VA Form 21-10210 will be used by the
claimant to gather lay or witness statements that support an
existing claim for benefits or services. Without this information,
VA may not be able to efficiently and successfully process claims
that may require additional statements associated with a claim for
benefits or services.
(1) Veteran Ability to
submit Claims Impacted Due to COVID-19. Local travel restrictions
and COVID-19 mandated health & safety precautions may impact
Veterans' and claimants' abilities to file forms, documents, and
other responses in connection with VA Claims & Appeals. (2)
Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) anticipates a potential
increase in the submission of claims during and after the state of
emergency for COVID-19. In an effort to address the effects of
COVID-19 on claims processing for Veterans and claimants and to
provide better, faster, and more efficient services, VBA proposes
to align our modernization efforts with the way we currently
receive certain types of veteran/claimant information. VBA has
identified the need for 3 new forms that will reduce the submission
of the current free-text form which does not support our current
automation processing. By creating these new forms that do support
the existing automation processes we will be able to provide faster
and more efficient delivery of service to Veterans and claimants in
response to the anticipated increase in claims related submissions
that were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. (3) This new form will
also enable VBA to process Veteran data faster due to the use of
computerized Optical Character Recognition (OCR) which is the
automated process to "read" forms for information upload into VBA
systems.
US Code:
38
USC 501 Name of Law: Rules and Regulations
US Code: 38
USC 5103 Name of Law: Due Process
US Code: 38
USC 5101(a) Name of Law: Claims and Forms
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that
the collection of information encompassed by this request complies
with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR
1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding
the proposed collection of information, that the certification
covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a
benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control
number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of
these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked
and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.