State veterans agencies must navigate a complex web of state and federal eligibility and regulatory processes in their delivery of services. Veterans’ agencies are under increased pressure from multiple stakeholders to drastically improve veterans’ services and associated outcomes. Such outcomes are expected of state agencies despite budgetary constraints, limited staff, and often an inadequate aging technology infrastructure.
Public Consulting Group’s (PCG’s) solutions will help your agency navigate this complex web and serve a diverse veteran population with very specialized and varied needs – from health benefits and financial assistance to disability, employment, and education services.
How can PCG help?
To best serve your veterans' most pressing needs, we can customize a solution that targets
- Strategy and planning activities
- Financial consulting and billing services
- Project and grants management
- Assessments and feasibility studies
Strategic planning and organizational effectiveness
Our team of experts can help your agency define its mission, values, and goals, as well as create actionable strategic and organizational plans. We can help you effectively manage organizational changes such as service integration or agency re-organization and help your organization develop leadership skills and workforce capacity for continuous improvement. At the conclusion of this work, your agency will be left with immediate, actionable recommendations, as well as tools and skills for continuous improvement that can be implemented independently in the future. Implementing our recommendations will make your state agency stronger and more coordinated enabling you to deliver high quality services to a larger veteran population.
Financial consulting and billing services
Whether you are a new leader or a seasoned administrator, understanding your organization’s finances is crucial to ensuring that you have the funds available to provide needed services. PCG can help you increase revenues, improve cash flow, lower costs, and streamline staff production and efficiency. We offer multiple assessment types to assist with understanding key areas of concern that can improve your operations as well as insights into rates, charge masters, financial modeling, and/or service line costs. From financial assessments to billing process improvements to providing billing services, PCG can help you optimize your organization’s financial strength.
Project and grants management
PCG experts can help “drive” the implementation of projects, including technology, strategy execution, and grants. Our experienced staff will lead project planning, execution and coordination, and will work to make sure that your agency reaches its goals on time and within budget. PCG also has experience in grants management, and can help your agency capitalize on funding opportunities by helping institute a centralized grants management office, staffing that office, conducting training around effective grants management, and ensuring that the state’s long-term technology solutions incorporate grants management functionality.
Assessments and feasibility studies
PCG has helped states address the multidimensional challenges of today’s veterans by working to reevaluate existing public programs and infrastructure. States will soon be serving a more diverse veteran population with very specialized and varied needs, from health (including mental health, PTSD, TBI, and others) benefits and financial assistance, to disability, housing, employment, and childcare. For many states, the combination of an aging facility infrastructure and an evolving veteran population or the need for additional facilities makes this an ideal time to assess demographic trends and the holistic needs of veterans. PCG can provide that assistance.
Why PCG?
Since 1986, PCG has helped government agencies develop plans, optimize resources, improve business processes, utilize performance-based decision making, and improve services to customers. We are committed to helping our clients meet their goals and objectives by providing industry-leading management consulting and technology. We have developed a deep understanding of the legal and regulatory requirements and fiscal constraints that often dictate a public agency’s ability to meet the needs of the populations it serves. Our success as a firm is ultimately determined by improved outcomes for our clients.
Solutions that Matter
In Ohio, PCG examined the current structure and function of veterans’ services at the state and local government levels and throughout the country to identify best practices and facilitate comparisons between Ohio’s model for the provision of veterans’ services and alternative models elsewhere in the U.S. The study assisted Ohio Department of Veterans Services with its goal of continuous improvement in state and county-level provision of veterans’ services.
For Indiana Department of Veterans Affairs (IDVA), PCG provided an agency-wide evaluation of veterans’ benefits and assistance operations. PCG assessed the Department’s organizational structure and business operations to identify opportunities for improvement that will drive IDVA towards providing better services to Hoosier veterans. Specifically, our evaluation focused on enhancing organizational strategy, effectiveness, and operations. For example, our research and analysis revealed that on average, IDVA could bring in 58 percent more federal revenue to the Indiana economy. PCG provided IDVA with 10 deliverables including an actionable implementation plan for IDVA to fulfill the recommendations. Recommendations focused on moving IDVA to a new organizational business model that utilizes partners, harnesses the expertise of the many other Indiana-based veterans’ agencies and leverages technology to effectively coordinate service delivery.
PCG worked with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Veterans’ Services to determine the most effective and efficient use of the Chelsea and Holyoke Soldiers’ Home properties. PCG conducted assessments of the future health needs of veterans and services available at both facilities and across the Commonwealth. PCG partnered with Massachusetts again to assess staffing needs for a new Community Living Center facility at the Chelsea Soldiers’ Home that is anticipated to open in the next two years.
The Kentucky Department of Veterans Affairs selected PCG to conduct a market assessment and feasibility study to guide planning and development efforts for future long-term care facilities for Commonwealth veterans. This study resulted in recommendations for the placement of a new skilled nursing facility based on a comprehensive review of the marketplace, including state veteran demographics and a 30-year population projection.
PCG conducted a feasibility study for the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs to assess the long-term health care needs of veterans across the state. PCG analyzed the current demographics of Alabama’s veteran population; created a model to project the future demand for veterans’ nursing home beds over the next 30 years; provided recommendations on whether a new veterans’ nursing home should be built and where it should be located based on demand projections; and developed and analyzed projections for the cost of constructing and operating a new home.
The Missouri Veterans’ Commission (MVC) asked PCG to study the needs of the state’s veteran population and to make recommendations as to any additional services that may be required. As part of this review, PCG conducted a cost/benefit analysis of our recommendations and assessed the feasibility of each. PCG also provided detailed estimates of the costs and activities required to convert an existing facility to create additional Adult Day Health capacity. Additionally, PCG conducted research to help the MVC identify the needs of homeless veterans in Missouri, and ways the MVC could meet those needs.
More Information
For more information about PCG's Veteran Services Consulting please contact us at info@pcgus.com or 617-426-2026.