VA's Automation Push: How Rapid Digital Transformation Is Changing Veterans' Benefits Access
When the Department of Veterans Affairs set an ambitious Veterans Day deadline to digitize four benefits forms in 44 days, the goal wasn't just to move paper processes online — it was to prove that government can move at the speed that Veterans deserve.
Every year, VA processes millions of benefits claims, and every manual step adds time, complexity, and potential for error. VA leadership has emphasized that improving the Veteran experience requires eliminating friction at every touchpoint — and that means automating wherever possible.
When our team was awarded this work under VA's Benefits Intake Optimization (BIO) initiative, we knew automation would be essential to delivering production-ready forms by the Veterans Day deadline. But more than that, we understood this work represented something larger: a fundamental shift in how VA approaches digital transformation, and what becomes possible when automation drives the mission.
Understanding VA's Automation Imperative
The four forms we digitized collectively process more than 200,000 paper submissions annually, consuming over 70,000 hours from Veterans, caregivers, and medical professionals to complete — not including additional VA processing time. These aren't just numbers. They represent real friction in people’s everyday lives.
Paper forms require manual data entry, creating opportunities for errors and delays. They can't be filled out on a phone during a hospital visit or submitted at midnight when a Veteran finally has a quiet moment. They often require duplicate information that Veterans have already provided elsewhere in the system.
The forms we worked on illustrate the breadth of services VA provides:
Collecting nursing home information to support Veterans' claims for aid and attendance benefits (VA Form 21-0779)
Documenting medical examinations that determine whether a Veteran qualifies as housebound or requires regular aid and attendance (VA Form 21-2680)
Gathering employment information from employers to verify claims for disability benefits (VA Form 21-4192)
Enabling state or tribal organizations to apply for burial allowances on behalf of Veterans (VA Form 21P-530a)
Digitizing them required more than converting PDF fields to web forms. It meant digging into how people use these forms and exploring how automation could improve that experience.
How Automation Transforms the Forms Experience
True automation in government digital services goes beyond digitization. It means building intelligence into the process itself.
Enhanced data validation catches errors before submission, preventing delays caused by incomplete information. Automated PDF generation provides instant records without requiring additional steps. Full integration with VA's Lighthouse Benefits Intake API creates a seamless handoff to downstream processing systems, eliminating manual routing and data transfer.
We also built authenticated and unauthenticated experiences tailored to different user contexts. For example, a Veteran logged into VA.gov can benefit from pre-filled information and saved progress, whereas someone helping a Veteran without login credentials can still complete and submit the form smoothly.
Accessibility features meeting federal standards and mobile-responsive design ensure these forms work for everyone, regardless of device or ability — because automation shouldn't create new barriers while removing old ones.
Building Reusable Solutions for Long-Term Impact
One of the most valuable outcomes from rapid delivery projects isn't always the immediate deliverable — it's the reusable components and patterns that emerge from solving problems under pressure.
Working within a 44-day timeline forced us to develop an enhanced schema management approach that could be standardized and reused. We created technical patterns for form validation, PDF generation, and API integration that don't just serve these four forms — they can accelerate future digitization efforts across VA's platform while reducing technical debt.
This is how automation compounds. Each solved problem becomes a building block. Each standardized pattern makes the following form faster. Each lesson learned improves the next sprint. For an agency with hundreds of paper forms still awaiting modernization, these reusable solutions represent significant future efficiency gains.
The Role of Iteration in Rapid Delivery
Delivering four production-ready forms with 54 pages and 2,400+ automated tests in 44 days might sound like it requires cutting corners, but the reality is the opposite: it requires disciplined iteration.
Our team conducted 16 design iterations, working closely with Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) business users to understand processes and painpoints. This iterative approach allowed us to continuously refine rather than waiting for a "perfect" final product that might miss the mark.
Modern development practices made this possible: continuous integration and deployment pipelines, automated testing at every layer, and collaborative development with VA's product teams embedded throughout the process. And at every iteration, the question was, “Does this work better for the end user?”
Minimum Viable Products and Continuous Improvement
The four forms we delivered on Veterans Day were production-ready minimum viable products (MVPs) — intentionally so. Rapid, agile iterations began immediately upon publishing and will focus on adding enhanced features based on real-world usage.
This is modern government software delivery: ship early, learn fast, improve continuously. It's a model that prioritizes getting value to users quickly while maintaining the flexibility to adapt based on what's actually needed, not just what was initially envisioned.
For agencies accustomed to multi-year development cycles and big-bang releases, this approach can feel uncomfortable. But it's how technology products are built successfully in the private sector, and it's increasingly how government agencies are achieving meaningful digital modernization.
Scaling the Model Across VA and Beyond
This Veterans Day delivery is one milestone in Aquia's broader work supporting VA's digital transformation across multiple initiatives, including digitizing the claims process with VA Disability Benefits Crew (DBC) and advancing AI innovation with the VA National Artificial Intelligence Institute (NAII).
Each project contributes to VA's larger vision: not just modernizing systems, but fundamentally reimagining how technology can serve those who've served.
The lessons from this 44-day sprint (the value of automation, the power of iteration, and the importance of reusable components) can inform digital transformation efforts across the federal government. When automation drives the mission, when user needs drive design, and when modern practices drive delivery, agencies can move at the speed their constituents deserve.
For Veterans and those who support them, that means less time navigating bureaucracy and more time accessing the benefits they've earned.
For more information on the automations Aquia is introducing at VA or to discuss how we can help your agency modernize its systems and processes, contact us at federal@aquia.us.
