VA Backlog Taking Care of Our Wounded

By Tim Newton

Since the beginning of the War on Terror, we have had a higher rate of returning vets who have a high amount of disability. The Department of Veterans Affairs(VA) is responsible for both providing care to returning disabled veterans as well as determining their status.  As you may be aware because of this increased number this has also meant there has been an increased demand for nursing home beds, injury rehabilitation, and mental health care. The VA categorizes veterans into eight priority groups and several additional subgroups, based on factors such as service-connected disabilities, and the individuals income and assets .

Veterans with a fifty percent or higher service-connected disability as determined by a VA regional office board are provided comprehensive care and medication at no charge. Veterans with lesser qualifying disabilities who exceed a pre-defined income threshold have to make co-payments for care.

The VA’s budget has been increasingly stretched to the limit in recent years by the War on Terrorism. In December 2004, it was widely reported that VA’s funding crisis had become so severe that it could no longer provide disability ratings to veterans in a timely fashion. This has become a problem because until veterans are fully transitioned from the active-duty TRICARE healthcare system to the VA, they are on their own with regard to many of their healthcare costs.

The VA has worked to cut down screening times for these returning combat vets, and they receive first priority for patient appointments with the VA. VA’s backlog of pending disability claims under review peaked in march of 2013 at 600,000 is currently up to 560,000.

The VA seems to increasingly believe that the backlog can be fixed by automation, but the concern continues that if claims increase, people will continue to fall through the cracks. 

"You should not have to stand in line for more than a year if you have a disability (claim) pending with the Veterans Administration," Mikulski told reporters this week.

“Over the past five years, I’ve consistently asked them, what do you need. What do you need? Do you need more individuals, resources, bodies — what is it going to take to fix this backlog?” Sen. Dean Heller said in a Senate hearing last week. “And they’ve consistently told me, we’re going to solve this without additional resources.”

 We need to take care of our veterans and we owe them the duty to take care of those who have made sacrifices to protect our liberty. Hopefully the changes due to automation will be able to help in this backlog and our veterans will get the help they deserve.