As much as the United States likes to hang yellow ribbons and hail the returning hero, soldiers often come home to a nightmare of bureaucracy and the slow-grinding wheels of the government they've fought for. Disabled vets in particular can encounter red tape that delays them receiving the medical assistance or other benefits they need and deserve. Not helping the situation: The Veterans Administration is mired in a backlog of cases.
LaVan and Neidenberg, a Fort Lauderdale law firm specializing in disability claims, called in software reinforcements to help slice through paperwork and get faster results for its military-service clients. Each of those clients has to deal with about 40 different documents in order to file a claim. "We needed to both effectively manage this data and move it along quickly in the approval process," said Ken LaVan, the firm's president.
Group Business Software, a global software and services company specializing in cloud automation and IBM Lotus Notes and Domino, devised a "social business solution" based on four IBM packages: Lotus Notes and Domino, the Symphony free desktop suite, and Sametime, a sophisticated instant-messaging/collaboration program. With the GBS system, the law firm says, staffers are now able to quickly find all the data related to a case, including a vet's service history, job history, injuries and contact info.
These tools "enabled us to automate much of the claims process, including submissions to the government, agency assignments and email notifications," LaVan says. Vets' claims are now filed 60 percent faster, the law firm says. The time it takes to fill out the forms has been reduced by one-third; rejected or failed applications have also been reduced. But it's not all about reductions. LaVan and Neidenberg has seen its client base increase by about 60 percent, the firm says.

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