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BVA Dispatch

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Matt Wagner edited this page Dec 8, 2021 · 13 revisions

Overview

BVA Dispatch is an administrative team at the Board of Veteran's Appeals. They are responsible for mailing BVA decision letters to the Veteran, their representative, and congress member (if applicable). They also perform quality and accuracy checks on data in Caseflow/VACOLS before the decision leaves the Board and is in the Veteran's hands. The team includes one individual who handles returned decision letters with incorrect mailing addresses.

The Board built an Interactive Decision Template (IDT) that populates Veteran data from VACOLS/Caseflow, text from the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), and other legal language "snippets" in Microsoft Word. It's essentially a letter generation tool. All attorneys and judges use the IDT. BVA Dispatch employees also use the IDT to review and print decision letters.

This work was focused on understanding how BVA Dispatch could use Caseflow to review and mail decision letters and piloting new functionality with a small group of users.

Note on terminology: the term BVA Dispatch is often confused with the "Dispatch" tool. BVA Dispatch is the name of a team at the Board. The "Dispatch" tool is a tool that routes decisions after a case leaves the Board. BVA Dispatch doesn't work in the Dispatch tool. BVA Dispatchers use the term "dispatch" synonymously with "mail". (Ex: The decision letter has been dispatched means the decision letter has been mailed.)

Purpose

We started this work in June 2018 so that we could support the BVA Dispatch process for AMA cases before the law went into effect. We also wanted to pilot Caseflow with the BVA Dispatch team. While we could've simply integrated Caseflow and the IDT to support RAMP/AMA decisions, we wanted to more deeply understand their workflow, inefficiencies, and pain points they currently experience and how Caseflow could address them.

We've also heard the sentiment: "This branch shouldn't exist." Rather than having GS-12s mail decision letters and stuff envelopes, the former branch chief challenged the existence of the department and thought that employees could do more challenging work. Options to reimagine this department could include hiring a contract company to mail decision letters or allowing judges and attorneys to handle name and address updates rather than having to send the case to VLJ Support staff (or rely on BVA Dispatch) to catch corrections. We wanted to understand if this could be possible.

How we got started

  1. We created a research brief to outline our discovery goals.
  2. We talked to judges, attorneys, the reporting team (Maria Braswell), and the BVA Dispatch team to understand the journey of a decision letter from person to person. Below are our research scripts:
  1. We documented current state workflows for the BVA Dispatch team; specifically, for their legacy process (before they had the IDT), for their "new" process (using the IDT with VACOLS), and for handling returned mail. To see these workflows, go to the BVA Dispatch Room in Mural and/or search "BVA Dispatch Current State Workflows".
  2. We also created an Actor Map to document the structure of the team and the way they work. To see this, search "BVA Dispatch Team - Actor Map" in Mural.
  3. We synthesized our research. To see insights and observations, search "BVA Dispatch Research Synthesis" in Mural.
  4. We created some "How Might We" statements and brainstormed around how we could address them. This allowed us to be aspirational and define our ideal state vision.
  5. After our brainstorming session, we created an ideal state flow and "extra ideal" state flow. Since we couldn't do everything in our inital phase, we aligned around an MVP scope of work that we would pilot in October. To see these flows, search "Ideal State Flows - BVA Dispatch" in Mural.
  6. We created user stories for our MVP scope. See #5590 for user stories.
  7. We created a prototype and conducted usability testing with the BVA Dispatch team. The sessions were guided by a usability testing script.
  8. We piloted the functionality with two BVA Dispatchers. We shared this deck with them when we did training.

Goals

When we started this project, our goals were:

  • Reduce processing time from judge signing decisions to outcoding the decision
  • Facilitate upload of decisions to VBMS more quickly
  • Support AMA legislation and the ability for Dispatchers to outcode AMA appeals
  • Increase accuracy of addresses (veteran and attorney) to decrease the amount of returned mail
  • Redesign the attorney-judge-BVA Dispatch-Dispatch process by front-loading tasks that attorneys are better equipped to handle and automating manual parts of the process.

Who was involved

  • Allyce (design), Alex Prokop, Mark Benjamin, and Anya Roltsch (engineering), Lauren Peterson (product)
  • Rolandus Branch (former branch cheif), Corey Benjamin, Randall (Will) Davis (pilot user), and Elizabeth (Libby) James (pilot user)
  • Paul Saindon (IDT integrations)

User stories

See #5590 for user stories that were in scope.

Current status

Caseflow and the IDT are being used by two pilot users, Will and Libby. Due to the lower volume of RAMP and AMA appeals, we haven't rolled the functionality out to more users. Corey, Will, and Libby will notify us when they need to onboard another BVA Dispatch user to support them.

Before we roll out to more BVA Dispatch users or allow them to use Caseflow and the IDT for legacy appeals, Caseflow should support (or have data fields for) contested claimants (#8660) and congressional inquiry information (#8424). During our pilot phase, BVA Dispatchers used a workaround to learn about contested claims and congressional inquiries. We need to add this information to Caseflow (and add it to the IDT) so that BVA Dispatch can mail copies of decision letters to both groups, when applicable.

BVA Dispatch would like the ability to send cases back to judges if the decision letter requires revisions. This work is currently in progress (#8693). We can also give them the ability to send a case to VLJ Support Staff (#7601) in the event that data in Caseflow needs to be modified.

BVA Dispatch pilot users expressed interest in simplifying the instructional prompts in the IDT. Currently, they must click through a series of prompts to review and print a decision letter. They feel that these prompts are repetitive and that we can remove them. More research is needed to understand what level of prompting is helpful and what feels like instructional overload.

Potential risks

In June 2018, BVA Dispatch was processing 40-60 pieces of returned mail per day. We should monitor the amount of returned mail for AMA cases. Since Vet360 was implemented, veteran addresses are supposed to be more accurate in Caseflow. We should see if this data is contributing to a decrease in returned mail and increased cost and time savings.

BVA Dispatchers (and others at BVA) are mailing letters to the Veteran's rep using a database of VSO and attorney addresses that lived in VACOLS. We should monitor the amount of returned mail to determine if this is a reliable source or if a new database is needed.

BVA Dispatchers need a reliable, up-to-date list of congresspeople and addresses so that decision letters aren't returned to BVA. Caseflow can consider using an API for this information rather than maintaining a list that changes every few years. We should monitor the amount of returned congressional mail to ensure that our list is reliable.

While contested claims are rare, Caseflow will eventually support them. BVA Dispatchers need this information so that they can mail copies of the decision letter to contested claimants and their rep(s). When we add contested claimant and congressional data fields to Caseflow, BVA Dispatch needs to be alerted so that they can update their SOPs for their department and prepare for this process change. Paul should also be alerted so that the IDT will automatically generate these letters like it does for legacy appeals.

Other resources

If you're curious about what the IDT looks like for legacy appeals (note: the AMA IDT has different prompts), check out this InVision prototype.

This Mural shows what VACOLS outcoding for BVA decisions looks like.

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