VA clears 97 percent of claims two years and older

VA clears 97 percent of claims two years and older
Navy Times
Rick Maze
Staff Writer
Jun. 20, 2013

More than 65,000 veterans’ disability compensation claims have been eliminated during a two-month push to process the oldest claims first, Veterans Affairs Department officials announced Thursday.

The initial effort was aimed at processing claims that have been pending for at least two years, with the next four months set aside for handling claims that are between one and two years old.

As of Wednesday, the 60-day deadline set by VA for the first stage of the push, 97 percent of claims at least two years old were “eliminated from the backlog,” VA officials said in a statement.

Work starts today on claims pending for at least one year while “completing the final batch of the oldest claims,” according to the statement. More than 192,000 pending claims are between one and two years old, VA officials said.

VA officials said about 70 percent of the claims processed so far resulted in disability compensation being approved, a rate that is about what VA experiences for all claims.
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