U.S. Military (Ret.): VA battling stubborn claims backlog - Military Retirement - Navy Times

U.S. Military (Ret.): VA battling stubborn claims backlog

If Congress approves the White House’s 2011 budget request for the Veterans Affairs Department, VA may finally start to get its arms around the backlogged disability claims process — which generates by far the most reader mail I receive.

If the budget request is approved, the administration will pump $460 million toward the program, including hiring 4,000 new claims processors. Many reviews of the claims system have noted that VA has lacked adequate staff to work these claims, even as the number of claims has doubled in the past decade, from 500,000 in 2000 to slightly more than 1 million last year.

A large part of that increase, of course, comes from the stream of combat-injured veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which continues unabated.

But VA has added to the claims backlog itself by doing a very good thing for Vietnam-era veterans: expanding the number of Agent Orange-related illnesses that are presumed connected to service, and thus automatically qualify eligible veterans for disability benefits.

The 2011 VA budget would do other good things for veterans. It includes $250 million to strengthen access to health care for 3.2 million veterans who live in rural areas; $6.8 billion for long-term care, a 14 percent increase over 2010; $590 million for medical and prosthetic research; and continuing development of a “virtual lifetime electronic record,” a digital health record that will accompany retirees throughout their lives.

Progress has been slow on that last initiative, a collaboration between VA and the Defense Department, but the ultimate goal is to have a copy of your medical file in the VA system the day you leave active duty.

Personnel records

The National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, the permanent repository for all military personnel records, has a website to help retirees request copies of their DD 214 discharge certificates and other personnel records, at http://vetrecs.archives.gov.

NPRC officials say this online system will cut the waiting time that retirees have had to endure in the past. The website guides you through a step-by-step process for filling out a standardized request form that includes all the information NPRC needs to fulfill your request.

You then download and print out the form, sign it, and mail or fax it to NPRC. All contact information is provided on the website. Ë

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Retired Command Master Chief Alex Keenan served 28 years in the Coast Guard. E-mail him at retired@atpco.com.