New contractor will help with VA’s paperless transition

An IT solutions company, Merlin International, was recently selected to contract with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to assist the federal government agency in streamlining its VA benefits claims processing.

The IT contractor will work with its partner company, Thunderhead, to improve the veterans’ benefits claims process and to help the VA transition from paper forms to an online-only, more efficient, system.

John Trauth, President of Merlin International said, “With this award Merlin will play an integral role in assisting the Veterans Benefits Administration in achieving its strategic goals of timely claims processing by delivering veteran-centered, personalized services and improving overall veterans experience with the VA by providing what they want, when they want it and how they want it.”

Included in the streamlining initiative is a program called straight through processing.   Straight through processing helps identify claims with extenuating circumstances and removes them from the main stream applications for a separate department to handle. The computerized separation will allow regular and special applications to not be bogged down in one department, making everything work more efficiently.

Merlin International is also expected to set up an online server which can be accessed by all VA Service Center representatives in order to make the entire claims process easier for the government staffers and ultimately the veterans making benefits claims. No additional software is required by any VA office in order to access this new technology.