WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Social Security
Administration (SSA) launched a new Health IT initiative that enables VA to
share medical records electronically with social security disabilty processors.
This secure process will save time and money resulting in better service for
Veterans and dependents who apply for social security disability benefits. The
SSA requests nearly 15 million medical records from health care organizations
yearly to make medical decisions on about three million disability claims. For
decades, SSA obtained medical records through a manual process. This new
national initiative puts in place an automated process to obtain Veterans’
medical records entirely electronically.
“VA’s
partnership with Social Security will ultimately improve the quality of life
for Veterans and their dependents by enabling Veterans to share their health
information within a safe and secure health-related consumer application,” said
Dr. David Shulkin, VA’s Under Secretary for Health.
The joint venture is expected to significantly speed up social security
disability decisions, utilizing VA’s VLER
Health Exchange under the Virtual
Lifetime Electronic Record (VLER) Program. The VLER Health Exchange gives
VA and participating community providers the ability to retrieve Veterans’
health information from each other for the purpose of treatment. Currently,
VLER Health Exchange shares health data with over 79 community health care
partners, representing 775 Hospitals, 427 Federally Qualified Health Centers,
142 Nursing Homes, 8441 Pharmacies and over 11,969 Clinics. The SSA now has
access for the purpose of processing benefits for Veterans and their
dependents.
“This SSA-VA partnership is another example of VA’s leadership in
interoperability efforts among federal partners,” said VA Secretary, Robert
McDonald. “Increasing federal partnerships to improve operation and resource
coordination across agencies is among VA’s 12 Breakthrough Priorities for
2016.”
VA has partnership agreements with Health and Human Services (HHS), Department
of Defense (DOD), Department of Treasury (DOT) among many others.
To learn more about VA health care visit: www.va.gov/health.