CHAMPVA Digital Forms

Veterans' eligible dependents faced an outdated CHAMPVA healthcare enrollment system that involved printing hand-filling forms, and mailing them to Veteran Affairs. The Integrated Veteran Care Team was tasked with modernizing this process to enhance the experience for applicants and beneficiaries managing their healthcare.
Approaching the current VA experience
To understand the challenges associated with the existing CHAMPVA enrollment process, the Integrated Veteran Care (IVC) team conducted structured interviews with both current CHAMPVA beneficiaries and relevant CHAMPVA stakeholders involved in enrollment form processing. This initiative aimed to identify and document the key points of friction inherent in the existing processes.
Subsequent to the initial interviews, the information collected was organized by themes and then analyzed using affinity mapping. This allowed IVC to develop potential solutions for identified pain points. One key idea was to create a user interface (a website or app) that would make submitting enrollment forms simpler and more accessible for everyone.

Accessing Veteran Affairs' challenges
The existing process resulted in inefficiencies compared to digital enrollment methods. Notable challenges included:
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Lack of printer access among applicants
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The to need to travel to mailing locations
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Operational difficulties for program administrators, such as manual mail processing and data entry, and challenges related to illegible handwriting on submitted forms
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Extended processing times exacerbated by an increase in application volume
These challenges, pain points and positive experiences were documented in at user journey map which will help inform the final outcome of the digital form​

Building the Digital Experience
After studying the CHAMPVA application requirements and processes, a deceivingly simple paper form grew more complex. It was found that while the form itself was easy to understand, CHAMPVA was difficult to navigate. This often led to eligible dependents thinking that they are not able to enroll and vice versa. Also, the integration of the Other Health Insurance Certification led to incomplete enrollments. Applicants may not have understood that they needed to submit this extra form or have forgotten to include the necessary proof of insurance documents with their application.
Missing supporting documents were targeted as the number one reason that an application would be delayed.
IVC began contracting on 3 major aspects of the CHAMPVA enrollment process:
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Ensure legibility of the application
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Ensure the correct required supporting documents are submitted
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Ensure that users can understand and complete each section of the application




IVC developed a user flow that involved asking screening questions about the applicant and applying age-based logic to display only the questions and document upload screens that were relevant to application.


After creating what IVC determined as the minimal viable product (MVP), they began to capture data so that they can continuously improve the form for its users and the CHAMPVA partners. Overall the first iteration of the live digital application was well received by both the applicants and the CHAMVPA staff. CHAMPVA saw a significant increase in new enrollment forms entering their system.
Closing the Digital Gap for CHAMPVA
The IVC team further streamlined the CHAMPVA enrollment process by digitalizing the associated health insurance updates and healthcare claims forms. By integrating these forms into the enrollment process, the CHAMPVA processing team can now receive applications and health insurance information simultaneously, improving processing speed and data accuracy. This enhancement will reduce delays and false enrollment denials.



All of these improved digital processes were documented on a service blueprint which acts as a visual representation of how the new digital processes timelines compares to the older manual process.

