VA takes 185 days this year to process a claim, last year it was 177 so what's going on?

In a post I did earlier today, the VA said they needed to higher "tech savvy" workers to speed up the time it takes to process a claim.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

VA 400,000 claim backlog causes search for "tech savvy workers"
Peake: VA needs young, tech-savvy workers
Still, it is taking an average of 185 days to process claims, two months longer than VA’s goal.

Sounds like a good idea until you consider this. Last year I did a video, Wounded and Waiting. I just looked back on that video because I knew there was a lot of data in it. The problem with the number of days it now takes to process a claim, is now longer than it was last year. According to a report on Army Times, it took 177 days to process an original claim and it took 657 days to process an appeal. Back then the congress was complaining about all of this. So why is it, it is now taking longer and no one is really screaming about any of this?

Does congress know what this puts the veterans through? Until a claim is approved, they are not counted on anything. This includes the checks for disability they need to live off of and pay their bills especially when their disability keeps them from getting a paycheck. It is taking longer now than last year? Are there any reporters out their paying attention to any of this or are they expecting the blog world to pay attention so they can just read about it and then take the easy way out?

Senior Chaplain Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
www.Namguardianangel.org
www.Woundedtimes.blogspot.com
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington