VA Offers Provisional Compensation for Claims

VA Offers Provisional Compensation for Claims
Apr 19, 2013
Military.com
by Bryant Jordan

The Department of Veterans Affairs announced a plan Friday to tackle its disability claims backlog by awarding provisional compensation to tens of thousands of veterans whose claims have languished in the VA's system.

"This is an important initiative because it will accelerate delivery of compensation benefits to those eligible veterans who have waited the longest, some over two years," VA Under Secretary for Benefits Allison Hickey told reporters Friday morning. "Veterans whose claims are granted will begin receiving compensation immediately after a provisional rating decision."

All claims older than one year should be resolved in about six months, she said.

In the meantime, she said, the new focus on these older claims will mean the average number of days it takes to complete one – now 286 days – will go up. But as more of the older, paper-based claims are resolved, and more come in electronically, the average will shrink significantly, she said.

"It [the average] will spike, and then it will start coming down," Hickey said.

The new program does not change the claims status of select groups of veterans, such as former prisoners of war, Medal of Honor recipients, the homeless and terminally ill. These veterans will continue to have expedited claims processing, Hickey said.

The VA's claims backlog has been estimated to be as high as 600,000, with some dating back more than two years.

Depending on where a veteran lives in the country, he or she can expect to wait more than 600 days to have a claim acted on.
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