During a House Veterans' Affairs committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Morgan Luttrell (R-TX) spoke about tracking benefit payments within the VA.
00:00Okay. That was quite the suitcase you just unpacked, sir. So, Ms. Tan, this is how I'm going to start this. How do we fix this problem? Ms. Tan, you said we're exploring our avenues of communicating with our veterans because this is a pretty long cast here.
00:21So, it starts inside the VA with our digital infrastructure, our training, manning, equipping with software and hardware. But as it moves downstream and touches the veterans, they have to be able to communicate back into the organization to say, hey, look, my dependents are no longer here and I've gotten a divorce and my spouse has passed away.
00:43How do we track? You mentioned Social Security earlier. How does the VA? Because in my district, people, they don't have computers. They don't have phones. Our veterans like to dig in and they're just kind of hidden.
00:56How do we track or help our veterans track? How do we track our veterans if they lose a spouse so the VA is not providing overpayment? How do we fix that problem?
01:09Because at the end of the day, I'm going to say this now, I'm going to say it in my closing remarks, if we're spending $3 billion in overpayment and underpayment, and from the last 10 years, if we're doing our homework correctly, those numbers have increased.
01:22We're losing ground, which is money that can be spent in other areas of the VA.
01:28Again, I agree with my ranking member's opening statement. We have the ability to fix this, and this is a problem, yes, when you're dealing with dollar bills, it's a big problem considering the numbers, but we have to be aggressive.
01:46We, us, and the VA have to be aggressive on how to fix this. I think it's absolutely possible in 2025.
01:53So, Ms. Tan, I'll start with you.
01:56Thank you for your question, Chairman.
01:58So, we are looking at a number of avenues, but we also have a lot of things currently in place.
02:03We are making sure to notify veterans in our correspondence about when they need to report changes to us, what we have of record, and how we're using that information.
02:13We also have, they have the ability to report to any of our public contact offices.
02:19They can make changes through VA.gov, as well as our call center.
02:24So, we want to make it as easy as possible for veterans to access and provide updated information as much as is necessary.
02:32We also have capabilities in which we use matching agreements.
02:36You mentioned Social Security.
02:37Some of that is for income-based benefits and entitlements.
02:41We also do death matches so that we are made aware, and we have, like, a survivor's assistance office now that can help veterans kind of navigate some of these situations.
02:50But, really, for information that only they have, like, if there is a divorce, if there is the death of a spouse or the need to remove or add a dependent, that's only information that veterans know that they have to come to us.
03:04And so, we're trying to open all the doors and make sure that they know that they have to inform us and what information we're using at any given time.
03:11Do we have the exact, I'm going to try to say this, right?
03:14Do we have the exact number of how many beneficiaries there are, how many we correspond with, and how many respond back to the VA's requests?
03:26So, if we're pumping out letters, Mr. Frill, to 100 veterans that we give that are beneficiaries, and only 30 of them are responding back, but we're still paying the other 70, do you have that number, by chance?
03:41Ms. Tan, I may be switching to Mr. Frill.
03:42I apologize.
03:43No, sir.
03:44I don't have that number readily available, but we can take that back.
03:47But is that a question that's being asked in the department?
03:50It is, we are looking at, specifically in our area, in pension and fiduciary, we are looking at the rate of return when we do development actions or we do requests for information, the rate of return that we get.
04:02Do you have like a projection or a window of, that you can provide the committee today?
04:07No, sir, I would just be making up an arbitrary number, and I don't want to do that, but we will.
04:11Get that, I ask that you get that to us, because again, I'm just curious if we're in the billions and overpayments.
04:18And sir, if you don't mind, one thing I'd like to expand on Ms. Tan's answer is, with the Social Security death match, originally that was just for beneficiaries.
04:27We have expanded that out to dependents on an award.
04:30So to your question about how we would find out if a spouse passed away, we will do that through the Social Security death match.
04:38Social Security has the same limitation we do, that they're dependent upon a third party to notify them of a death.
04:43But once we get it, we can start action with the veteran to remove that dependent from their reward.
04:50Okay.
04:50I just am eager to know how many beneficiaries there are, how many we send information to, and how many are responding to that request.
05:01Because the delta in there, I'd be curious to see what the number sign is and how that's correlated.
05:07Yes, sir, and from that perspective, sir, just for clarity, we do correspond with almost all veterans every year when we do the cost of living adjustments to what Ms. Tan spoke about in the letters we identify, but as far as the other actions where we do development and, like, a due process, is that more the area that you're looking at?
05:28Well, that might be where one of the misses are.
05:30Okay.
05:31It's causing the problem.
05:33I mean, there's a lot of them, but that would make sense.
05:35I'm sorry.
05:36I'm sorry, man.
05:36Ranking Member, you're recognized for five minutes.
