On Friday, the Department of Veterans Affairs will begin accepting contract bids to build a fully automated presumptive claims processing system for Vietnam veterans exposed to the toxic chemical Agent Orange, NextGov reports.
On May 7, VA asked contractors with specific government IT contracts to submit bids by May 21. The agency said the selected vendor would need to provide a customized commercial processing system that would be able to handle Web-enabled, machine-readable claim forms. The contractor also would need to develop new business processes, technologies and systems to reduce the backlog of overall claims at the Veterans Benefit Administration, which handles disability claims.
According to NextGov, VBA's workforce of more than 11,600 examiners in 2009 manually sifted through more than one million claims for disability compensation and pensions (Brewin, NextGov, 5/17).