June 8, 2017 - Ottawa, ON
Over the course of my mandate, my team and I have done a lot of work to ensure that the right benefits and services are in place for Veterans and their families, in other words, the What. Now, it’s time to turn our attention to How these services are delivered.
From a Veteran’s perspective, are Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) benefits and services well communicated to Veterans and their families? How easy is it to access benefits and services? Are eligibility criteria and application processes easy to understand, simple and streamlined? Are they delivered in a timely manner?
As I’ve travelled across the country meeting with Veterans and their families, I have consistently heard that it takes much too long to get a decision when applying for benefits from VAC and, when they finally do receive a decision, the decision letters are confusing and complicated. My frontline staff also hears this when they are talking to Veterans. In fact, a large percentage of the calls to our office have to do with the frustrating service experience of Veterans and their families as they try to navigate the complex system of Veterans’ benefits.
For example, one of my service representatives was telling me about the struggles a Veteran went through when attempting to get coverage for a brand name drug, prescribed after adverse reactions to the generic brand. The coverage was provided for the brand name while he was still in uniform, but VAC denied it once he was released. This resulted in the Veteran having to start over and provide, once again, a rationale for why he needed this particular drug, an exercise that was unnecessarily burdensome for the Veteran. Because of the prevalence of this type of complaint, my office will be taking a look at the Veterans’ Service Experience in 2017–2018. We will look at the following:
- the quality of communications;
- the level of complexity with regard to benefits and process; and
- the timeliness of responses.
As a result of this work, I will be asking questions such as, what information is provided by VAC for Veterans? How easy is it to find, access and decipher information on programs and services? How long does it take for a Veteran to get a decision from VAC?
Through this work, I hope to better clarify some parts of the process for Veterans, encourage VAC to make adjustments in terms of what and how they communicate with Veterans, and recommend changes to simplify and improve the Veterans’ Service Experience.
Guy