Thousands of Arizona veterans face backlog on disability claims

Thousands of Arizona veterans face backlog on disability claims with VA
Monday, Oct. 29, 2012
By FARA ILLICH
Cronkite News

VA backlog: Number of veterans in Arizona: 600,000
Number of pending veterans disability claims: 23,000
Number of claims with a wait time over 125 days: 17,000
Average number of days a claim is pending: 320
Average number of days a claim takes to complete: 365
Sources: Phoenix Veterans Affairs Regional Office and Arizona Department of Veterans Services

PHOENIX – Peering through the new prescription glasses he just got from the veterans hospital, Korean War veteran Gilbert Torres sifted through a stack of papers detailing claims he’d had pending with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs since July 2011.

Torres is asking the VA re-evaluate the 30 percent disability he was awarded in the 1960s for injuries to both feet during a training exercise and to grant him disability for lingering gastrointestinal problems from food poisoning.

Torres said he’s happy with the services the VA has provided him over the years like free medical and vision care, but said he doesn’t understand why he’s been waiting more than a year for answers.

“I can wait, but I’d like to have some sort of notice,” he said. “I deserve what I’m asking for.”

Torres is part of a backlog of 17,000 disability compensation claims in Arizona as of October, according to the VA’s Phoenix Regional Office, which processes disability compensation for the state. These are claims that have been pending longer than 125 days.

There were 587,800 claims pending in the backlog nationwide as of September, according to the VA.

Despite efforts by the VA to ramp up processing times, officials say the department can’t keep up with the volume of claims, which have risen nearly 50 percent since 2008.

Part of the increase has to do with the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan winding down and many new veterans filing, but is also due to a class-action lawsuit that added ischemic heart disease, hairy cell and other forms of B-cell leukemia and Parkinson’s to a list of diseases associated with exposure to Agent Orange, according to John Rowan, national president of Vietnam Veterans of America.

“We’ve got a backlog because of a perfect storm,” Rowan said.
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