronically directly to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. It is the first state to do so, according to USDVA.
“I am so proud of our benefits staff for this accomplishment,” KDVA Commissioner Heather French Henry said in a news release. “They are always striving to make benefits available more quickly and easily to our Kentucky veterans, and this is a huge step forward.”
KDVA has been working for the last three years in concert with the USDVA to implement the Digits to Digits, or D2D program, which has been supervised and tested by Monica Acob, the KDVA D2D coordinator.
“Many countless hours have gone into making this work with the USDVA,” Dean Carver, director of field operations for KDVA, said in the release. “It was a continuous effort to make changes and ensure our success.”
For more than a year, KDVA’s benefits staff has been streamlining claims by filing only fully developed claims manually. By ensuring that claims submitted to the federal VA contain every document required for that claim eliminates delays and resubmittals, and ensures that Kentucky veterans get a decision on their claims as quickly as possible, the agency said in its release.
“D2D speeds that process even more,” Carver said. “No more bulky paper files. Everything is electronic, so claims can be read and determined without delay.”
KDVA is continuing to work with the federal VA on enhancements to the D2D program and improvements to the database.
