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Critics Call Attention to Growing Backlog of Veterans’ Disability Claims

Whether or not the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is making progress on eliminating their disability claims backlog depends on who you ask. The VA says that  progress has been made, new staff have been hired, and automating the system is going to make the entire process smooth and quick.

Some members of Congress, along with several veterans, however, are not impressed. Instead, they point to the fact that twice as many disability claims are taking over 4 months to complete.

Critics say the VA had plenty of time to prepare for the influx of claims they have seen in recent months. According to Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash), the entire VA disability compensation claims system is "broken." Last year the VA's backlog of claims contained 200,000 claims requiring more than 125 days to process. The current number of such claims is 450,000. The end result, of course, is more veterans waiting longer for their claims to be processed.

According to the VA, more Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are making higher numbers of complex claims, which is part of the reason for the delays. Further, the VA's decision to increase the amount of illnesses qualifying for compensation under Agent Orange-related illnesses slowed processing. Finally, the VA stated more claims are being made due to the poor economy, a fact which has slowed an already lengthy process.

Some veterans groups are having trouble accepting those reasons, saying that since the VA decided to expand Agent Orange coverage, they knew the increase in claims would occur. The VA takes about 6 months to process a single compensation claim; next year that number should climb to 8 months.

The overall number of claims awaiting determination was 448,000 last year at this time. The current number is 765,000 and is only expected to climb. Although the VA added 3,000 processors last year, they claim the process is more "labor-intensive than expected."