Veterans Affairs committee  Generally we would contact a person a year before, not at six months, to start talking with them and getting them to understand what's going to come so that we can also think about getting them ready six months prior for some sort of vocational rehabilitation. When they come to

Veterans Affairs committee  Our goal very much is to approach every person who's going to come to us, so it's not as if they have to decide to apply. Anybody who comes into our LTD program is contacted by a vocational rehab specialist. All of our rehab people are in house, so they have access to the informa

Veterans Affairs committee  You did.

Veterans Affairs committee  They can. There are implications to that. Generally, the most common one is that if they are with a program with us and they're also going to apply to a program with Veterans Affairs, they could rescind it with us, and then we don't forward it. The problem then is that they have

Veterans Affairs committee  Yes, 8% to 10%.

Veterans Affairs committee  We certainly try to work very closely to get everybody to come in. Unfortunately, there are 8% to 10% who come in after the fact. We give them a priority and try to get them in as quickly as we can. Some people, I think, are still not sure they're going to apply; not everybody wh

Veterans Affairs committee  We take any kind of feedback or appeals very seriously. We have a very low rate of appeals, less than one-half of one per cent. We've averaged about 33 a year for the last five years. On the case you're referring to, in terms of the annual form we send out, we took that feedback

Veterans Affairs committee  All I can add to that is we take privacy very seriously, given that we are dealing with medical, mental, or possibly other issues that the person has disclosed to us. Anybody who is bringing information to our organization would sign a clearly worded form about who we would be sh

Veterans Affairs committee  They work through CAF to be directed to us, and we get notification. Then we reach out and meet with them. We start with the vocational rehab team, which typically meets with them about a year before their date of release. We can actually start funding their rehabilitation progra

Veterans Affairs committee  I don't believe that's with respect to the long-term disability program. We rely heavily upon the papers that are coming from CAF to indicate that they are in fact being medically released. We are indifferent in terms of paying, whether it's service-related or non-service-related

Veterans Affairs committee  Either way, we treat them the same. We pay both the same.

Veterans Affairs committee  I'm just going to add that in the long-term disability program, generally speaking, we're speaking with the client about six months prior to the date of release. We are quite fortunate: 87% of the clients will know they've been pre-approved prior to their date of release, so most