How VA Gave 11 Million Veterans and Beneficiaries a Simpler, More Secure Way to Access Their Benefits
Department of Veterans Affairs
The TMF’s $7 million investment enabled the Department of Veterans Affairs to streamline access to its services to two secure, government-approved sign-in options, making it easier for veterans and beneficiaries to get what they need while significantly strengthening account security.
Background
Veterans and beneficiaries come to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for some of the most important services in their lives, and the process of simply signing-in had become a source of frustration. For years, VA supported four different sign-in options which created confusion on which one veterans should choose. Additionally, two of the four options were outdated sign-in systems that did not meet security requirements from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Challenge
Verifying identities, preventing fraud, and supporting sign-in accounts are specialized, resource-intensive functions, and VA did not have the staff or infrastructure to manage these processes. The agency was also absorbing the ongoing costs of two outdated systems that existed in parallel, compounding inefficiency. The challenge was a question of where VA’s investment should go, and moving to shared, commercially-available sign-in tools was the answer.
Solution
VA retired two outdated sign-in systems, the My HealtheVet username and DS Logon in 2025, and moved all veterans to Login.gov and ID.me. These are NIST-compliant providers built specifically to keep accounts secure and confirm that the right person is accessing the right account. Veterans can also use these credentials to sign-in across multiple federal and state agencies.
Impact
During the transition towards modern credentials, VA staff across the country worked to support almost 2 million new accounts for both ID.me and Login.gov. Currently, about 11 million veterans access VA benefits and health care through Login.gov or ID.me.
A separate TMF investment is replacing paper benefits forms with digital versions. Those forms are used more than two million times a month. The first ten digital forms have already saved 350,000 veterans a combined 2,385 years of time compared to filling out paper, with satisfaction scores rising 8.6% along the way. When all 53 forms are complete, VA projects $33.7 million in savings, roughly $636,000 per form, by using AI to streamline and accelerate how each form is built.
Role of TMF
TMF funding made it possible for VA to retire two outdated sign-in systems and move millions of veterans to more secure options without disrupting their access to benefits. That work would have been difficult to execute through standard annual budget funding alone. The cost savings will continue to grow each year VA no longer has to maintain the retired infrastructure, freeing up dollars that can go toward health care and benefits. Login.gov strengthens that foundation further by offering veterans multiple ways to verify their identity, dedicated customer support, and continuous fraud detection built into the platform.
