Vets’ disability claims keep piling up

Two pieces of good news for veterans — a possible $6.5 billion increase in the 2008 Veterans Affairs Department budget and passage of six bills to improve veterans programs — were overshadowed May 23 by a discussion that showed there is no quick or easy solution to the huge backlog of veterans’ disability benefits claims.

Retired Navy Vice Adm. Daniel Cooper, VA’s undersecretary for benefits, who has spent five years wrestling with claims processing, said headway is proving difficult because new claims are being filed faster than old claims can be handled. In fiscal 2006, the VA received 806,382 claims, and expects 811,000 this fiscal year, he said.

Claims also are becoming more complicated, he said. More than 25 percent include eight or more disabling conditions, each of which must be weighed. And more cases involve chronic progressive disabilities, such as cardiovascular problems and diabetes, which will worsen and likely result in additional claims, if only to increase a disability rating.

The $6.5 billion increase in VA funding approved by a House Appropriations subcommittee will help modestly by allowing the VA to hire 1,500 more claims staff. But Cooper cautioned that “increased staffing levels do not produce immediate production improvements,” and in fact could slow things down as experienced staffers are diverted to help new employees learn procedures. It could be a year or more before improvements are seen, he said.

“We are at a crisis stage and it will certainly get worse,” said Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee chairman who hosted the discussion that involved veterans’ groups, VA workers who process claims, legal experts and academics who have looked at the VA’s problems.

“This is very frustrating,” Filner said, “Some people have died before their claims are adjudicated. Some have lost their homes to foreclosure.”

The VA has about 800,000 claims pending, about 400,000 involving disability claims. The rest are changes in status or requests for education benefits that are not generally considered a problem.

Read the rest at Army Times.

~ by Brad on June 1, 2007.