Veterans Services Digital Intake Process

About the Program

Category: Human Services (Best in Category)

Year: 2021

Cabarrus County’s Department of Veteran Services helps to process benefits claims on behalf of veterans. The old process for applying for veteran benefits was to fill out all necessary claim forms, print a physical copy, obtain a physical signature, and fax to the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. After obtaining the physical signature, the physical copy of the claim forms was scanned into Laserfiche, our enterprise content management solution, and shredded. There were many potential impacts of the old process: lengthy meetings, lack of account tracking, long wait times for benefit enrollment (7-10 days), potential loss of benefits, County staff time, and endless use of County paper and ink. Cabarrus County’s Department of Information Technology Services provided an application that allows Veteran Services staff to create veteran accounts and upload claims benefits directly to the VA via the VA’s API. Cabarrus County is the second local government entity to develop a custom application using this API. This new custom application has reduced claim processing time from 7-10 days to around 2-3 days and allows Veteran Services staff to track the status of claims and actions taken on veteran accounts by other staff members.