VA Education Call Center Again Operating Five Days a Week Temporary Closures Significantly Cut Post-9/11 GI Bill Pending Inventory                                                                         WASHINGTON (Feb. 23, 2010) – The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) today announced that the Education Call Center, closed on Thursdays and Fridays over the past two months, is again operating five days a week.                                    “I am pleased by the progress these call center employees made in significantly cutting our pending inventory of education claims,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki. “As a result of their efforts, 30,000 additional student Veterans received their checks, bought books, paid the rent, and stayed in school.”                                                    By temporarily reassigning call center employees on Thursdays and Fridays to process Post-9/11 GI Bill claims, VA was able to complete a significant number of education claims from mid-December through mid-February.  VA’s goal was always to return call center employees to their permanent duties.

The decision to supplement claims processing staff by the call center employees was a key factor in meeting VA’s aggressive processing goal of Post-9/11 GI Bill claims.  As of mid-February 2010, VA’s capacity to process Post-9/11 GI bill claims jumped from an average of 2,000 a day in August 2009 to 7,000 a day.                                                                                 Since inception of this historic new program, VA has issued nearly $1.9 billion in Post-9/11 GI Bill benefit payments and opened the door to higher education to 209,490 people.                                                                    As of Feb. 12, VA received spring semester Post-9/11 GI Bill enrollments from approximately 180,000 student Veterans and already paid nearly 90 percent of them.  All Post-9/11 GI Bill participants whose spring enrollments were received by Jan. 18 have been paid.                                     Because VA is now processing spring enrollments timely, advance payments are no longer available at VA regional offices or through the online advance payment Web site.

In December when the decision was made to redirect phone agents to claims processing, the number of pending claims was almost 80,000 and timeliness measures were extremely high.  The inventory of education claims was driving call volume at the call center to an all time high of 1.26 million call attempts during November.                                                                                                                        That is why in mid-December 2009 VA temporarily reassigned employees at the VA Education Call Center on Thursdays and Fridays, the lowest call volume days, to help process education benefit claims.                                                                                         Since that time, the call center demand dropped by 42 percent as student Veterans received their payments.  The call center received 769,637 call attempts on Monday thru Wednesday during the first two weeks in December 2009.  By comparison, the call center received 446,328 call attempts on Monday thru Wednesday through the first two weeks in February 2010.                                                                                                Information about the Post-9/11 GI Bill, as well as VA’s other educational benefit programs, is available by calling 1-888-GIBILL-1 (or 1-888-442-4551).

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