Veterans Benefits Office Mistakes Cost Veterans Time and Money

Report cites VA struggles with benefits paid to veterans
USA Today
By Gregg Zoroya
Published: July 14, 2014

The federal department responsible for caring for America's veterans, already mired in scandal over delays in health care, continues struggling with another major responsibility: paying compensation to those wounded or injured or who grew ill from service in uniform.

While the VA managed last year to reduce a huge backlog in veteran claims for money, it was at the expense of appeals to those decision which are rapidly mounting, according to testimony slated for Monday by the VA Office of Inspector General.

The written testimony provided by the House Veterans' Affairs Committee in advance of a congressional hearing outlines several sloppy or improper steps taken by the Department of Veterans Affairs in processing compensation claims. They include potentially inflated success rate in reducing a controversial backlog and over-paying veterans by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Other mistakes or sloppiness cited by Haliday include:

The VA failed to follow up with veterans granted temporary 100% disability pending improvement of their physical health. Investigators estimate this has resulted in $85 million overpaid since 2012 and could mean another $370 million wasted in the next five years.

Other VA processing responsibilities have suffered because of so much emphasis on reducing the compensation backlog. The number of pending appeals of compensation judgments has increased 18% since 2011 to nearly 270,000.

Federal law prohibits reservists and National Guard troops from receiving drill pay and VA compensation at the same time. But the VA has failed to check on this, resulting in $50-$100 million in overpaid compensation annually.

Halliday cites an assortment of other problems including thousands of pieces of undelivered mail languishing at an Indianapolis VA processing center.

At a VA benefits office in Philadelphia, investigators are sifting through allegations that staff shredded or hid mail related to compensation claims or failed to respond to 32,000 requests about claims from veterans.

In Baltimore, a VA processor was discovered storing 8,000 pieces of unprocessed claims-related mail, Social Security data and other documents in his office, along with 80 pending claims.
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And now a reminder of where we were on all of this back in 2008

Buried under backlogs
Federal Times
By GREGG CARLSTROM
February 25, 2008

More than 400,000 veterans are awaiting decisions on disability claims they filed with the Veterans Affairs Department, and roughly one-quarter of those have waited more than half a year.

Social Security Administration staffs are grappling with more than 600,000 disability claims.

Regional service centers at the Homeland Security Department’s Citizenship and Immigration Services are buried under more than 1 million citizenship applications.

And the Food and Drug Administration is more than a decade from inspecting every foreign pharmaceutical plant it is obliged by law to inspect.

Poor planning by agency leaders and underfunding by Congress created these debilitating backlogs that may take years to resolve, according to federal officials, legislators and watchdog groups.

At the start of the Bush administration in 2001, VA had more than 400,000 pending claims for disability ratings, which determine a service-disabled veteran’s employability and disability benefits. The department made progress reducing that number: By 2003, the backlog was down to around 250,000.

But then the nation went to war.

“VA was kind of cruising right along with a certain volume of claims until the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Then the volume of claims increased,” said Belinda Finn, VA’s assistant inspector general for auditing. “We still had the same processes for handling a lower workload, and the system just hasn’t been able to handle the increase in claims.”

And so the backlog started creeping up. By 2008, VA once again has more than 400,000 pending claims for a disability rating. About 25 percent of those are officially considered backlogged, meaning they have been pending longer than six months.

“The number of claims that we receive each year has been going up pretty steadily,” said Michael Walcoff, VA’s associate deputy undersecretary for field operations. “In 2000, we got 578,000 claims, and last year got 838,000. That’s a pretty significant increase, and certainly some of that can be attributed to the soldiers coming back from [the wars].”

President Clinton left 400,000 with no wars and President Bush left over 800,000. Then the mess with President Obama. What this goes to prove is it does not matter which party is in charge since congress has been led by both parties as well during all the presidencies. It starts with congress and they will not take responsibility for any of it. Not a damn thing. Next time you hear one of them blame Obama, remember that, because the next President will be blamed as well for what Congress has failed to do since 1946 as the first House Veterans Affairs Committee took their chairs.