All decisions go to the department, as well as the veteran, so that the department is aware of the outcome. Often the department has to take actions as a consequence. When we give entitlement, they then have to assess the extent of the injury and make a payment as a result of that. We report on our work on an annual basis in our annual report, and that too is provided to the department. We have ongoing discussions about overall trends that we see.
I would say that the two most frequent questions are common, and the department is turning their minds to those questions on initial granting. I don't think we ask any different questions than the department asks on the initial application.
The department usually writes a good decision when they deny applications now. The decisions are much better than they were probably eight or nine years ago. They clearly set out, in almost a checklist format, the documents that were looked at and where the gap was in the evidence. I see the veterans taking those decisions away and giving them to their counsel or their doctors. That's what they aim at: filling in that gap. I think there's a good recognition on the part of the department about why we're coming to our decisions.