Va Press Release On Claims Today

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Office of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs

VA to Expedite Claims Decisions for Veterans Who Have Waited a Year or More

April 19, 2013

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WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs announced today it is implementing an initiative to expedite compensation claims decisions for Veterans who have waited one year or longer. Effective today, VA claims raters will make provisional decisions on the oldest claims in inventory, which will allow Veterans to begin collecting compensation benefits more quickly, if eligible. Veterans will be able to submit additional evidence for consideration a full year after the provisional rating, before VA issues a final decision.

“Too many Veterans wait too long for a decision, and this has never been acceptable,” said VA Secretary Eric Shinseki. “That is why we are implementing an aggressive plan to eliminate the backlog in 2015. This initiative is the right thing to do now for Veterans who have waited the longest.”

Provisional decisions will be based on all evidence provided to date by the Veteran or obtained on their behalf by VA. If a VA medical examination is needed to decide the claim, it will be ordered and expedited.

“Issuing provisional decisions not only provides Veterans with applicable benefits much more quickly, but also gives them an additional one-year safety net to submit further evidence should it become available. Our door will remain open and if a Veteran has additional evidence, their case will be fast tracked,” said Allison Hickey, Undersecretary for Benefits.

If any increase is determined to be warranted based on the additional evidence received, benefits will be retroactive to the date the claim was initially filed. The initiative protects the Veteran’s right to appeal the decision. If no further evidence is received within that year, VBA will inform the Veteran that their rating is final and provide information on the standard appeals process, which can be found at http://www.bva.va.gov/

Throughout this initiative, VA will continue to prioritize claims for homeless Veterans and those claiming financial hardship, the terminally ill, former Prisoners of War, Medal of Honor recipients, and Veterans filing Fully Developed Claims. More information about filing Fully Developed Claims is available at: http://www.benefits.va.gov/transformation/fastclaims/

Claims for Wounded Warriors separating from the military for medical reasons will continue to be handled separately and on a priority basis with the Department of Defense through the Integrated Disability Evaluation System (IDES). Wounded Warriors separating through IDES currently receive VA compensation benefits in an average of 61 days following their separation from service.

As a result of this initiative, metrics used to track benefits claims will experience significant fluctuations. The focus on processing the oldest claims will cause the overall measure of the average length of time to complete a claim - currently 286 days - to skew, rising significantly in the near term because of the number of old claims that will be completed. Over time, as the backlog of oldest claims is cleared and more of the incoming claims are processed electronically through VA’s new paperless processing system, VA’s average time to complete claims will significantly improve. In addition, the average days pending metric - or the average age of a claim in the inventory - will decrease, since the oldest claims will no longer be part of the inventory.

While compensation claims are pending, eligible Veterans are able to receive healthcare and other benefits from VA. Veterans who have served in recent conflicts are eligible for 5 years of free healthcare from VA. Currently, over 55% of returning Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans are using VA health care, a rate of utilization greater than previous generations of Veterans.

Veterans can learn more about disability benefits on the joint Department of Defense—VA web portal eBenefits at: https://www.ebenefits.va.gov/ebenefits-portal/ebenefits.portal.

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[ketchup56]

Nothing but more BS from the vba. This does nothing but help eliminate old claims backlog to CREATE a bigger backlog of APPEALS at the regional, and bva level of appeals. If you currently have a nod from a previous denial that's waiting for review by dro process, you are shit out of luck, as far as any adjudication anytime soon. This was already done within the last few years, in where all appeals at the regional level were put on the backburner to complete or eliminate the agent orange cases backlog. (at least at the oakland office it did). What i see coming is still quicker BAD denial's, and a longer backlog of appeals just so to make vba's CLAIMS numbers look better to congress.. Read this initiative closely it mentions not a damn thing about existing APPEALS inventory. There is also a backlog at the bva which never get's addressed in these hearings,meeting's etc..... Rob peter just to pay paul.....JMHO

[indyman]

Since mine is a TDIU claim, I presume its a regular claim too? I'm quickly closing in on 300 day wait time; I think I will be sent to the end of the line.

[broncovet]

Yep. Is it an "original" claim? "Original" Increase? "Original" dependents? Count on the VA to convolute this and make it so that it wont apply to most of us. They are famous for making things far, far far more complicated than necessary. In a dictionary under "red tape", they should have the seal of the department of Veterans Affairs.

[carlie]

Anytime after even just one issue has been granted as SC'd even if

only at zero percent . . .

ALL CLAIMS afterwards -

ARE

a claim for increase.

[meghp0405]

I, like many of you am very weary of this new "lip service". Shinseki just pisses me off! I just wish he would go away. Every 2 weeks he is coming out with a "new idea" to rid the backlog, we all know better than that.

I was thinking about a scenario with this "provisional rating" What if, just what if, a provisional rating was issued, after a few more years of collecting dust, this claim finds its way to a rater. This rater denies the claim. Now, this veteran with a provisional rating, will he/she have to pay back all monies. This could be bad for everybody!

I have spoke previously about the issue with the dependency and retro pay. In most VARO's the individuals working these claims were either promoted out of the job, moved or have been reassigned to work on the backlog of claims. These claims are now being handled as an additional duty. We all know what additional duties are. I simply agree, this is plain BS! it really doesn't take a lot of effort adjudicating dependency claims. In most cases DFAS computes the pay, then returns the claim to va with a set of orders authorizing the release of monies. Still, when VA receives this information, the veteran waits for his/her back pay. The longest I have seen a veteran wait on back pay is 24 MONTHS! Again, total BS. I helped this veteran with a congressional, to no avail, the VA told the congressman, the same they told him on the phone.

I have said this before and I will say it again, It is my opinion that the VA desperately needs new leadership, and until that happens we will still be in this pond water, moving no where.....

[LIL-ROB]

Hogwash just deny it and past it off to the next man.....