Wrong Direction?
“I’m incredibly concerned about areas of the country that are going in the wrong direction,” Stone declared. “There are areas of the country where we wanted to move forward where we’re having trouble doing so. The state of Arizona has been on a multiday process of escalating cases. Arkansas is the same. South Carolina is the same. We are informing every day’s actions with a discussion with our advanced modelers of what the trends are in every single market we’re in.”
The backlog for disability examinations is equally daunting. On April 2, VA paused the process on over 230,000 ongoing compensation and pension (C&P) exams. By the beginning of June, VA had a backlog of 119,00 exams. Any C&P exam pending more than 125 days to be considered backlogged.
On June 8, in-person C&P exams restarted at a handful of VA facilities, but VA officials admit that it will be a long, slow process to work through the list. One way officials are planning to speed the process is for Congress to draft legislation allowing nonphysicians, such as nurse practitioners, to conduct C&P exams. VBA officials also asked Congress for authorization to transfer some of the $19 billion in CARES Act funding between accounts to pay for overtime for VBA employees.
How those employees, especially those on the healthcare side of the agency, feel about the phased reopening is unclear. Asked by legislators how employees view their safety during the reopening, Stone said that VA had not asked them.
“We have not performed an all-employee survey during the pandemic. We do that usually on an annual basis,” Stone explained. “What we’ve used as a judge of how we’re doing is whether our employees are coming to work. We have record-low levels of leave being taken as employees want to come and be part of this and we track that on a daily basis. Our employees come to work and volunteer for missions that are difficult and require them to leave home.”
According to complaints filed by the American Federation of Government Employees last month, however, some of those employees might be coming to work because they have no other option.
According to AFGE, many employees who could have transferred to telework were unable to do so because VA did not provide the necessary support structures. Also, many VA employees have been excluded from the Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act, which guarantees workers up to 80 hours of paid sick leave for a health issue arising from the coronavirus. Many frontline healthcare workers have been excluded from the law, while challenges in adjusting VA’s timekeeping and payroll systems has caused delays in implementing the law for those VA employees not exempt.
