by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
Veterans Services Officer Herschel Allen said there’s more to his job than filing claims.
“We’re not a bunch of admin clerks,” said Allen. “A VSO has to be a psychologist, an attorney, a friend, a counselor. When a veteran comes in here with a problem, we want to concentrate on that problem, not a bunch of paperwork.”
But upon his arrival 10 years ago at the City’s Veteran’s Services Department, the former Marine and Vietnam veteran found himself locked in a daily battle against paperwork. File cabinets dominated the office landscape. On every desk were piled manila envelopes bulging with inch-thick stacks of reports, claims, forms and memos.
Every veteran that walked through Allen’s door meant more papers. For hours they grappled against the forms and their redundancies. Thirteen pages at a minimum to be filed; and they spent five minutes on each sheet scrawling the same information: date of birth, Social Security number, claim number, address, branch of service.
Once every vacant line was filled, Allen would lash the report together, send it off to the Department of Veterans Affairs offices in St. Petersburg. That’s when the waiting would begin.
Allen said it would take months to find out if a claim had been approved. In the interim Allen preached patience to injured veterans, wondering when their benefits would come.
Frustrated, Allen searched for ways to streamline the process. He began working with Lewis Lebanoff from the City’s Information Technology Department on a computer program that would remove paperwork from the equation.
After eight months of development, research and trials, the pair unveiled the Lebanoff Allen Veterans Administrative Tracking System. Originally conceived as a way to speed veteran’s claims through the office, the final product evolved into a veterans office operating system. It allows VSOs to create and file claims, track their progress, schedule appointments, write and send letters, “everything we need to do in the office,” said Allen.
The program’s value is a reflection of Allen’s own experiences both as a VSO and as a disabled vet. He spent more than five years trying to steer his own disability claim through the VA. Allen said he knew what he wanted the program to do. He just had no idea how to make it work.
Enter Lebanoff, on loan from the City’s Information Technology Department. Allen, who doesn’t own a computer, said the partnership was his good luck.
“I relied on Lewis; he started this from scratch,” said Allen. “He’s the guru. He said, ‘Tell me what you want, and I’ll develop it.’”
Allen said they used his own computer inexperience as the program’s benchmark.
“I didn’t want a program for computer experts,” he said. “I wanted a program for 70-year-old veterans who have never seen a computer. If you can type on a typewriter, you’ll be able to sit down and use this system.”
Lebanoff said the program’s greatest difficulty was accurately reproducing the myriad VA forms necessary to complete a claim. To produce forms the VA would accept, he said, he had to create the forms through a painstaking “line by line” process. He said the program’s forms were of better quality than photocopies.
LAVATS allowed Allen to speed claims through St. Petersburg. He said his office has processed nearly 7,000 claims since 2000. That number could swell as recent improvements to the program take effect.
The addition of scanning equipment and a signature pad, “the kind they have at Sears,” have allowed the division to send claims electronically. Because the VA processes claims in the order they are received, Allen said, his veterans see their benefits faster.
“You can send a claim in the mail, and it might take months just to find out if they got it. If they lose it, there’s another two months of lost benefits,” said Allen. “With this, the day they sit here is the day they receive the claim in St. Petersburg.”
Soon after LAVATS made its Jacksonville debut, word about the program’s efficiency spread. Allen said he received requests from veteran’s offices across Florida to use the program. The City copyrighted the program in 1998 and began furnishing copies statewide.
Allen said the City ships about 40 copies of LAVATS across Florida, Georgia and Tennessee. He said there’s currently a copy on a trial run at the VA’s federal office in Washington D.C. The City charges $30 — including $15 shipping and handling — for each copy, compared to private tracking software priced about $10,000.
Today Allen’s desk is free from clutter. He has one file cabinet. Veterans’ claim information, background information that once comprised a vast tangle of pages, today resides in his computer’s hard drive. He points to his appointment screen, which lists veterans stacked up every hour, all seeking benefits for themselves or their family. Before LAVATS, Allen said, he might see two or three in a day.
“This program has freed up our time to concentrate on solving problems,” said Allen. “The less paperwork I need to do the more people I have time to see.”