Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to participate in this session. My name is Anne-Marie Pellerin, and I'm the director of case management, rehabilitation and mental health services. I'm joined by my colleague, Lina Carrese, who is the sci

Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, we're actually exceeding that at the present time.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes. Within Veterans Affairs, Mr. Chair, the case manager gets engaged during the transition process at the integrated personnel support centres, the 24 IPSCs across the country, where we are co-located with National Defence staff. The case manager gets engaged with the releasing

Veterans Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, I have a couple of examples whereby we have delegated decision-making authority to what we call the front line, making sure the decisions are made as close to the veteran as possible, whereas in the past, some of those decisions had to be escalated to either regional o

Veterans Affairs committee  That's correct.

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, I do. Mr. Chair, in terms of the rehabilitation program eligibility decisions, prior to the—I guess it wasn't so much the delegation of authority, but recently we've reduced the service standard around those decisions from four to two weeks. That means the veterans who appl

Veterans Affairs committee  We improved the service standard—let's put it that way—by cutting down the turnaround time on those key decisions. Again, that enables the veteran to get access to needed benefits much sooner than had been the case before.

Veterans Affairs committee  They are half of what they were before, that's correct.

Veterans Affairs committee  We are achieving that standard 85% of the time. In other words, veterans are providing the needed documentation. Once we have that needed documentation to make a decision, those decisions are made very rapidly.

Veterans Affairs committee  Automatic renewal—I believe you are referring to the treatment benefits, so the treatment benefit programs, whereas previously authorizations were required based on renewal of treatment benefits. The requirement for those renewals, pre-authorization, has been removed.

Veterans Affairs committee  We have anecdotal evidence from our veterans in terms of their satisfaction with the case management process and the earlier intervention. We haven't done a study, so to speak, but certainly the anecdotal evidence would suggest that there is certainly satisfaction with that earli

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. In terms of the release of modern-day veterans, we have been finding for a number of years that the complexity of the health and re-establishment circumstances of those releasing members is different, obviously, from the traditional clients with whom Vetera

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes.

Veterans Affairs committee  No. Colonel Bernier, I don't know if you want to comment on this question.

Veterans Affairs committee  Thank you for the question. The case management function is a very critical and important function within Veterans Affairs, and we want to ensure that our case managers have a caseload that is reasonable within a standard of practice, so that they can dedicate the time required