Over 40,000 Veterans Appeals Ignored

VA Audit: Over 40,000 Veterans Appeals Ignored
Posted on June 1, 2012 by VCS
From Ben Krause VCS AD for Advocacy and founder of disabledveterans.org

VA Regional Offices are ignoring 18.5 percent of veterans’ appeals on average, according to a recent audit. The Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that ignoring claims causes a processing delay of 444 days.

Let’s hope the VA notices your appeal. In “Audit of VA Regional Offices’ Appeals Management Processes” report, auditors found that one veteran’s claim had been ignored for over 1,500 days.

As of the date of the audit, 246,000 disability appeals were on file. If the 18.5 percent average holds across the entire VA, another 45,000 appeals claims are not on record despite the VA having the appeal on file.

To assess appeals processing, the Veterans Affairs OIG created a sample of VA regional offices across the US. These offices served as the “average” regional offices. The auditors then handed the different offices 783 potential NOD’s. VA adjudicators failed to identify 145 of these as potential appeals.

Here is how the process works. A veteran files an appeal because they disagree with a decision by the VA. In this form, it is considered a Notice of Disagreement (NOD). Once a review of the claim is completed, if the reviewer does not agree with the veteran, a Statement of the Case is created by the VA. If the veterans still disagrees, they appeal and VA then certifies the appeal to the Board of Appeals.

For the Notice of Disagreement portion, the VA has set a target of 125 days to complete the review. The VA has also set a 180-day target for the certification process.

In 2010, VA took an average of 656 days to fully process an appeal. This audit does not provide the average for 2011, but one unidentified regional office averages 1,219 days.
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