The Department of Veterans Affairs announced Monday that it’s working to improve the process for how eligible survivors and dependents of deceased veterans and servicemembers obtain survivor benefits.
The department shared specific steps it’s taking to streamline the process for survivors, including the creation of a “‘white-glove’ survivor outreach team” that will guide eligible survivors through the claims process. It’s also relocating its Office of Survivors Assistance from the Veteran Benefits Administration to the Office of the VA Secretary and converting manual parts of the process to automated steps where possible.
“The last thing survivors need in their time of grief is frustrating red tape and bureaucracy. That’s why we are creating a better system to more quickly and effectively provide survivors the services, support and compassion they’ve earned,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said.
Officials said that with the relocation of the OSA, they are “reversing a Biden-era decision” from 2021 that “buried OSA under layers of bureaucracy.” With a small five-person full-time team restored to the Office of the VA Secretary, the department hopes to enhance communications between the team and the secretary.
The department just completed 100 days under the second Trump administration, where its new mission has been to return to “its core mission” of “providing the best possible care and services to Veterans, families, caregivers and survivors.”
Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins has said multiple times that the department has long been associated – perhaps more than other executive department agencies – with bureaucratic inefficiency and under-delivering on its promises. Its effort to revamp the survivor benefits process is part of its attempt to live up to its core mission.
So far, the department has opened six new clinics, returned thousands of employees to the office from remote work, terminated about 2,400 employees, ended its diversity, equity and inclusion programs and redirected “hundreds of millions of dollars in non-mission critical spending,” among other actions.
