New Va Scandal: Cbs News Finds Thousands Of Vets' Benefit Claims Discarded

[pacmanx1]

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/new-va-scandal-cbs-news-finds-thousands-of-vets-benefit-claims-discarded/

[ketchup56]

Good ole oakland regional office got caught again. Gotta love it. ....Btw my earlier pending claim from 1983 was from this varo and is currently at compensation service central office on review from a email I sent to Allison Hickey. The dro stated that I should have an answer on this appeal for early effective date of service connection by the end of next week. ..We shall see. ....

[Berta]

In the link I posted the other day here in VA Scandals forum here , it says 14,000 claims:

"Investigation: Oakland VA office lost thousands of veteran claims
By Doug Oakley doakley@bayareanewsgroup.com
Posted: 02/20/2015 06:41:28 AM PST0 Comments | Updated: 6 days ago

(In part)

"OAKLAND -- The Oakland office of Veterans Affairs improperly filed and then lost about 14,000 unprocessed veterans benefit claims, some dating back to the 1990s, according to a federal government investigation released Wednesday.

No one will ever know the fate of those 14,000 informal applications for benefits found in a filing cabinet in 2012 because after they were discovered by a VA management support team, they disappeared, according to a report by the federal Office of Inspector General, which investigated problems at the office last summer. "

http://www.insidebayarea.com/breaking-news/ci_27561325/investigation-oakland-va-office-lost-thousands-veteran-claims

What I don't get is where were the 14 thousand claimants? Didnt they try to get statuses of their claims? and how about their thousands of vet reps?

At least when VA lost my AO IHD 2010 claim and my 2012 1151 claim for a while, they ultimately found those claims, because I aggressively complained via IRIS.

Then again we have been mantraed to death by VA ,saying to be patient....lulled into thinking the backlog has caused claims processing 'delays.'

When the reality is ALL of the VA filing cabinets need to be searched.And any vet or survivor who never got any adjudication at Oakland should come forward.

The 'disappearance' of the claims they Did find, is as bad as finding them hidden in a file cabinet.

I got my "We have received your claim for benefits" blah blah letter last week, My claims were filed over 2 years ago. I guess 14 thousand claimants never even got a letter like that.

But nevertheless I had my proof of their receipt of those claims from USPS on line and every 4 months or so,. i got a status on them, via 800 or IRIS even if it was ass backwards. Because at least they found the claims at some point and verified they had them.

Then they even said I had 2 more pending but that was wrong and they fixed that recently.

PS..I am a little suspicious of this story....I don't doubt that claims were stuffed into a filing cabinet.I even bet that might be the case in many ROs, ..but 14,000 ?????

If 14,000 people got a fish sandwich at Mc Donalds, but had really ordered a Big Mac, wouldnt they have raised some collective Hell by now?

And where were the vet reps.....I am sure many of these claimants had someone on their POA.

(maybe their reps were stuffing their file cabinets with claims too)

Vet Orgs justify their existence with the amount of claims they file.If any of these 14 thousand had filed their claims via a vet rep on their POA, the rep should have a copy of the claim in their POA file.,unless they have a policy to destroy POA files that have been inactive for a long time.

There is more to all this than we know.

.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Berta

[Berta]

Forgot to add , here is the Feb 15th 2015 OIG report:

http://cdn5.freedomoutpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Oakland-VARO-report.pdf

[Notorious Kelly]

So what good is the OIG?

[marine0816]

The appeals backlog should start getting some light.

[Buck52]

I think most of the ''VSO'' or people at the RO or doing it hiding the claims, or doing what they are ordered to do? no tellin.

but someone is doing it claims don't just get lost on there own, someone has to be misplacing the claims,

what I don't understand is how can the VA make a HUGE MISTAKE sending Veteran a letter that's been decease over 7 or so years ago. a letter that states ''if you disagree with our decision''? wow that is a very bad & Huge mistake.

They should award his widow automatic DIC

this particular widow said she would be ''happy with just 400.00 a month''

Buck!