How Long Is The Backlog Of Va Claims?

[broncovet]

If each Veteran waiting on the VA to process his claim were to line up, in Washington DC. How long would the line be? And how long would the wait be?

Answer: Not counting the backlog is Education benefits claims (the NEW GI BILL), if the 1,000,000 "backlogged" Veterans lined up, fingertip to finger tip, (Assuming 6 feet tall Veterans), the line would reach more than 1,136 miles. In other words, the line of Veterans waiting for benefits would stretch from Washington DC to Kansas City. Since Mr. Shinseki took over, the backlog has grown by about 15%, or the line has grown about 170 miles longer in the past year.

The wait averages about 2 years. The VA says that it takes about 6 months, however, since far less than 50% of Veterans claims get initial approval, an appeal process is required. Right now, a BVA appeal takes about 2 years. So the Average wait is about 2 years.

[carlie]

bronco,

Do you have a link to support this or a url

to where you found the information ?

carlie

[broncovet]

Yes. Its called Mathematics..101.

Multiply 1,000,000 Veterans claim backlog. Times 6 feet per Veteran. (A six foot man has a span, finger tip to finger tip of 6 feet) That is 6 million feet. With 5280 feet per mile, thats 1136 miles. 6,000,000 divided by 5280 ft per mile = 1136 miles. The Distance from DC to Kansas City is about 1075 miles. No Links..Just Math.

[Pete53]

Shinseki testified before Filner that backlog was about 400,000 and that they are clearing about 92,000 a month. The problem is about 90,000 new claims in same month but he has made it a priority and I think that if you look at success on Hadit that they are starting to decide a lot of claims.

[allan]

The continued practice of Dr shopping by the VARO & BVA levels, will insure a never ending supply of backlogs no matter who is secretary.

Some vets win, how many more have had their claims remanded for the third & fourth time?

How many had their favorable C&P's totally ignored? How many just had their claims denied again?

I see no improvement in changing how corrupt the DVA is.

As long as millions are stolen by employees & vets are cheated like they are, I don't see any golden awards going to the DVA any time soon.

If this administration wants to leave an impression on it's veterans, they might try actually doing something besides talking about it.

[Berta]

I was impressed by something yesterday-sort of along these lines-

I finally had the time to watch the Michael Moore movie-"Sicko".

I know parts of this movie were criticized as to his information but when the testimony from the woman who I think was prior doctor for Humana came on -it led to the impression that bonuses were being paid to insurance co directors based on the amount of medical insurance claims they denied.This is almost the same criteria for VA bonuses- in my opinion.If the claim is denied it is considered a finished product and the EP code is taken.

Where the VA gets the idea that claims take an average of 6 months is beyond me.

Then again ,as broncovet said,they can deny in 6 months and if you appeal, it can take years.

I wonder if Moore has ever considered making a movie on the VA claims process.

[broncovet]

Pete...

Yes, I have heard that the VA only admits to 400,000 of the 1,000,000 claim backlog, that VA watchdog.org , and other organizations have posted. It is my opinion that I am more likely to beleive VA watchdog rather than the VA, because the VA has a long history of trying to cover up or minimize their problems. I also think that the VA's number does not include BVA, CAVC, AMC, DRO, or Eduction claims backlog, all of which are under Shinseki's control, and all of which amount to the same thing for the Veteran: He isnt getting paid promptly, and it isnt getting better, the VA backlog has grown by about 16% since Shinseki took office.

Regardless of whether or not you buy into the VA's attempt to minimize the problem there are far, far too many Vetrans waiting on the VA to process their claims, and that number is growing, not getting better.

At this rate of growth, it is not a question of if the VA claims backlog will reach 1,000,000 but only a question of when it will reach 1,000,000.

Fraud seems to be growing also, tho my guess is that VA does not keep records of how much money is stolen from Veterans. In just ONE incident, in one department, vawatchdog.org reported that $342 milliuon in failed IT projects was squandered. Are we supposed to beleive this is an "isolated incident" that the VA has fixed its internal fraud?

Just this project really hurts Veterans. For example, wikipedia reports there are 257,100 100% disabled Veterans. http://www.va.gov/healtheligibility/Librar...eThresholds.pdf

If this squandered $342 million were equally divided among 100% disabled Veterans as a "Cola", my math shows that they would get $1330 each. That is, theives have stolen Veterans Cola, and the VA intends to do nothing about it, except to make plans to repeat it next year also.