Blind veterans can now read their Department of Veterans Affairs benefits decision letters inside the VA Health and Benefits mobile app.
The new feature is part of VA’s efforts to improve its accessibility and enable veterans to view their decision letters immediately, online, and is a significant improvement over previously waiting 10 days to receive letters in the mail, according to a release from the VA’s Office of Information and Technology.
Blind veteran Claudia Baldwin has benefited from the new accessibility change. Baldwin served in the Air Force for over five years and medically retired as a staff sergeant. For more than 15 years, she has worked on accessibility issues with VA and the Blind Veterans Association.
“I don’t know what you did, but you can read rating decisions now in the app. OMG, this is awesome. It was beautiful,” Baldwin said after the change took effect on May 9. “I can now read it. One of the biggest things that veterans get is their rating decision. No blind veteran can read it. It’s paper. It’s a huge document sent to you and someone has to read it to you. It’s a very small percentage of veterans who can’t read it, so we don’t have a loud enough voice and usually don’t get included in accessing important programs or documentation since the information isn’t accessible to blind veterans.”
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Blind veterans can now download a PDF file from the VA Health and Benefits mobile app or by using their web browser and then using a third-party app, such as VoiceOver on iOS, to listen to the content in the PDF file.
The VA Office of Information and Technology team conducted extensive feedback sessions on the experiences of blind and low-vision veterans using the VA Health and Benefits mobile app. The research helped the team identify ways to improve the app’s current accessibility. The team is working to make additional improvements to the app’s accessibility. Assistive technology users accounted for 22 percent of sessions in 2022 and 23 percent so far in 2023.
You can help VA deliver digital tools and products that are more accessible and user-friendly for the entire Veteran community. For more information on how to sign up for a research feedback session, visit here.
Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com.
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