How The Va Can Make Up At Least A Half Billion Shortfall.

[broncovet]

Its pretty easy. According to the US Supreme Court, the VA takes a position that is "substantially unjustified" against the Veteran about 70 percent of the time. Further, they say it costs VA about $2000 in EAJA fees by doing so.

The Board has a workload of 125,306 claims. (This does not include DRO, or CAVC), according to the 2014 chairmans report:

http://www.bva.va.gov/docs/Chairmans_Annual_Rpts/BVA2013AR.pdf

Of the 41,910 claims the Board processed in 2013, just 10,143 (24.2%) were denied. This means that 75.8% of the claims had some type of error which required a remand or an outright grant of benefits. Of those denied, a portion of those will be overturned at the CAVC level or Federal Circuit. (This includes about 2% of the claims for "other" reasons, that is, the claim was neither denied, awarded or remanded. One possible reason for the "other" is that the Veteran died.

This means that the VA spends about 250 million per year on EAJA fees, plus another 250 million on thier own attorneys. Remember, VA pays both attorneys with EAJA fees, their attorney plus the Vets attorney when awarded EAJA fees.

[pwrslm]

They could actually establish a non adversarial VBA office and represent the VBA at local VHA facilities. If they had rating officials at VHA locations, there could be a much more effective system in place to process benefit claims. This should make them more effective, as they would be able to sit down, face to face with a disabled veteran, and insure the accuracy and completeness of the claim on the spot. If any medical diagnosis were in question, the VHA at that location could resolve the issue and allow the claim to effectively be processed and prevent appeals, which are granted over 75% of the time.

This would save the VA lots of money.

edit; You gotta figure that under the current system, employee's who do this job and make mistakes 75+% of the jobs that they do would not be tolerated in any other job...if I were a mechanic and 75% of my work came back because I didn't do it right, I would not be a mechanic with a job for long! Change might hurt, but the current system that denies benefits to those who earned them is far worse.

Edited July 28, 2015 by pwrslm

[john999]

The VA wants to perpetuate the current system because they want to keep their jobs regardless if it hurts their clients. USA has always treated their vets badly when the war is over. It is a national tradition. WWI vets lost their pensions during the Great Depression. Revolutionary soldiers did not even get paid. Civil war vets like my ancestors got $60 a month when they were determined to be Indigent.