WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) may face a massive new backlog of 730,000 benefits claims, according to Rep. Morgan Luttrell (R-Texas) who serves as Chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs Subcommittee.
"VA estimated that claims backlogs could peak at 730,000 in 2024. This means veterans may have to wait months if not years for a decision," he said.
Luttrell continued: “I understand the VA technology may not be able to fully reduce the backlog until two years from now. However, some veterans don’t have two years to wait for this technology.”
In an email to 13News Now, VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes sought to clarify that the total number of benefits claims today is actually 829,261. The VA's website supports that number. But Hayes said the disability claims backlog number is currently 227,178.
"A claim falls into the backlog category when it exceeds 125 days," he said.
Raymond Tellez is the VA’s acting assistant deputy undersecretary for automated benefits delivery. When he asked how long it will take to catch up on the backlogged claims, he said, "I think we are expecting the backlog to grow a little bit through 2024, and then drop dramatically in ’25.”
During the testimony, Tellez and others said much of the problem stems from the large influx of new claims related to the PACT Act — a new law that expands health care and benefits for veterans exposed to toxic substances — and upon the department's ongoing switch from paper to electronic records.
They told the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittees on Disability Assistance and Technology Modernization last week that VA employees require time-consuming training to learn how to operate the new systems.
Tellez said that lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic — which led to a temporary increase in VA’s claims backlog — underscored the need for “increased digitization of relevant paper records and evidence, leveraging of data and utilizing existing medical evidence to avoid ordering unnecessary exams.”
He tried to explain: "One of the things I would highlight here is automated-decision tools and as a result of the pandemic and our inability..."
But Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Montana) interrupted.
"I'm tired of hearing about the pandemic," Rosendale said. "I'll be honest with you, I've got one veteran that can't get their benefits right now because they're being required to use mask mandates at our veterans' facility. So, we don't even want to go down that trail."
Rosendale complained that the automation employed by the department today "is closer to the state-of-the-art 1990s, rather than 2023."
David Bump, the national representative for the National Veterans Affairs Council and a vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2157 in Portland, Oregon, said the AFGE was “concerned about the negative effect on veterans of replacing human processors with technology."