2011 May Bring Longer VA Claims Delays

This month, the White House released its 2011 Department of Veterans Affairs budget, which included an unprecedented 27% increase in funding for the Veterans Benefit Administration. Some of that funding will go to hire an estimated 4,000 permanent employees who will process benefit claims. This, however, does not mean that claims for disability, pension and survivors will be processed any faster. 

It came as no surprise when the VA’s Acting Undersecretary, Michael Walcoff, announced that the wait time for processing claims in 2011 might actually be longer than current delays. While the VA will hire additional representatives to assist with the claims processing, they are expecting an increase in the number of Agent Orange related claims, since new eligibility requirements were introduced. 

Currently claims are generally processed in about 158 days. This is expected to rise to about 190 days in 2011.  Longer delays may only occur in the beginning of the year as the new employees are trained, and claims may be backed up during this process. 

It is expected that 1.3 million claims will be received in 2011. This is a potential 30% jump and will greatly affect the VA’s efforts to achieve its goal of processing claims in 125 days. Eric Shinseki, VA Secretary, announced that improvements to the technology used to process claims faster, such as paperless processing, may be established by then, but that no complete solution was available. 

As part of the 27% increase proposed for 2011, an estimated 8.5% will go towards medical funding. 

The proposed budget will also include funds for an additional 5,715 permanent VA employees, a 2% increase over the current workforce. This would result in about 4,000 claims processors and around 1,300 medical care workers. 

This does not mean that the increase in employees will be new positions. Currently there are roughly 1,800 temporary employees whose positions would become permanent. In addition, the VA is expecting a large increase in patients in 2011 and 2012 as more Veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will be seeking treatment.  Currently about 382,500 recent combat vets use the VA’s services. 

Source: Army Times 

The National Veterans Foundation assists Veterans in accessing their medical and disability benefits.  For assistance in applying for VA benefits, call the Lifeline for Vets™ at 888-777-4443.   Visit the NVF’s website at www.nvf.org. To support the National Veterans Foundation, please visit www.help-veterans.org.