IG Lambastes Languishing VA Claims Process

The Veterans Benefits Administration is doing an inadequate job of process pending claims, according to a report by the inspector general at the Department of Veterans Affairs. In April, the VBA began an initiative to process any claims that had been pending for more than two years. According to the IG report, which was released July 14, the initiative “was less effective than VBA’s existing rating process in providing benefits to veterans quickly.” The IG report also stated that the VBA removed all provisional claims from its pending inventory even if they required more work to complete. As a result, the agency misrepresented its actual pending-claims workload. When the initiative to accelerate claims processing ended in June 2013, the agency reported 516,922 pending ratings claims, with only 1,258 pending more than two years. The VBA figure contrasts with the 7,823 provisionally rated incomplete claims that the IG determined were removed from the inventory. “Because VBA did not ensure existing controls were functioning as needed to effectively identify and manage provisionally rated claims, some veterans may never have received final ratings decisions if not for our review,” the IG report stated. It also cited pressure headquarters placed upon regional offices to comply with the initiative’s goals. The report called for establishing controls for all provisionally rated claims and an accurate reflection of how much work is being accomplished on the behalf of veterans with pending claims.