Application aimed at being more user friendly, removing barriers to care

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has received its fair share of warranted scrutiny in the wake of its 2014 wait list scandal. While the VA has many challenges and problems – some quite serious – numerous studies show it continues to outperform the rest of the U.S. health care sector on nearly every metric of quality. In an effort to improve access to care, the VA has unveiled a new online application for veterans to receive health care.

“In order to improve access to care, we reviewed many of the steps veterans must take to receive that care and found that improvements needed to be made in the initial application to improve the veteran experience and remove barriers that hinder access,” said VA Deputy Secretary Sloan D. Gibson. “Veterans could previously apply for health care online, but the user experience was often frustrating, and the process required VA employees to generate paper applications that were manually entered into our eligibility verification and enrollment processing systems,” he continued.

Veterans applying for health care benefits are now being directed to the new health care application on vets.gov. Unlike the online 10-10EZ and previous applications, the new form does not require special software to open, nor does it need to be printed by the veteran or VA staff to be processed.

The new application is for veterans who have not previously applied for VA health care, and requires nothing more than an internet connection and 15-45 minutes of a veteran’s time.

“Having a healthcare system designed to meet our specific needs as veterans isn’t much good for those who can’t access care,” said National Service Director Jim Marszalek. “We’re glad to see VA finally catching up to today’s digital world and taking the necessary steps to ensure health care is more easily accessible to our nation’s heroes.”

The new health care application form is available here. Additional information can be found by visiting the VA’s Health Benefits Application website.