After a spike in backlog numbers in recent years, Veterans Affairs officials have seen a steady decrease in the number of overdue disability claims in their benefits system over the last five months, officials said in March.
But they still expect it will take a while before the case numbers return to pre-pandemic levels.
As of March, the number of first-time claims that were considered backlogged — pending for more than four months — was about 244,000. That’s down about 8% from October 2021, when the figure reached about 264,000.
Veterans who file a disability claim can receive payouts backdated to their date of initial filing, meaning that the slower processing times do not technically cost veterans any of their disability payouts.
However, the backlog means more veterans are delayed in getting those payouts to start, in some cases leaving veterans’ finances in disarray for months longer than they anticipated.
The claims backlog became a national scandal in 2013 when the total reached more than 610,000 cases, as a flood of new claims related to new presumptive conditions linked to Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam overwhelmed the system.
In ensuing years, department officials digitized their records and claims system and hired more staffers to bring down those totals. As of early 2020, the backlog figure hovered around 70,000 cases.
But delays in medical exams and issues with accessing military medical records related to the coronavirus pandemic led to a significant increase in processing time for new claims. When additional Agent Orange presumptives and new burn pit illness claims were added last year, the backlog total grew even higher.
Department staffers have processed more than 760,000 cases since Oct. 1, the largest workload in VA history at this point in the fiscal year.
Read more at Militarytimes.com
Author: Military Times
Published with permission. MilitaryTimes.com is a part of the Sightline Media Group, formerly known as the Army Times Publishing Company, which first published Army Times in 1940. Throughout its history, the company has a strong heritage and tradition of meeting the highest standards of independent journalism and has expanded with publications serving all branches of the U.S. military, the global defense community, the U.S. federal government, and several special interest, defense-oriented industry sectors.
