VBA’s legacy intake process required human review of handwritten, faxed or uploaded forms by more than 1,000 VBA employees across 1,000 different types of claims documents daily. Staff had to manually classify and input thousands of document types into internal systems, often struggling to decipher handwritten content. Processing delays ranged from five to 60 days depending on workload and document type. These delays prevented Veterans from receiving timely responses and contributed to backlogs.
With such a high document volume and diverse intake formats, VBA needed a modern, data-driven solution to reduce processing time, ensure data accuracy and improve the overall Veteran experience.
Aptive partnered with IBM to design and implement a fully automated intake solution powered by artificial intelligence, machine learning and cloud-based infrastructure. The solution integrated advanced technologies to digitize, classify and process documents faster and with higher accuracy.
VBA implemented Optical Character Recognition (OCR) enhanced with machine learning to extract text from handwritten and scanned documents. This AI-driven approach improved interpretation of handwritten forms and reduced manual data entry errors. The system translated text into structured data, accelerating intake from days to hours.
To support end-to-end process oversight, Aptive implemented Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure integrated with Slack for real-time alerts and workflow monitoring. This setup enabled VBA to track processing activity, quickly identify errors and respond to technical issues immediately. It also supported automation of user story capture, training content, data migration and frequently asked questions, which reduced reliance on manual support.
Aptive developed and deployed software to validate incoming documents before submission into claims systems. This ensured every record met quality standards and minimized downstream errors. Hundreds of documents were automatically reviewed and routed for same-day processing with minimal human intervention.
The Aptive team led ongoing system testing, release planning and enhancement cycles. Weekly updates were deployed to expand form type coverage and improve processing logic. Regular planning sessions with VA leadership ensured alignment with mission priorities and future scalability.
The new system significantly improved the speed and accuracy of claims intake, reducing the time required to process documents from weeks to hours. With AI and robotic process automation in place, VBA processed nearly half of all inbound mail automatically as of June 2021. Key achievements included:
More than 500,000 form fields extracted with 95% data accuracy
25+ VBA form types supported by the automated intake system
A 20% increase in automation of incoming mail packets
Weekly enhancements delivering 2–3% additional automation gains
