VBA VETERANS BENEFITS ADMINISTRATION

National Work Queue (NWQ)April 2015

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What is the National Work Queue?

The National Work Queue (NWQ) is a paperless workload management initiative designed to improve VBA’s overall productive capacity and assist with reaching the Secretary’s goals of eliminating the backlog by processing all claims in 125 days with improved accuracy.

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Why a National Work Queue?

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What will the NWQ do?

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The NWQ will allow us to prioritize and distribute VBA’s entire rating inventory and:•Match work assignments with VBA capacity and resources•Standardize workload management best practices•Increase output by identifying and routing actionable claims to ROs•Identify rework trends to identify training gaps•Significantly reduce rework rate

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NWQ Timeline

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Main Features of the NWQ

Daily Assignment of WorkClaims Prioritization at a National

LevelDevelopment of Station-by-Station

Productive Capacity ModelRobust Deferral ProcessUnique Routing Rules

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Claims Prioritization at a National Level

All rules and filters are dynamic, meaning that adjustments can be made centrally and not depend on software releases and upgrades.

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In Phase 1, the first parameter for the assignment of claims will remain the geographic proximity to the Veteran’s place of residence, as long as that station has the capacity and amount of prioritized work to accommodate.

Bottom Line: Our goal is to distribute the work to the RO that can address the Veteran’s claim most quickly.

Daily Assignment of Work

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Productive Capacity

The expected level of work that can be assigned/completed based upon the number of employees, their position types, and grade levels.

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VA Regional Office

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Deferral Process

•Will leverage technology associated with VBMS to gather more granular reasons and rationale associated with deferred claims

•Trend analysis will be conducted by Compensation Service on deferral data in order to drive nationwide consistency through establishment/clarification of policy and procedure

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Unique Routing

Careful consideration has been given to ensure previously centralized/specialized workload gets routed to the appropriate location (Mustard Gas, Radiation, etc.)

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Future Phases

•Automated Routing of: Non-Rating Workload Appeals Workload Work Items

•Quality Diagnostic Tool•Evaluation of claims complexity and employee skillset for possible future assignment options

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